High Tide Aquatics

how many fish would you put in a 120?

Apon

Apon

Supporting Member
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Ok so some of you have seen my tank and its bioload. I want to add 3 more fish ( already in QT) to it. Now I used to have more fish in the tank before, but I had less coral and less clams and I was running a skimmer back then.

Now I currently have 17 fish -
9 - blue chromis 4 large and 5 small
1 yellow tang 3inch
1 purple tang 4inch
2 onyx clowns (pair)
2 Bangii Cardinal fish
1 6 line wrasse
1 large female pink square anthias

I want to add a
1 small blue tang
1 med Purple Flasher Wrasse
1 sm royal gamma
( maybe a firefish, but I have had 3 jump out before)

The reason I want to add 3 fish, is that I have not added a new fish to the tank in a year, I don't want the fighting to be concentrated on 1 new fish.

What do you guys think?
 
As much as I like fish, I have too many issues with other organics to put many in my 120... I had 2 tomato clowns, 1 foxface, and 2 dwarf angels as the bioload in my 120.
 
Well ok THAT tank isn't having issues really, ok I did have the planeria issue so probably did have a bioload issue :D But in my 100 long (the sps tank)... I have 3 chromis, 1 damsel, 2 tangs (tomani & yellow) and a watchman goby.. so yeah relatively higher bioload.. and yeah I'm guessing something else is causing the problem. I just switched salts to RC so I don't want to do a super massive water change for a while.
 
IMO? Yes.

But then again if you have a monster skimmer pulling gunk out, and are quite regular with tank cleaning issues then it can be done, going from 17 to 20 isn't going to be a big deal (those tangs might be picking on the new tang.. but who knows).

I don't know if it's just you clean like mad before people come over Arnold but your tank with all those fish tends to look way better than my lower-stocked tank.
 
No Skimmer Mike, been like this since the last time you saw the tank. No I only do a 5 gallon water change once a week. I scrape off any coraline of the acrylic each week too. I really do think the dozen clams are taking up a bunch of nutrients from the tank....maybe even the big softy. I do have to add lime water to keep the alk up - at least 5 gallons a weeks in top off dripped in over night.

Also the tank is in the living room, so I have to keep in clean. I don't want a dirty tank in the living room.
 
Oh yeah that's right, no skimmer, I hate you even more! :D
Could be the clams and the softies though if I recall it was pretty soft dominant the last time I saw it (that yellowish-green thing was huge)... my soft tank I mentioned is fairly free of real nuisance algae (except on glass) and this probably comes as a direct result of soft corals "eating" more nutrients out of the water.

I say go for it! You got the fish already anyways :)
 
Arnold with 17 fishes you are pushing it already, but as long as you keep up with your lime water which dissipate phosphate, and your weekly water changes you are fine, but adding 3 more hmmmm I think what might happen is after you add 3 more fishes, some are going to die when your tank reach that equilibrium at that point you will know exactly how many fishes you can have in that 120. Also keep in mind that its the totall inchess of fish too, these guys are going to grow bigger eventually and the totall number of fishes will decrease naturally by Darwin's natural selection process :D :D.

Add a skimmer and the new fishes is my answer :lol:
 
I can just replace the broken pump the skimmer is on.... as a last resort....I kind like not powering the skimmer and adding heat to the tank and sound to the living room.

Yeah the 3 fish now are pretty small no more than 4 inches total...but the baby blue will grow I know. The other 17 have been in my tank for about 2 years or more. I will try and let you know how it goes. Maybe I can find another Hippo clam or add macro algae back as well. I used to do that too. : )
 
Or a phosphate reactor? anyone use those? I think I can add it inline to my calcium reactor? Before or after I am not sure.
 
Do you know what your phosphate and nitrate levels are? That would help you decide. I have a similar fish load to what you propose (with the new fish) in a slightly larger tank (155) and am doing fine. I do need to have phosban in the sump though, and I do have a skimmer, though I didn't for many years. More than nutrient issues, you may see tang aggression issues - both yellow and purple tangs can get pretty nasty if they feel crowded. I can't imagine that adding the flasher and the royal gramma would be any problem. Well, grammas can be mean, too - but if its ok now with the flasher in quarantine, you should be fine. You could also up the volume of the water change just a little, at about 10% a week my fish are very happy but that may be more than I need to do - with an automatic water changer I can be lazy and still change lots of water.
 
[quote author=Apon link=topic=2437.msg24993#msg24993 date=1190744491]
Or a phosphate reactor? anyone use those? I think I can add it inline to my calcium reactor? Before or after I am not sure.
[/quote]

Arnold, or it may be as simple as changing 7 galon per week instead of 5 and only run your skimmer at night when you are as sleep so you don't hear the noise and the temp is cooler at night.
 
A larger water change is ok for me. Maybe go 10 instead of 5 a week. The yellow and purple tang have been together for about 5 years since they were 1 inchers. :)

The gamma and flasher are in QT together...I am worried about the 6th line in the display tank already, thatis why I am planning to add more than 1 new fish.

no testing really, just look at the tank at the sps and clams to see if they are ok. I may just keep a bag of phospan in the sump with my carbon. I will keep an eye on the algae growth. I am telling you guys the large clams and large softy must be taking up the extra nutrients.

Turning on the skimmer again would be last resort.....I would probably remove some of the larger chromis first.
 
Arnold, the 6 line is going to beat up on those fishies because it is a mean fish, how big is he?. I am in the process of getting rid of mine as soon as I can trap it. I want to add more colorfull wrasses but he beats them up realy bad so I removed the new fishies and put them in the fuge for now until I can remove him.
 
he big, but the flasher wrasse is bigger...I will see how bad it is. He does leave all my other alone currently. I did make a trap that I know can catch him..because I have caught him before.
 
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