How many fish?

Hi from Morrisville, NC JP. I would think about your rock work getting started. If it is up against the glass it will be hard to clean and the little green film will not make you happy. I would set it back enough to use a floating magnet glass cleaner, they are the boom. Also, it limits your flow. As for fish there are several sites that sell fish but the cool thing it they give compatibility and fish that are appropriate for the size of aquarium you have. I personally like variety. I would have whatever dwarf angel I liked the best, I like cardinals (you can get them young and buy two and hopefully they will pair up). I would definately get a cleaner shrimp and a turbo snail when you have something for them to eat.

 

think its fine for rocks to be stacked on side walls, most people dont look through the side anyway( if the side isnt very visible) but if the side is a main area of view i would move the rock aside.

 

"1-2G per inch of fish" your saying you can have a 10" fish in a 10g tank

Usually when people give a general rule of thumb, it's more like 1" per 5 gallons. That is very conservative though. It really depends on the fish. It's best to research the fish and pick fish that will not impede on each others space and out compete their tankmates for food. Basically you don't want fights., but also need to think about things like O2 and food supply. Don't want to pollute tank feeding everyone. To start with, I'd probably stick with something like 1" per 5 gallons and then possibly add once you understand SW fish better. Fish tend not to grow to full size in captivity though, so some people say, you can base this on roughly 80% of their max adult size.

Also, max fish length is important. Again, it's tough to say, because it depends on the activity and grazing habits of the fish. However, as a very rough rule, the length of the tank should be at least 6 times the length of the fish, but this would depend on rocks too. If the tank is almost empty, you could possibly measure from corner to corner. If the tank if packed with rocks, you may need to account for the significant decrease in swimming area.

Crustations really don't add much bioload, so you can add quite a lot, you will be limited by food availability as most will graze on algae and organisms in your rocks and sand.

 

i wouldnt use the inch of fish per water amount at all, it is extremely outdated. a 6 inch trigger produces much more waste than three two inch chromises. its best just to find a fish you like and look up minimum aquarium size, because it depends on many factors such as where it swims and its ultimate size and such.

 

No doubt, agree 101%! that's why I said as a very rough rule of thumb. It isn't a good way to determine the size, but if you arn't confident about your understanding of reef tanks and fish yet, it's at least something to go by.... Best to start small and build up as your understanding improves. Also, always a good idea to ask about specific fish and combinations.

 

ya, i think people are so used to just looking up the size of tank online they dont even have a scale of how many fish per size tank, but any one wouldnt be accurate because it all depends on the fish, if there is a 4 inch goby, or hawkfish, that can go in a 29 or 55 fairly easily, but a four inch tang or angelfish would need at least a 75

 

It takes a lot of knowledge to really understand fish stocking. I've been in this hobby over 9 years and still have a lot to learn Certainly can sympathize with wanting to make things simpler

 

An inch per gallon is a very good way to measure how many fish you can have if you have a freshwater tank and only have peaceful fish that get 1.5" max. :thumb_up:

Browse through the site Live Aquaria. It is fairly accurate in the size of tank a fish needs etc. However, it still is a site that makes profit off of selling fish and you should still search each fish you want on here. It often is a bit lenient on how aggressive fish are, etc.

 

My apologies.... Thank you FlaringAfro for not kicking me while I was down... :thumb_up: I stand corrected... The rest of you...... Concetrate on the thread and not me..LOL... A kind word when seasoned with salt does help preserve associations... 8) No sweat. Thanks for the correction... You guys are still awesome...

 

Cool man, I just figured you were switching back and forth between this board and a freshwater board and lost track of where you were ;D