Fish size to gallon of tank.. How many can i fit?

[SabrinaJean]

I have a 27G nano tank. DOes anyone know how many fish can fit in my tank? I also have 1 large rose tip, a swimming anemone, 2 baby bubbles anemone and some GSP and Cave star polyps. How many fish can i get? Is it 1inch of fish to 4G or 5G? WBBB

[D to the P]

It greatly depends on the type of fish you want. Some people say an inch for every 2 gallons in which case you would have to account for the full size of the fish when its fully grown, but because you are stocking your tank with many invertebrates that will be sensitive to organic waste such as nitrate, I wouldn't put more than 3 3-4 inch community fish. For instance you could have a shrimp goby, a sixline wrasse, and a royal gramma. Or a bicolor blenny, a sunset dottyback, and falcos hawkfish. Any combination of mild tempered small fish would work, I just wouldn't put more than 3 or 4 depending on their full size.

[papagimp]

ignore the fish length per gallon rules, not the best way to judge. base it on a "per fish" basis. As "D" mentioned, really depends on the fish. For that small of a tank, I'd say 2-4 maximum, and keep em small, 2-4"ers. Also keep in mind the size that those anemones will get, especially when cnsidering other invert tankmate (corals and whatnot).

[airinhere]

Wow!

You need to slow way down.

27 gal nano is a very small tank with very limited sorts of stuff you should keep in there.

GSP is a great starter coral and should do just fine.
Cave star polyps is a made up name. No idea what that might be.
Swimming Anemone refers to a coccinea species that lives in temperate (55-65F) water. (This will die form overheating in a tropical reef tank).
The baby bubbles and the rose tip are both among the easier to keep anemones, but any anemone is very hard to keep alive. (expect them to all die when the swimming anemone dies)

I fear that the person selling you this tank setup might have realized the impossibility of this setup and decided to get out before the tank crashed. There is almost no way it has been set up for very long.

Lets start off by focusing on making sure your tank is suitably set up and can support life for extended periods of time. Then we can make sure all of the existing stuff in your tank will be able to survive. Last we can look at what to add to your tank.

if you could please answer the folloowing.....
what sort of filtration is set up for your tank?
what sort of lighting dos your tank have?
what are your water parameters? (ammonia,nitrite,nitrate,phosphate,calcium,dKH,pH,salinity)
Are you using RO/DI water or tap water?
How long has your tank been set up?

You might seriously consider selling your anemones to an LFS. The alternative is that you will likely end up watching them die (Pretty much ruining your tank).

If you do not already have one, go find a good reef aquarium book. Just about any hardcover at your local LFS should be fine.

[D to the P]

Yeah I was wondering about the swimming anemone and cave polyps. I've never heard of them, I guess because the swimming anemone is not something people normally keep in the hobby, it just sounded like trouble though haha. Maybe the cave polyps are a type of non photosynthetic coral like sun polyps or the like. Damn craig's list. Sabrina, I would recommend the Consciencious Marine Aquarist if you are looking for a good book.

[airinhere]

I am expecting the cave polyps to be a NPS. Just about zero chance of it lasting very long.

I had to reference the swimming anemone. I can attest to how cold they like the water. I dove the channel islands and got some sweet pics of some a little while ago. Water was 54F!!!!!!
here is a link to the pics..http://www.airinheresreef.com/Channel%20Islands%20Feb%2008.html

the Consciencious Marine Aquarist is probably the best book out there for reefkeeping.

SabrinaJean, you can check out my website at www.AirInHeresReef.com and see my current tanks if you like.

[95accord]

1inch for every 5 gals is the rule i go by....roughly

[papagimp]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12237164#post12237164 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by airinhere

GSP is a great starter coral and should do just fine.
Cave star polyps is a made up name. No idea what that might be.


So is GSP :D, all common names are just "made up" to make life easier on us hobbyist. but I agree, never heard of a "cave star polyp" before. sounds kinda non-photosynthetic though doesn't it, which would make for a more difficult species to keep alive.

Sabrina, I hadn't noticed the Hobby experience you listed, you just started that tank so definatly do what airinhere mentioned and SLOW DOWN!!!, alot of problems that arise in this hobby can be avoided completey with nothing more than a little patience on our parts.

[MeadowSky]

Consciencious Marine Aquarist- great book I just finished reading it cover to cover. Lots of great info on just about everything. I paid 40$ for my copy but it is well worth it

[Norward]

Sabrina, do an internet search for "Fish Stocking Guide For Nano Reefs" for a rough guide to stocking a tank the size of yours. It really does depend on the type of fish you put in there and the types of filtration that you rely upon. BTW, "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist" is my favorite beginner book: $26.37 from Amazon with free ship!

[D to the P]

yeah $40 is steap. I think we sell it for about 24 at my LFS. That swimming anemone was really cool airinhere...no pun intended.

[SabrinaJean]

Here are some pictures of what I have in my tank... but without those fish in the picture


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[kau_cinta_ku]

tank looks great but you will have problems with 2 diff. clowns and a damsel in that tank. i suggest getting rid of the yellow tailed damsel and the clarki clown and getting another smaller percula clown. also a watchman goby would be a good addition and a dottyback

[kzooreefer]

cave polyps I would suspect are sun corals (sun polyps) which are found on the roof of cave openings. they are a very low light coral and need to placed inside a cave or shaded from the light for best results. the polyps are yellow and usually only come out at night and need to be fed as they don't have symbiotic algae.

a 29 gallon can normally hold about five 4" fish, that is if its is a tank alone and no live rock and coral. i keep three 3-4 inch fish in mine, a yellow tail damsel, a clown and a lawn mower blenny, thats about all it can handle.

[D to the P]

Didn't see anything that would be a cave polyp (as far as sun polyps go), but it did look like you have Clove polyps. And that is one big RBTA!

[airinhere]

Sweet looking Rose bubble anems! Cave polyp is probably your clove polyps. (Nice ones too btw).

Sidenote:Sun corals are completely unconcerned about lighting. They open up to feed based on sensing food in the water. Light has nothing to do with it. In fact the only impact light has on NPS corals is that it can cause algae to overgrow the corals.

You need to use the territoriality and personal space required by your fish to determine how many you could add. There is no formula that is reasonable to use. And you sure do not want to put five fish in that tank that are four inches long. (You dont want to put any four inch long fish in there).

You need to start reading about the behavior and aggressivness of the different species of fish.

I would NOT recommend: Damsels, Grammas, sandsifting gobies, most wrasses, angels, dwarf angels, TANGS, anthias, butterflies, crabs, starfish or anemones.

I WOULD recommend a mated pair of clownfish (they do NOT need anemones to be happy), coral gobies, neon gobies, flasher wrasses, fairy wrasses, firefish, cardinals and softy/LPS corals

[D to the P]

aww clownfish are sooo unimaginative! Everyone has them! haha. But yea, they are really easy to take care of and so they make really good fish for beginners. I just get bored with them because it seems like everybody has atleast one clownfish.

[airinhere]

But clownfish are the most iconic saltwater fish we can keep in our tanks. And they are full of personality, and they are easy to care for and they pair up sexually, and they can mate in captivity and the babies can be raised in captivity!

I have False Percula clown and saddleback clown pairs in my 90 gal tanks, a pair of Tomatoe clowns in my bubble reef and a lone misbar maroon clown in my actinic nano. I love them all.

My other personal favorite salty fish is the pajama cardinal. Wholly underappreciated in the hobby. I have 12 in my vietnamese tank and three in my bubble reef. They school, are oblivious to agressive tankmates and just look cool.

I am also looking seriously at Assesors. They come in lots of cool colors, are social fish and can be kept in groups! I am still researching about them, but they are high on my personal list of likely fish for my tanks.

[D to the P]

I LOVE pajama cardinals. A pj was one of my first fish. I've never kept/wanted to keep clowns although I did have a maroon clownfish for a little because a customer brought him in where I work and I wanted to try him out. Assesors have always interested me to, but I hear they like to hide a lot. I've also heard that they'll hang upside down in caves and under ledges, and that would be cool to see. I think I'm so anti clownfish because I work at a LFS and there isnt a day that goes by when I don't hear "There's Nemo Mommy!" (points to any orange fish). After about 3 years of that I think anyone would swear off of clownfish haha.

[airinhere]

Yeah, I worked for a year at a LFS and heard lots of Nemo remarks.

And I got bit by half the clownfish we ever got in the store! (My Tomatoes bite me all the time). I kinda think its funny when they bite me. (Even when they draw blood).

Sabrina, the best thing you can do is just research and read as much as you can about the different fish. Eventually, one will grab your interest and then you will know which one to add to your tank.

I have been cycling my tanks for over a year now and am just finally starting to stock my tanks with the more delicate corals and tunicates I really desire to keep. As I find new corals and fish I like, I slowly add them to my tanks.

Never get in a hurry.

Reefing is the journey, not the destination.

[SabrinaJean]

Humm.. nice quote,
SO last night I wrote 3 paragraphs on everything to find out that RC was under maintained once I finally sent it. Here is what I have in a nutshell. Let me know what u know, we can try this again

FIsh
1 Sandswifter starfish StaRfish
1 Cleaner shrimp
1 Yellow with 2 black line through it Chromes (Behr's or something)
1 Brown Clown goby
1 Blue and Yellow tailed Damsel, 1 Gold Damsel ... that I am going to be taking out ASAP and selling to the LFS BECAUSE, .... I have 2 Green Clown Gobies ( the fish guy gave me an extra one) and 2 Pink Skunks waiting in my QT for 3 more weeks.

Coral ECT.
1 large Rose tip
1 Haitian anemone ( He looks like a swimming one but I’m not sure)
2 Leather Corals the Cabbage bulbs ones
1 Pavona green coral
1 rock with 10 Mushrooms the size of silver dollars
1 rock with a colony of pink Zooanthoids
2 baby bubbles the size of the tip of my pinky finger
1 rock of Cove Polyp
1 rock of GSP
1 feather duster, not including the 20 lil All-nat-ural ones :) on "Duster Island"
and .... 2 baby pink\white Anemones that I got from SF, ca. I got wiped out by a wave and almost died getting them too.

Tank
27g sand included, live rock included when I got it fully stocked already cycled
Coralife lighting, 2 double bar bulbs; one 65W Actinic, one 65W 10,000K white light?
a stump that sucks 7.5W on the left ... then the water goes through sponges and acrylic beads then drops and spits out on the right
1 Rio something powerhead, the sticker is sorta faded and it's lil
1 Maxijet 900Power head

I use nonchlorinated water from the grocery store with Instant salt after its safe deoxinating and heated

as of 3\27 my test kits read...

PH- 8.3
Ammonia-0PPM
Nitrate-20
Phosphate-0.5
Nitrite-0ppm
and on 3\17 Calcium was 540, so I stopped adding Calcium BIonic Buffer
and I add Kent Marines Essentials Elements 1-2x every 2 weeks
Carbon my Nylon
small water changes every week or two weeks max

So tell me everything other than " it's going to crash"

[kau_cinta_ku]

tank looks great however you have 2 clowns in the pics why are they not listed? the only fish i see in your pics that you mentiond was the yellow tailed damsel.

the starfish will need to be spot fed to help it survive or it will starve to death.

i would stop adding the kent elements, all the elements you will need will come in with the salt.

phosphates are actually very high i would try to run a phosphate remover.

nitrates are a little high but not real bad.

3 diff. types of anemones in a small tank may create problems later but look great now :D

other than a few little changes i say keep up the great work.

ps. do you have an alk. and mag test kit? having high cal. will prob. mean you have low alk.

[SabrinaJean]

Yeah i got rid of 2 of the fishes that came with the tank. I felt they were to big for me that is why I am going for little and nice. DO u still think my Skunks will b ok and that I should add a third Clown goby, for a total of 3?
And spot feeding, do u mean feed him once a week in the same place on the sand?
and no I don't have those test kits. I should check the Cal. again.... it just took 4ever to add a drop and wait, and add then wait, it took 27 drops =27 mins later

[kau_cinta_ku]

i would stick to 2 clown goby's. as for feeding the starfish just get a piece of silverside or raw shrimp and put it by his legs and he will get it. 1-2 times a week should be fine.

the skunks will be fine with the rest of the fish if you remove the damsels.

[SabrinaJean]

Hum.. and this is a picture of the anemone I found at the beach in San Francisco, ca. Does anyone know about them? Also what do you think about my lighting and water movement?

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e388/DjRin/DSC02873.jpg

[camlov2]

If you got the anemone from the ocean near SF it will most likely die. The difference in water temp will probably be too much stress. I would watch it carefully so that if it starts to die you can remove it to limit the pollution to your tank.

[yoboyjdizz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12251381#post12251381 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SabrinaJean
Humm.. nice quote,
SO last night I wrote 3 paragraphs on everything to find out that RC was under maintained once I finally sent it. Here is what I have in a nutshell. Let me know what u know, we can try this again

FIsh
1 Sandswifter starfish StaRfish
1 Cleaner shrimp
1 Yellow with 2 black line through it Chromes (Behr's or something)
1 Brown Clown goby
1 Blue and Yellow tailed Damsel, 1 Gold Damsel ... that I am going to be taking out ASAP and selling to the LFS BECAUSE, .... I have 2 Green Clown Gobies ( the fish guy gave me an extra one) and 2 Pink Skunks waiting in my QT for 3 more weeks.


I would stay away from the starfish. They usually just waste away in tanks. In your size tank it will deplete life in the sand bed fast and slowly starve to death. I would also stay away from damsels.

[airinhere]

I really like your tank. Its always scary stepping into the middle of an established system, but you are off to a good start.

You are obviously very excited about your tank. I remember my first reef tank. I also put stuff from San Fransisco waters into my tank. Within two days the green tidepool anemones died. Then I went out and bought a book.

Learning is fun!

Odds are very slim that the anemones you collected will survive. They need very cold water (50-60F) and have the ability to die very quickly and decompose even faster. All the organic mess leftover could pollute your tank, so please keep an eye on them.

They are very pretty though. I am preparing a coldwater tank and would like to know where you found those at... I might want to go collect some myself.

As for the rest of the stuff in your tank....
Rose tip is awesome looking. Still, I have to caution their extreme difficulty to keep alive (not impossible, just hard). Please independently research about them if you are going to keep it. These are notorious for wandering and stinging stuff as it moves. Powerheads shred wandering anemonies all the time also.

Haitian anem. Pretty, but likely to alleopathic fight other stuff in the tank and can potentially eat any of your fish (clowns as well). Good for a species tank, but not ideal for mixed reefs. These wander and sting stuff as they move also.

Leather corals. Excellent, hardy corals. Some can be alleopathic against other corals so watch for any issues with newcomers.

Pavona (cactus) coral. Nice, easy SPS type coral. Good sized colony as well.

Mushrooms, zoanthids, clove polyps GSP. All very hardy types of coral. Hard to go wrong with any of these. Eventually, any of these could overgrow your entire reef!

Baby bubble corals. Simple type of LPS coral that can eventually grow to very nice sizes. (my first coral was a bubble and I love them still!)

Featherdusters.....I wish the big ones multiplied like the little ones do....Very easy to care for.

Fish.....................................................
Sandsifter star. These get a bad rap. They are voracious and will eat all the "live" out of your live sand. Then they quickly starve, their legs fall apart and then they die. I had one long ago. Learning is....

Cleaner shrimp. I am thinking about putting a bunch of cleaners in my 90 gal tanks instead of the Assesors. Decisions decisions. Cleaner shrimp are just awesome!

The chromis sound pretty. Odds are, one will kill the other inside of a year. thats just what happens. A little too agressive for my personal taste. I once bought 10 and it took a week and a half to get down to a single guy. He is now in my vietnamese tank. At least he is well behaved now...

Clown gobies are very cool. They are known to damage the polyps of the SPS corals they have decided to nest in, but, your corals are all pretty hardy and I would not worry about that. Careful introducing more, these can be territorial and might fight.
Best to remove the current one if you can, introduce the two new ones and then put the single one back into the tank.

Make sure there are lots of hiding places as well. These are reclusive little guys and they will try to run and hide insead of stand and fight most of the time.

The Damsels....Everyone starts out with some. Eventually we all learn to hate them. So pretty and so evil. Like poison jellybeans.
Sometimes learning is not fun.

[airinhere]

As for your tank setup....
I am the last person who should lecture about the current trendy way of reefkeeping. So I will not.

Watch your powerheads. You need some sort of sponge cover on the intakes to prevent your anems from getting sucked into the powerhead and turned into fish food.

This is the #1 cause of anemone death in otherwise healthy tanks. And can be a reason for a healthy tank to crash overnight!

The water readings are inline with a cycled tank (ammonia nd nitrite reading zero) that has slightly underpowered methods of nutrient export and filtration (nitrates at 20ppm and phosphates at 0.5)

You might be able to imporove your water quality a little bit by slowly reducing the sponges used in your filtration system until none are left except the ones used to protect your pump intakes (for the anems). Sponges are a likely source of elevated nutrients in the tank. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-06/dw/index.php

I have no idea about the sump, maybe its a refugium type thing?... Hard to give an opinion about something I cant visualise.
Here is a link to a great series of articles about sumps. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-01/gt/index.php

Where is your skimmer? Skimmers are always a good idea. Just make sure you research them first. Some smaller ones are useless or very difficult to adjust. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-06/fm/feature/index.php

Your lighting is fine. Remember to change your bulbs every six to eight months. You will be shocked how much brighter the new bulbs are than the old bulbs you are replacing. If you do decide to upgrade your lights prepare for a huge learning curve. Halide, T-5, HQI, SE, DE, 175W,150W,250W,400W Reflectors, PAR, spectral analysis.....Sanjay Joshi..........www.reeflightinginfo.com

Without knowing the types of powerheads you have, its hard to know what your flow is at, but nothing in the tank needs huge amounts of flow, so anything between 450 to 1200 GPH total should work. (15X to 40X turnover) Just try and keep detrius from building up in the corners of the tank.

You have little uptake of calcium in your tank, so you probably can severly reduce your calcium dosing and your alk dosing. Look for a dKH test kit and maintain it between 8 and 11 dKH. Always monitor this in conjunction with calcium and pH. (All three are interconnected closely). http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php

The essential elements is something I used to use also. Until there is a test kit for essential elements, I will not add any more of it to my tanks. So far, everything is doing fine without it. (I am not exactly sure what essential elements are anyways).

Last, the water from the store should be fine if its the stuff coming from the machine. Instant ocean salt is a great salt and has been around since the beginning of reefing.

You might want to look for a refractometer to test your waters salinity. I spent a lot of money on all of my tanks when I first stared reefing and resisted the purchase of a $50 refractometer as wasteful. I finally caved and found my salinity was dangerously low. (1.022sg) Never had that problem since. 1.026 steady in all my tanks ever since.


Overall, you seem to have a very nice tank that has some cool stuff in it and you are making some good decisions to take ownership of that reef and make it your own.

Learning is fun!

[uglyamericanV1]

if that is a sandsifting starfish, i would sell it to lfs..........
reason is they will strip the sandbed of alot of the good critters that you would like to have in your tank, then starve.

they are also kinda boring...
serpent stars are much funner and more useful IMO

[SabrinaJean]

Question. If I started the have this little green algea, that within 2 days turned into something that looks like Maiden's Hair, on ym Duster Island, do you think I should leave it there, or suck it out? I do\did want some green plant in there, but not something that can over take my tank. Let me get a picture...

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e388/DjRin/DSC02888-1.jpg

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e388/DjRin/DSC02887.jpg