How many fish is too many? Tank Stocking

[Tigweldpro]

How many fish can be put in a tank? There are sooo many variables that contribute to answering this question.

As long as you can keep nutrients at bay can you keep adding fish?

My current fish list for my 90g is....

1 yellow tang
4 percula clowns
1 yellow corris wrasse
2 bangaii cardinal
1 yellow watchman goby
1 tiger pistol shrimp
2 green spotted mandarin
2 skunk cleaner shrimp
1 lawnmower blenny
1 blue hippo tang(still in QT will be adding soon)
1 leopard wrasse(still in QT will be adding soon)

I still want to add

1 copperband butterfly
1 foxface rabbitfish
1 bluestreak cleaner wrasse
1 melanurus wrasse

I'm running a phosban 150 1/2 full of biopellets and it keeps nitrate between 5-10ppm doing 5g waterchange once a week. Phosphate stays around .03-.1ppm
feeding 2-3 cubes PE mysis small piece of nori & small pinch of NLS marine pellets daily.

[BCOrchidGuy]

The upside of a tank that's populated extensively is that any aggressive fish rarely target a single other fish so the bruises are shared.
The downside is it can get dirty quick. As long as you're doing maintenance and your fish are healthy I don't see it being an issue.
Sounds like a great tank to sit and watch

[whatcaneyedo]

My advice is to slow down. Your system is only a few months old and already very heavily stocked in my opinion. Consider what it will look like in 5 years when those frags have grown into colonies and your fish have matured from juveniles to adult sizes (12" for a hippo tang).

[Dearth]

I have stocked my 95 gallon tank with up to 20 fish but they were all small 5 inches and smaller I won’t put big fish in my tank due to possible stress, fighting over hiding spots or bullying.

I currently have 14 fish in my tank and they are always out and aside from my clownholes are peaceful with each other. Downside to this is that more fish create a heavier bioload and your tank gets dirtier that much faster and it is possible to have big swings in your tank parameters

[Myka]

The fact that you have to use bio pellets to keep nitrate down, and it's still at 5 to 10 PPM, shows that your tank is already stocked more than it can handle. Maybe your skimmer isn't big enough or good enough, or your tank is too young, or you're not cleaning it good enough, the system can't handle it.

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[Tigweldpro]

Originally Posted by Myka

The fact that you have to use bio pellets to keep nitrate down, and it's still at 5 to 10 PPM, shows that your tank is already stocked more than it can handle. Maybe your skimmer isn't big enough or good enough, or your tank is too young, or you're not cleaning it good enough, the system can't handle it.

The biopellets have been online since the tank was filled. skimmer is BM7.
I do spend a lot of time with the tank and do keep it quite clean.

When googling around the advice and opinions vary greatly, just wondering what other reefers here think.

Thanks

[kien]

The reason why the answer varies is because there are so many variables that contribute to this answer. You can put as many fish in a tank as your tank can handle. What your tank can handle will depend on how proficient you are with maintenance which includes but is not limited to: cleaning, nutrient export, feeding, behavioral (stress, aggression, etc) control, and so on. You already know that all of these things need to be a balance for a healthy tank. The more fish you add the more challenging it will be to control/balance the other variables. This balancing act differs from tank to tank, even among tanks of the same size.

So, the answer to your question is: whatever number of fish you have that puts your tank out of balance is too many fish. Probably :-)

[Tigweldpro]

Well just like all the answers to this question yours sounds right..... maybe

Originally Posted by kien

The reason why the answer varies is because there are so many variables that contribute to this answer. You can put as many fish in a tank as your tank can handle. What your tank can handle will depend on how proficient you are with maintenance which includes but is not limited to: cleaning, nutrient export, feeding, behavioral (stress, aggression, etc) control, and so on. You already know that all of these things need to be a balance for a healthy tank. The more fish you add the more challenging it will be to control/balance the other variables. This balancing act differs from tank to tank, even among tanks of the same size.

So, the answer to your question is: whatever number of fish you have that puts your tank out of balance is too many fish. Probably :-)

[calo247]

adding the hippo tang will massively increase the bio load as they are big fish and a full grown one should not even be in a 90 gallon.

the foxface is a large fish with a big bio load as well