Give it to me straight doc, am I overstocked?

Seems to be overstocked to me, but I only have 3 fish in my 55g tank. A lot of the stocking depends on how good your filtration is. My thoughts are your water may be testing good right now but you sound as though you are heading toward having so many fish that your water params are going to go downhill fast as your biological filtration will not be able to keep up. With all that rock in there how much room do your fish have to swim around? In my tank I dont feel like there is enough room for the fish to swim as much as I would like and I only have about 60 pounds of rock.

 

Good points, as they all grow I know the tank will become smaller for them all. Other than the Hippo I tried to stock with fish on the smaller end that wouldn't grow any larger than 3"-4". I will most likely weed out a few fish in the next few months. Right now 80% of them are on the smaller side so they're not cramped yet. Here's what the tank is set-up like so I tried to give them ample hiding and swimming area, kept the middle open & pushed all rockwork to the back of the tank to keep the front also open:

 

I agree on overstocked. I would go with at most 5 or 6 3" adult size fish in a 55 personally and would consider that on the upper end of stocking. Generally speaking anyway.

 

I'm one of those people, but I also feel that your tank should be atleast 6 times as long as the largest fish (adult size) that you have in your tank.

 

That's a good rule of thumb. Haven't heard that before.

 

Thanks, it is something I picked up from a UK forum.

 

Eh, Not horribly overstocked IMO. It all depends how you care for the tank. If you keep up with maintenances of equipment and water changes and dont have parameter flexing, then I wouldnt worry.

 

People would probably consider my 55 overstocked also, but as long as water params are holding steady and the tank is peaceful I think you should be fine...until that Tang gets too big.

I've got:
2 Tomato Clowns
2 Four stripe damsels
YT damsel
Yellow Tang
Flame Hawk(Fiancee surprised me with it)
Coral Beauty

The more the merrier?

And I also have about 70 lbs of live rock and only a skimmer...but my skimmer is enormous.

 

wow your tank looks amazing. i dont think ONE more fish would do any harm.. Ofcourse that hippo wont last there very long since they grow.

did i mention your tank looks amazing?

 

If your nitrate is low and your tank is peaceful then I think you're fine. I would add a sump with a fuge to ensure paramers stay good.