[leezard]

I found myself in the west end again yesterday.

Oops. Somehow I was at Aquarium Illusions.

Oops. Somehow I was looking at fish.

Oops! Now I have 6 more snails and two occelaris! Woot!

Anyways, all is well with the tank -- my cleaner crew is built up and done, and I took the chance on some real fish. They were apparently the hardiest to begin with, and considering I've never owned a saltwater fish before, I thought it was the good choice to go for. I was worried that they'd die overnight, but they've done really well and look awesome!

The biggest annoyance, though, was my questions about bioload -- I tried to find out if what I want is an appropriate load for my tank, and the only answer I could get from the guy was "whatever you want".

Well, if that's the case, I'll shove a great white shark in there.....

But in all seriousness, opinions seem to vary -- I've read to understand that two fish is a max, but up to six fish is doable. So I'm not sure if I've got the right opinion or not.

And so far, I've come to trust the people on this forum. It's been great.

So in my tank is the following:
25 lbs live rock
20 lbs aragonite sand
2 conches
5 hermit crabs
12 snails
2 occelaris

And I was looking to add:
1 orchid dottyback
1 two spot goby
2 purple firefish

We have some time to add them, since I want to get the protein skimmer and second powerhead before adding any new livestock. The water has been testing great, and I've been performing weekly water changes. Sometime this spring/summer we'll be getting the new light fixture (more than likely the metal halide). After that we'll be looking at growing the reef aspect.

Thoughts? Is this a good bioload, or am I shooting too high?