How many fish for a 270g +70g sump?

[Danny.]

I am very very tempted to invest about £2500 on a full marine setup that totals 340g. The dimensions of the tank are 7x2.5x2 (WxHxD in feet) and was wanting to have a nice selection of soft corals and commuinity marine fish any ideas on how many fish i can keep in this tank before i fork out the dolla?
Thinking maybe 4-6 clowns couple of normal and blacks
2-4 regal tangs
An indian sailfin tang
1 yellow tang
1 green manadrin
1-2 gobies
2 gammas
2 firefish
2 pyjama cardinals
2 emperor cardinals
and some CUC: Blue hermits, Coral Banded shrimp, Cleaner shrimp.
Maybe some others if thats not too many. Would any of you advise against stocking some of these fish in the same tank? Is that too many fish for a 340g system?
P.S I know green manaderins are hard to feed in captivity and i obviosuly will be buying this as maybe one of the last fish when i have more experiance and my refugium is properly established.
Thanks

 

[Danny.]

The only incompatbilities i can really see there are probably the indian sailfin tang, (same shape as yellow tang) and the gobies with the manderin.

 

[cmor1701d]

I have a yellow tank along with my Sailfin tang in a 125. The YT was added last year, the SF 5 years ago so it;s much bigger. The SF usually get's first crack at the nori, but the YT pushes in and gets some too. The blue hippo waits in line.

I don'r see a problem in that size tank with lots of LR to give them hiding space and get out of site when needed. My YT and SF are often grazing on the same rock or area of the tank too.

 

[Danny.]

Thanks for the advice there, any ideas on how many fish would be good to stock in that tank?
Would 20 be pushing it i know its like 1inch per 3 gal for saltwater but i really dont get this rule at all because fush are different lengths, heights and some are fatter and thinner therefore affecting the bioload.
Any ideas on stocking capacity would be appreciated thanks

 

[cmor1701d]

You are correct about the fish inch/gallon. It's a very general rule. However, the only answer I can give is "IT DEPENDS"... on
How often you do water changes;
How large (%) is each pwc;
Do you have a skimmer sized (or oversized) for the tank;
How often do you feed;
Do you have enough LR for biological filtration;
Are there enough hiding spaces; overhangs, tunnels so each fish can have it's sleeping spot and territory.

I have 3 tangs in a 6' long tank and wish it was 16' long.
I have a total of 12 fish in my 125:
1 SF tang (Zebrasoma veliferum);
1 YT tang (Zebrasoma flavescens);
1 Blue tang ((Paracanthurus hepatus)
1 Coral Beauty (Centropyge bispinosa)
1 Bicolor Dottyback (Pictichromis paccagnellae)
2 True Percula clowns (Amphiprion percula)
2 Bicolor Blennies Ecsenius bicolor)
2 Spotted (Pajama) Cardinals (Sphaeramia nematoptera)
1 Green Mandarin (Synchiropus splendidus)

You're thinking of 6 tangs in that tank, which may be too many. You can try it and see it sqabbles develop and then be ready to remove one or more and place them in another home.

Don't worry about the mandarin. With 300+ pounds of LR and a mature tank there will be plenty of pods for it to be fat and happy.

Wish I had room for that tank though (but I really wish I had the room for something like Matt's 700 gallon tank).

Good plan, go slow and only add a few fish each month as the tank matures.

 

[Danny.]

Thanks alot for the advice there really appreciated. I obviosuly need to do alot of research into different types of fish and corals before i go ahead and put nearly £2.5-4k down for all the stuff. Would you reccomened any good books on keep marine fish and soft coral systems the internet is drips and drabs quite hard to find some good solid info.
Tah

 

[austinsdad]

I've always like Robert Fenner's "Conscientious Marine Aquarist" except for the outdated part about cycling with fish. Read out articcles here about the fishless method. I also like Eric Borneman's "Aquarium Corals". It covers all of them. LPS and SPS.

And like CMOR said. Go slow when adding fish. Another thing I'd recommend is a 40g quarantine tank. All it takes is one sick fish added to a tank that size with 100's of lbs of rock and $500 worth of healthy fish already in there, and the new fish is sick. You can't catch him without tearing down the tank and things start dying. Read up on the use of a QT tank.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress and questions.

 

[Danny.]

Ok thanks cmor and austinsdad good info there ill look into purchasing those books. I can afford to dash out an extra £200 on a small quarentine tank, would something smaller than 40g.. maybe 20-30g be ok space will start to be an issue once i get this 340g monstrosity and would that require me to buy a new skimmer, lighting and powerheads and live rock for the quarentine tank?
I can see the costs gradually mounting to about £4500 lol
Thanks

 

[Danny.]

Not that i mind a full reef system is something ive longed for since iwas about 13 years old and saw a fully set up reef system.. been in love ever since cash has just been a major issue
I felt spending £800 on a tropical setup to start with would be better, my other half has no real experiance of properly keeping fish so i felt that getting a tropical tank would help her gain experiance easier with more hardy fish than just throwing her (and myself) in at the deep end. And i haven'thad a fish tank for nearly 7 years now so i could do with the experiance top up myself.
thanks again for your help muchos respect to the AA

 

[austinsdad]

Check our articles section on setting up a SW QT tank. No rock, sand, or expensive lighting at all. You'll see. And yes, you can do a 20g QT, but more water volume is gonna give you greater flexibility since every poop or batch of leftover food won't be as critical with more water volume. Also, you'll likely be able to QT one fish or maybe a couple small ones at a time in a smaller QT.

Another thing to think of is the "hospital" notion that the QT tank will serve for too (hopefully, never for you). Might have a need to put more than one fish in the hospital at a time. More fish in a smaller tank might require almost daily water changes since there won't be any rock to "soak" up the ammonia like in your main tank.

Anyway read up on the use of a QT tank.