Stocking questions for my 55g reef and 14g nano

[arc eye]

I currently have four fish in my 55g display: a small/medium Yellow Tang, a pair of true percs, and a longnose hawkfish.

I was thinking of adding one or both of the following: a lawnmower blenny and a four or six line wrasse.

I was just wondering how many fish most of you are keeping in 55 gallonish reef tanks. Would my current bioload be considered light, moderate, or heavy? The tank is BB, has about 65lbs of live rock, lots of flow (38 times turnover per hour), a Euro-reef RS80 skimmer, about 15lbs of sump rock, and will soon have a media reactor (I do run carbon.......just not in a media reactor).

Also, I'm thinking of purchasing a flame hawkfish to be the sole resident of my 14g biocube once I get a skimmer for it. Is a 14g be too small?

Thanks in advance!

 

[returnofsid]

I would say you're already at your bio-limit for that size tank.

 

[arc eye]

how about the flame for the 14g?

 

[arc eye]

anyone done a hawk fish in a nano?

 

[Jables21]

As far as stocking your 55 I have succesfully run a 54 gallon corner for over a yr now and it has a pretty heavy load. (7)blue/green chromis school, (1) Black Percula,(1)lawn mower blenny,(1) yellow tail damsel, (1) med red faced wrasse, (1)large Comet...Marine Betta. So altogether your looking at 12 fish having put the last of the group in over 6mths ago with no ill effect. They are not just living but thriving with noticable growth and vivid color. All the while with Med sized LPS like open brain and frogspawn also doing very well along with some softys. I would say as long as you keep an I on your parameters and possibly upgrade/tweak skimming you will probably be all right. The best way to do it though is slow and 1 at a time to see how the system reacts.

 

[mmn_usn]

In my 55 I have (1) Yellow Tang, (1) 6 line wrasse, (2) GSMs, (2) Blue Chromis, (1) Damsel(bought as a yellow.. now just kinda blah), (2) Domino Damsels, (1) Coral Beauty. They are all doing great. I run a Marineland Mag 350 with carbon and a whisper 60 overflow filter with just floss. As for corals have 5-10 different zoas, med sized frogspawn, med sized favia, Orange monti cap, large daisy coral, various mushrooms and lots of xenia, small flower pot and a med sized Turbinaria (yellow scrolling). All creatures are doing fine.

Just remember that if you are at the 1-1.5 lb/gal and keeping your total (adult) fish to around 1"/gal you are doing good.

Good luck.

 

[dailydriven911]

As far as stocking your 55 I have succesfully run a 54 gallon corner for over a yr now and it has a pretty heavy load. (7)blue/green chromis school, (1) Black Percula,(1)lawn mower blenny,(1) yellow tail damsel, (1) med red faced wrasse, (1)large Comet...Marine Betta. So altogether your looking at 12 fish having put the last of the group in over 6mths ago with no ill effect. They are not just living but thriving with noticable growth and vivid color. All the while with Med sized LPS like open brain and frogspawn also doing very well along with some softys. I would say as long as you keep an I on your parameters and possibly upgrade/tweak skimming you will probably be all right. The best way to do it though is slow and 1 at a time to see how the system reacts.

Time to get a bigger tank! Marine betta in a 54g?:lol:

 

[Jables21]

Time to get a bigger tank!

You are absolutely right. I was lucky and got the comet at maybe 2" didn't have near as many spots or the large eye on his fins yet. He is now a easy 5" but the cool thing is other than the normal he has an extremely outgoing personality even with the large load of other fish. I have 2 other tanks set up also with other numerous fish. I am now in the work/plan/gather phase of my next evolution. It will be a 120gal reef. Soooooo.....If you know anyone out there that needs or wants to get rid of some equipment please let me know. I am always checking the boards. In fact I am going to do it again.

 

[arc eye]

thanks for the input. I think I'm going to wait things out for awhile and then add a fourline farther down the road if things are still going well. I do have a lot of rock, but about half of it is from marcorocks.com and was most definitely dead (not to mention stinky) when I got it. I still don't think it has the filtering power of the premium live rock just yet, but coralline is starting to takeover.

 

[BarrierTom]

Blenny

I was told by my LFS the Hawkfish will pick on blennies and dragonettes.

 

[arc eye]

the long nose in my 55g leaves everyone alone. The flame would be the sole (fish) resident of the 14g