Suggestions for new fish

I have a 125 gallon mixed reef tank. Currently It is inhabited by a pair of black clowns, pair of bangaii cardinals, 4 chromis, royal gramma, firefish yellow watchman, and a tailspot blenny.

Do you think I have a high bio-load? I have plenty of filtration between 30 gallon fuge and 40 gallon sump. I was looking to add a couple more fish to the tank, would like to keep them small fish.

 

No, I would say your bioload is pretty small for a 125. You have a decent number of fish, but they are all small and insignificant on the waste production scale.
But, if you want to keep it small, if you have a good pod population, what about a Mandarin? Or a Sleeper Gold Head Goby? Or a Jawfish? Or a Wrasse?

 

oops forgot about him, I have a 6 line wrasse.

Don't think I have a deep enough sand bed for a jawfish although I'd love to have a blue spot.

Are there problems with adding more blennies or gobys, If I were to get a 2 spot signal goby would it have problems with my others or if I got another wrasse like a fairy wrasse would it fight with the 6 line?

 

Usually with the two different species you will be fine, specially in a 125. Everyone will have plenty of room to stake out territories. I know PharmrJohn keeps a couple of different wrasses in his 90 and they are buddies.

 

Many do not believe in the inch of fish per gallon rule. I am not one of them. I adhere to a maximum of 1 inch of fish per 3 gallons. That is max. Not because of waste management, but of oxygen saturation in a tank. Although I would consider a system with a 1:5 ratio to be my goal, I am satisfied with hitting 1:4 and calling it good. You could always get an oxygen test kit and see how much O2 you have in your system.

Now. Your system IS NOT your display tank plus your sump. Unless, of course, you can guarantee that the power will never go out and the two tanks will ALWAYS be connected by flow. If you base your population on total system volume and power goes out, the oxygen in the sump is no longer available and the livestock in the DT will be in trouble.

There is a relatively small window that you have to work with ITO O2 sat. 6ppm is what an unpopulated tank holds. Fish have respiratory difficulties below 3ppm.

This makes me curious about my tank. I do believe I will procure an O2 test kit to find out.......

 

Oh, yeah.....I have an eight-line and a red coris wrasse. They hang out. No problems what-so-ever. But I did intruduce them at the same time. Broke the rule of one fish per addition.

 

Ya, that I understand. I have a backup power source for if power goes out anyways, but do not count on it. I have never really gone by an inch of fish rule, with my freshwater tanks I always just added fish untill I thought it looked full.

So by your rule 1:4 ratio in a 125 gallon tank I could keep around 31 inches of fish. With the current fish I have, at maximum size I will have 38 inches of fish and I am already overstocked.

 

And you can always trade fish in. My hippo tang clearly does not belong in my tank. It will get far too big. But when it grows to a good size (nine inches or so), I am going to trade it in for probably a smaller hippo and some corals. I'll just let it get more valuable in my tank. Same goes for my red coris wrasse. They can get to 15 inches. So play around with it. As long as you have an LFS willing to trade you out, you're in like flynn.

 

+1. Well, that was my plan. But I had already done that a couple of times. Make room for something new. Watch them grow then start again. I actually like it that way. Keeps the excitement from becoming stagnant after a while.

 

if you are going to purchase the spot signal gobies also known as the twinspot goby if i'm not mistaking, make SURE that your tank is VERY well established, they don't really take prepared foods, so unless you have a lot of live foods in your sand, i would suggest not getting them just yet