Wanting opinions!

[Gillian]

I'm about to upgrade my tank to a 250 gallon plus sump and I wanted to get your opinions on stocking.

I currently have 9 small fish of various types and 2 tangs, it's the tangs that I'm wondering about though, I have a hippo and a yellow right now in 2 different tanks but when I move everything into the big tank I'd like to add another 2 (Red Sea sailfin and a powder brown) do you think this will be too many for the system to handle as I want to keep mostly sps corals?

I bit of additional info about the setup, it has a reef octopus skimmer rated for 400 gallons, we will have a bio reactor, a rowa phos reactor and 1 other reactor (undecided) to help with water quality. We will also have a refugium and a few mangroves in the system and everything will be controlled with the apex.

I'm trying to decide if I should go ahead with this now as I'm very aware that any tangs would need to be added at the same time to help avoid fighting.

Let me know what you think


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[albert_dao]

Marine fish are like cats. The answer, regarding compatibility, is always "maybe".

[Gillian]

Thanks for the reply yes I've kinda figured that from the reading up I've been doing. It was more over stocking that I'm concerned about. I do have a separate tank that I can move any of them to in a fighting emergency.


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[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by Gillian

Thanks for the reply yes I've kinda figured that from the reading up I've been doing. It was more over stocking that I'm concerned about. I do have a separate tank that I can move any of them to in a fighting emergency.


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Yah, you sorta just have to go for it and hope you don't need a plan B.

You can do things like use mirrors or black out the tank for 48 hours to distract the fish. The floating basket method is also helpful for introducing new fish to a population. If you're just combining the populations of two tanks, just dump em together and cross your fingers.

[Gillian]

Oh I forgot to say, I'll also have a little over 200lbs of live rock to help the filtration


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[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by Gillian

Oh I forgot to say, I'll also have a little over 200lbs of live rock to help the filtration


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I doubt you'll need that much rock. I get away with as little as 1 lb/7-8 gallons.

[Gillian]

Ahh but it's good for attaching lots of coral to and as I already have it I may as well use it. The more filtration the better

[Gillian]

But going back to the original question, do you think adding the extra 2 big fish will be too much bio load for the tank?


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[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by Gillian

But going back to the original question, do you think adding the extra 2 big fish will be too much bio load for the tank?


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No.

Here's a 250 I maintain:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZXRdQ7D7jc/?hl=en

It has triple the bioload you're describing it. I could double this comfortably. I have a skimmer rated at 250 gallons on it. The tank is spotless. Your success will come in your planning and maintenance schedule. Hope that instills some confidence

EDIT #2:

If your goal is SPS, look into cutting back on the rock, buff the crap out of your flow and run some sort of probiotic scheme.

[Gillian]

Thanks


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