is this too many fish?

[lynxie]

i'm still trying to get my fish list together (so i know what order to purchase them in, so that i'm from least to most aggressive as suggested), and am not sure what is a good amount of fish for my tank.... would the following be too much for my 90?

1 ocellaris clown
1 tang (not sure of spp yet - suggestions for hardy and not too big for my tank?)
1 coral beauty
1 mandarin
a few blue-green chromis (3? 4? enough that they feel like a "school" to each other, and to those looking at them)
1 firefish
1 gramma (or false gramma)
1 goby or blenny (not sure of spp yet)

any of these not good together, or in a mixed reef? if the above is too many fish (it's a fairly larg# i think, but most are smaller fish), what do you suggest i cross off the list?

also - at what rate should they be introduced to the new tank? 1 addition a week provided water tests are all ok before? 1 addition a month? or?


(sorry for all the questions i keep posting, i just want to make sure i do this as correctly as possible)

[Hendersonracing]

I recommend a purple tang very hardy! and Im probably not the right person to ask about the right amount of fish for your 90! I have a 4 tangs and 8 Occelaris and a bunch more in my 75!

[scoop]

10 or so fish in a 90 seems like too much, even though they may be small. It's better to err on the side of caution, particularly when you are getting started. Yo need to wait on the mandarin for about 1 yr to build up enough pods to keep it alive. For a tang in a 90 gl I would recommend a smaller one, like a Kole or a Tomini, that won't quickly outgrow that tank.

[lynxie]

hubby and i prefer tangs with brighter colouring - we might end up with just a yellow tang (small, hardy, bright)... we like the purple (yellow sailfin) and regals a lot too... regals should be ok in a 90 i think? but is a 90 too small for a purple (some things i read say it'd be fine, others suggest a min 100g tank for an adult purple)?

[Hendersonracing]

I have a purple in my 75(2 years) and he is doing great!

[Loverotties]

Originally Posted by scoop

10 or so fish in a 90 seems like too much, even though they may be small. It's better to err on the side of caution, particularly when you are getting started. Yo need to wait on the mandarin for about 1 yr to build up enough pods to keep it alive. For a tang in a 90 gl I would recommend a smaller one, like a Kole or a Tomini, that won't quickly outgrow that tank.

I agree with this!

[bcrum51]

I know a lady that comes into the LFS i work for and she has a 57g tank with 10 fish or more most are tangs and some other stuff I try to tell her to stop but she doesn't listen so she is constently bringing fish back because of "aggression" issues I try telling her they're cramped but she wants a fish to replace the aggressive one and thinks it will cure the problem

I guess what I'm saying is don't overstock your tank its bad

[marcj]

I would say that's too busy to assure the fish will be comfy. how comfortable could you get with 10 people in your living room while you're trying to relax?

[three90s&125sump]

You can't really just count fish and say yes or no, you have to look at where the fish will reside in terms of real estate available, types of food required for the fish, directed aggression of the fish, size of the fish (not in inches but in biomass), filtration and how much maintenance the aquarist is willing to perform. I'm sure there are more variants involved.

I would say you would be safe with (introduced in this order every 3 weeks) a pair of small species shrimp gobies (and a pistol shrimp), a royal gramma,a midas blenny, 2 ocellerus clowns (purchased small and introduced simultainiously), a coral beauty, purple tang and (only if you have a refugium specifically built to grow pods that has been growing pods for a year) a mandarin. In order to keep the clowns from eatting to many pods you will have to spot feed them.

You have have 3 swimmers (purple tang, royal gramma and coral beauty), 1 set of bottom dwellers (shrimp gobies), 1 set of hosters (clowns), 1 hole fish (midas blenny) and a rock purcher (mandarin).

After you have stocked your system accordingly you can re-assess the above mentioed variables and re-evaluate your desires and your willingness to maintain the system to see if it would be possible to add more fish.

I would bet that you could do another bottom dweller, rock purcher and hole fish with out having aggression issues.


I left out the chromis due to them having a larger biomass than it looks like (they eat a lot) and the fire fish because the system will be so busy that it would most likely die from stress or jump out of the tank.

[lynxie]

thanks

we only want 1 clown (since hubby found out about gender changes and male getting bullied) and (s)he was the first fish we bought based on advise from here and lfs (cheap, hardy), but i'll try to keep to your order-suggestions for the rest.

i know mandarins are tough to keep, and already knew it'd be a very long time until i'd be ready for one of them (but want to keep room in the tank to be able to eventually get one), since they and nudibranchs are what gave me the salt-bug years and years ago, and i know that almost all nudis are impossible to keep alive because they are each an obligate feeder of a specific item (usually a different single spp of algae each).

[Jadinop]

The "bullying" between clowns is short lived and not harmful to the male. Your clown is going to change sex into a female anyway if housed singly, there is no stopping this. The interaction between a pair of clowns makes them much more interesting and they will be happier. In the wild, they live in pairs or small groups depending on the size of the host anemone.

My other suggestion would be skip the chromis. Schooling is a survival reaction to a predator and without a large predator in the tank, your chromis won't school often. They also tend to knock each other off one by one and you may end up with only one left.

[raskal311]

Pods explosion generally peeks at around 3 months then starts to die off to a sustainable number, I personally don’t think you need to wait a year to get a mandarin. As far as if this is too many fish I always tell people it depends on how much water change you are willing to do. With what you have listed I would say 10% every two weeks is fine, they are all small. Shoot I say you can even go more if you like but that’s me, I’ve only setup and maintained a few dozen tanks The quality of your skimmer, amount of rocks (hiding space) are a few other factors to consider.

[lynxie]

is there another spp of hardy clown that will be a similar adult size to my ocellaris, that would be compatible with each other? i don't think i'd be able to tell 2 ocelarris' apart, and i KNOW hubby wouldn't be able to (and he'd want to be able to tell which one was our "first fish").

[three90s&125sump]

Its easy to tell them apart. I don't think it would be a good idea to put 2 different clowns in a tank that is short than 6 feet long.