Overstocked?

[dianapickles]

Hi everyone:)

So I was wondering if my tank is too heavily overstocked.
I have a 250 litre tank and I currently run two protein skimmers which add up to about 500 litres combined.
My parameters are always where they should be although I do keep my nitrates slightly higher.

At the moment the fish I have (CUC not included) :
2 small clowns
3 small anthias
3 small chromis
1 small yellow tang
1 small fox face
2 small female damsels

I know you're all cringing right now but so far I haven't had any problems with my tank and my fish don't appear to be stressed. :dance:
I have a lot of time to maintain my tank and I do 20% water changes every week.

It's been overstocked for a few months. I've actually tried to catch some fish so I can return them but they are just too damn fast so I've been dealing with an overstocked tank.

What should I do?

I attached a photo of my tank for a bit of an idea of the setup.

[seamonster124]

Hi everyone:)

What should I do?



Add more fish?

66 US gallons

[ichthyogeek]

Ignore this guy^, he's in troll mood right now. I'd take out the tang and fox face first. Try catching them when the lights are out. The damsels (I think will be too aggressive depending on the species), can be caught using a DIY fish trap. Anthias and chromis and clownfish can stay.

It's technically not overstocked now, but I'd start getting rid of potential problem fish now. Once the tang and fox face get bigger, they'll be a hassle to get rid of.

[pyithar]

yes. it's overstocked imo.

[dianapickles]

Ignore this guy^, he's in troll mood right now. I'd take out the tang and fox face first. Try catching them when the lights are out. The damsels (I think will be too aggressive depending on the species), can be caught using a DIY fish trap. Anthias and chromis and clownfish can stay.

It's technically not overstocked now, but I'd start getting rid of potential problem fish now. Once the tang and fox face get bigger, they'll be a hassle to get rid of.

Oh man :$ my tang is actually my favourite fish. He actually survived a really bad ich and dino outbreak. Although I guess I'll have to take out one or the other. The tang doesn't seem to like the fox face. :( I do feel bad though, I already feel a little attached to my fish. Is there any other option other than to take out fish? Otherwise I'll have to start with the fox face. Which is a little scary considering the venomous fins.

The damsels are actually alright strangely. They're both female so I guess that might be why.

[ichthyogeek]

Oh man :$ my tang is actually my favourite fish. He actually survived a really bad ich and dino outbreak. Although I guess I'll have to take out one or the other. The tang doesn't seem to like the fox face. :( I do feel bad though, I already feel a little attached to my fish. Is there any other option other than to take out fish? Otherwise I'll have to start with the fox face. Which is a little scary considering the venomous fins.

The damsels are actually alright strangely. They're both female so I guess that might be why.

Get a bigger tank. The tang will eventually get to be massive. When snorkeling in Hawai'i last summer, I saw massive schools of them, all around the size of a dinner plate! The same applies for fox faces. 75 gallons (300L) or 125 gallons(475 L) are much better choices. The fish need room to swim. Most people recommend a 6 foot long (180 cm) tanks at the very least for yellow tangs. What species are the damsels by the way? And how do you know they're both females? Oh, and if you think the fox faces spines are scary, what about the yellow tang's scalpel on its tail?

[Jade5051]

If you aren't having any issues don't change anything.

Ain't broke don't fix it.

And, you may have to upgrade in the future if you are having fish battles. Try a 90g that's 337.5 liters.

[dianapickles]

Get a bigger tank. The tang will eventually get to be massive. When snorkeling in Hawai'i last summer, I saw massive schools of them, all around the size of a dinner plate! The same applies for fox faces. 75 gallons (300L) or 125 gallons(475 L) are much better choices. The fish need room to swim. Most people recommend a 6 foot long (180 cm) tanks at the very least for yellow tangs. What species are the damsels by the way? And how do you know they're both females? Oh, and if you think the fox faces spines are scary, what about the yellow tang's scalpel on its tail?

I guess I'll start saving up and get a nice big upgrade. A new tank would cost up to 2-5 grand here, sump and all (ouch). I guess I'm just really worried about moving everything over. I have no clue on how to upgrade tanks.
Considering I want it in the same spot I don't know how I'd go about that so I'd have to bring in the muscle. Here goes hoping the men don't mind moving some big fat tanks. :lmao:

As for the tang I heard that they don't grow too large in captivity compared to the wild but regardless they obviously do still get big and definitely too big for this tank.
And the damsels (yellow belly) are female according to my lfs. I'm not sure how they sex damsels but yeah, I'm just going by what my lfs said.

I guess it's time to jump into the deep end! 75-125 gallons seems like a good start :)

[Dkuhlmann]

Remove the tang, fox face and damsels then you can get some more appropriate fish for your size tank.

Also when taking pictures with your cell phone turn the top of the phone to the left and your pictures will be properly viewed on a PC.

[chimmike]

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/aquarium-fish-supplies.cfm?c=15

That's a great resource for looking at recommended tank sizes for inhabitants. Though you'll have to do conversion. I agree, too small for tang and foxface. Damsels are just nasty little things, i'd get rid of those too. After that i'd ditch the chromis and replace with a couple wrasses. You should have access to some fantastic wrasses down there!

[dianapickles]

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/aquarium-fish-supplies.cfm?c=15

That's a great resource for looking at recommended tank sizes for inhabitants. Though you'll have to do conversion. I agree, too small for tang and foxface. Damsels are just nasty little things, i'd get rid of those too. After that i'd ditch the chromis and replace with a couple wrasses. You should have access to some fantastic wrasses down there!

I've decided to upgrade to a 600L (160gallons?) so hopefully the move should give the fish their much needed space.

I'll see how the fox face goes but other than that the other fish are my babies haha. The damsels get along great with all the fish and the chromis and anthias actually school together.

[chilli_reef]

Survivor tank......

[MaccaPopEye]

We all know that the upgrade was the only valid choice here. If you are going up to 600L then you will be fine to keep the fox face. And add quite a few more fish too :P

Where in Aus do you live? Judging by the coral in your tank not near me haha (only one good coral collector where I am and he mostly gets awesome but similar stock in each trip).

There is a few Facebook groups for Aus reefers and I am sure there would be some people on there in your area who will be happy to lend you their time, knowledge and probably some equipment to help you move tanks.

[e048]

What kind of tang is it

[dianapickles]

We all know that the upgrade was the only valid choice here. If you are going up to 600L then you will be fine to keep the fox face. And add quite a few more fish too :P

Where in Aus do you live? Judging by the coral in your tank not near me haha (only one good coral collector where I am and he mostly gets awesome but similar stock in each trip).

There is a few Facebook groups for Aus reefers and I am sure there would be some people on there in your area who will be happy to lend you their time, knowledge and probably some equipment to help you move tanks.

Yep im pretty damn excited. :D Haha how many more fish exactly can I fit? Not so excited about the move itself though. I'm so scared to lose everything.

I live in the Sydney :) What do you mean about the coral? I just assumed everywhere generally sells pretty similar coral. Goni's hammers etc.

I'll definitely look around. I've actually never even met anyone around here into the hobby. The owner at my LFS is the only person I've met that has a reef tank. His workers just know what they learn by working there.

[dianapickles]

What kind of tang is it

He's a pretty small yellow tang.

[MaccaPopEye]

Yep im pretty damn excited. :D Haha how many more fish exactly can I fit? Not so excited about the move itself though. I'm so scared to lose everything.

I live in the Sydney :) What do you mean about the coral? I just assumed everywhere generally sells pretty similar coral. Goni's hammers etc.

I'll definitely look around. I've actually never even met anyone around here into the hobby. The owner at my LFS is the only person I've met that has a reef tank. His workers just know what they learn by working there.

How many more fish you can fit will depend on what fish they are haha

I'm up in Darwin. We don't have any retailers up here that sell coral. We have one LFS that gets in maybe 3-4 very common marine fish at a time and one LFS that is just starting to look into getting marine fish in and in the future wants to sell coral but it wont be any time soon. Pretty much if you want nice live stock you need to pay almost $100 to have it air freighted up.

We are lucky though that we have a collector here who sells wholesale but lets locals buy from him for pretty good prices. And he does get some pretty great stuff in but I haven't seen too much variety there since I have been in the hobby (1 year) he has mostly had all the same kinds of hammers and morphs but it seems like he's starting to get a lot of different LPS and SPS in now so I'm excited to go back and see him soon (or maybe somehow I just missed them all before :P).

The main 3 Aus facebook pages I know of are:
League of Extraordinary Australian Reefers
Marine Aquarium Fanatics Australia
Australian Reefers Network

There is some more but these three seem to be quite active ones. There is probably even some Sydney specific pages. If you join those pages then I am sure you will meet a lot of other reefers in Sydney. They have meets and frag swaps every now and then too :thumbsup:

[hkgar]

Which Foxface do you have? I have a Two Barred Rabbitfish and it is very peaceful He is a pretty big guy though and it might be different in a smaller tank. Mine pretty stays pretty much in a space under and between a couple rocks and love Nori.

A Yellow Tang needs more swimming room than your tank probably provides.