Can I Add Fish?

[DeederMc]

Hi all,

My 100 gallon has a lot of live rock, various corals, and a crazy anemone with a bad case of wanderlust. The family includes one clown (partnered with anemone), a blue tang, a yellow tang, a watchman goby, and our newest addition - a mandarin dragonette.

I read an article recently about chromis and loved the idea of adding something that schools...but am I at or over my limit? If not, how many would it be safe to add?

Thanks,

Deeder

[Phurst]

I think you could get away with adding another couple of small chromissized fish, but a lot of people, myself included, have watched their schools of chromis dwindle down to one or two. It seems in some cases, the strongest one or two in the group will likk the others one by one. Some people have had good luck too though, so who knows. Chromis are in the damsel family, so maybe that helps explain it.

[john0087]

Yeah,

I agree that you could add a small shaol of Chromis, but to put it lightly, they do "sort themselves out"

I started with a shoal of 5 Green Reef Chromis that dwindled down to 2. I added 2 more and ended up with a very stable goup of 3.

I think that my mistake was that I bought the 5 smallest fish that I could get. Maybe in your established tank, try to stay awar from Juvies and go for adult sized (3-4" range) Chromis.

Good Luck

John

[dkone]

Hi Deeder,

Sounds like a great tank you got going there -- how long as the tank been running, what are the dimensions ? does it have a sump/fuge, lighting etc ? What type of anemone is it? I've noticed they typically wander around if they are not totally happy with their environment, either flow, lighting, perhaps a lack of food. Do you feed him additional food?

I hate to be the latest sign up to the "tang police", but unless your tank is >4ft long your blue tang may not be happy once he grows up. I once had a blue tang in a 4ft tank and it was fine for a year or so, but, once he grew up, he turned into a psycopathic terror who sliced away at all his tank mates! I have a 6ft tank now and would still have to consider hard whether ot add a blue tang unless the tank had lots of open swimming space.

I have a mandarin dragonette also. They are cute, adhorable and interesting additions to any tank. They do requite copious quantities of copepods to consume and a mature tank, and/or a tank with a decently sized refugium for success.

I would think you have the capactity to add a school of chromis. They are hardy, swim in the water column and help to entice other more shy tankmakes out from hiding. I had a school of 7 in my tank, alas, down to 6 now. (the "Seven Dwarves" , I need to decide which "Dwarf" is missing!).

Warm Regards and welcome to TR!

[DeederMc]

Thanks everybody!

It's a 100 gallon, 60" wide, 14" deep, 24" tall and has been running for three years. Unfortunately I don't run a sump or fuge - there's simply not room, but it does have compartments on the back where there were originally a bunch of bio balls (removed on the advice of someone here in the forum about a year ago). That's where I keep the heater and some sponges to catch extra food bits. I've put a skimmer into one of the compartments but have not been running it enough because it's noisy (partially explaining the red slime explosion over the last two weeks). It's on 24/7 now. :(

My "nemmie" is of an unknown variety - he was sold to me as a RBT but clearly isn't...he's pinkish red with shimmering green tentacles and no bulbs. He stayed in one place and has always been very healthy and getting bigger and bigger until I got new, brighter lighting and now almost seems to hiding. Either that or he's trying to split - he is absolutely huge. I'm trying not to panic about it since I get the idea there's nothing I can really do but wait. His clown feeds him regularly but I also give him little pieces of shrimp.

I have my eye on that blue tang...he's already sassy but so far hasn't damaged anything or anybody (my clown, on the other hand, tries to take my hand off every time I put it in the tank). I'm also watching my little mandarin very closely to make sure he's getting enough pods. The population seems good right now but if he shows any signs of getting skinny I'll be ordering a bunch right away!

[CarmieJo]

You could add some chunks of LR to the compartments in the back and let this serve as a pod factory. Do make sure you rinse your sponges on a regular basis in order to keep them from producing nitrates.

[DeederMc]

There are several tightly packed pockets of LR that the fish can't really get into that I think are serving as "pod safe" areas - does this sound logical?

I do rinse the sponges, but not on a schedule...usually only when I start to hear the water (meaning they're fairy dirty, probably abut every 2 weeks). Should they be rinsed frequently?

[CarmieJo]

Lots of people use "pod piles" for a safe area. As far as the sponges go, what do your nitrates run? As the detritus in the sponge builds up aerobic bacteria to "eat" it will build up and the end product of this is nitrate. Fish can tolerate moderate levels on nitrate but most inverts are more sensitive and will not thrive once you see nitrate above 0.

[DeederMc]

Nitrates are running high. Although nothing seems to be dying, I'm sure it would be flourishing even more if I could get those down. How often do you recommend sponge rinsing?

[CarmieJo]

Here is what I would do. Do a water change, pull the sponges and rinse them is the water change water. Squeeze them until you don't see junk draining. Stick them back in and monitor your nitrates, keeping track of the days. As soon as you see the nitrates creep up even a little you know that you have nitrifing bacteria built back up in them and you will know that you should rinse them at least a day or 2 sooner.

If you don't want to go through this I would rinse them at least weekly and monitor to see if the nitrates drop. I know that some people use filter floss or pads that they just take out and throw away. I pulled the sponges out of my nano's rear chambers and didn't replace them with anything.

I also unplug my return pumps when I feed so that it is less likely that food gets pulled into the sump or rear chamber. I leave the powerheads in the DT running so that the food stays suspended for the fish and corals to find. I only put a little bit of fish size food in at a time. As long as they attacked the food with vigor previously I give them a bit more as soon as it is all gone. Once I have given the fish a couple of helpings I target feed the corals that need meaty foods. I put all the small coral food in at once. When feeding corals I leave the return off for about a half hour so the corals have time to catch the food.

[DeederMc]

This is all great advice and I'll follow it carefully. I don't mind daily activities around the reef - it's a privilege to have this little ocean and I feel a duty to care for it to the best of my ability!

[CarmieJo]

That is my opinion but sadly not every one agrees.