Stock levels?

[Rumpy Pumpy]

With a well scrubbed reef tank, what sort of stock level of fish can you sustain?

Currently I have one yellow tang and two clowns in a 4 ft 55gallon. I'm going to start adding some more fish (and some soft corals) now but don;t want to overdo it.

[SantaMonica]

It's not how much livestock that matters, it's how much you feed. One day I'll do a chart, but for now all we can do it look at how much people are feeding. One way is to take a screen full of algae, dry it in the sun for a week (or oven for a few hours), and weigh it on a digital 0.1 gram scale. Then dry out some food the same way. However much food it takes to equal the algae weight, you should be able to feed that much.

[Rumpy Pumpy]

That makes sense.

Although I guess the scrubber would grow more algae the more food you added though until it reached it's capacity? So if you were feeding less at the point when you harvested, dried and weighed the weeks worth of algae, that wouldn't necessarily reflect the upper limit of the scrubber?

I guess the only sure way of knowing is to try it out.

[sklywag]

When you say stock levels. Are you refering to fish only or all live stock? I have a 90g with about 15g in sump and
myself, I have 2 clowns(real or fake I don't know)
1 Blue Tang (Dory)
1 YWG
1 Fire dart fish
2 Blue Chromis
1 Coral Banded shrimp
1 Peppermint shrimp
1 Bristle/brittle star
20 Hermits
?? snails
2 Clams
37 Corals ranging from 1 sq. inch to 36sq. inches
In my sump is 1 Emerald crab, Sand sifting star and ? snails
I don't feed that often but my animals are all healthy and growing. I just cleaned my screens yesterday(or Thur.) and the algae was yellowish 1/4-1/2 thick with dark spots. Don't know what that means. First time it was a pretty nice green and 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. What changed? I don't know but my feedings habits haven't.
I am still running a GFO filter. Should I yank that Bryan? Red slime is a nusance for me. Not out of control but unsightly.

Anyway Rumpy. That's my stock list. Hope that gives you an idea and helps out some.

[Bridgeport]

When you say stock levels. Are you refering to fish only or all live stock? I have a 90g with about 15g in sump and
myself, I have 2 clowns(real or fake I don't know)
1 Blue Tang (Dory)
1 YWG
1 Fire dart fish
2 Blue Chromis
1 Coral Banded shrimp
1 Peppermint shrimp
1 Bristle/brittle star
20 Hermits
?? snails
2 Clams
37 Corals ranging from 1 sq. inch to 36sq. inches
In my sump is 1 Emerald crab, Sand sifting star and ? snails
I don't feed that often but my animals are all healthy and growing. I just cleaned my screens yesterday(or Thur.) and the algae was yellowish 1/4-1/2 thick with dark spots. Don't know what that means. First time it was a pretty nice green and 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. What changed? I don't know but my feedings habits haven't.
I am still running a GFO filter. Should I yank that Bryan? Red slime is a nusance for me. Not out of control but unsightly.

Anyway Rumpy. That's my stock list. Hope that gives you an idea and helps out some.

I quit running my Phosban Reactor. It turned all the algae on my screen [color=#804000]BROWN[/color]

[sklywag]

I think it'll come out today. Due for a change anyway and we'll see what happens. Hopefully cyano will not take off.

I'd like to add more fish to my setup, but for some reason every new fish dies. Even after hours of acclimation. Corals and inverts are no problem.