46 bow front?

[martinojon]

I need to aquascape my 46 gallon bow front anyone have any pictures or suggestions on how i should go about it in a way that I can put a lot of rock and fish. I would really like to have about 100lb of live rock and a powder blue tang, yellow tang, jail tang (sp), a few clowns, royal gamma, bellini, psodocroma, 6 schooling chroma, a mandrin goby, and a few more fish (like 4). Not too mention my corals. Is this too much? Is there any guide I can use to judge what is a safe amount of fish to put in my tank?

I want it to look very full, with a lot of movement, many corals, and a lot of color. I want about 75% coral and 25% fish.

Thanks

John

 

[SurfsUP]

Here is a pic of my 1 1/2yr old 46g bow front tank. I have a couple of overhangs and caves done with my live rock and the total weight of the rocks were about 100lbs of Manono rock.

 

[fishfarmer]

That's going to be way too many fish. I would forget about any tangs in that size tank with that much rock unless you plan on upgrading your tank size in a year or so. My rule of thumb for fish is give a small <5" fish at least 10 gallons of growing space, obvious this would be dependant on the habits of the fish as well. I would research as much as you can about a particular fish before buying, because they will be a pain in the butt to get out once you put them in your tank.

My 38 gal contains a small coral beauty, small percula clown, and a mandarin. I wouldn't recommend the mandarin because most of them require live feed and a mature tank, I've been lucky with mine so far. When I upgrade to a 55 I may add one more small fish.

I have about 50 lbs of rock, it is a pain to aquascape and I have run out of room to add any more corals. I have my rock sloping from one side to the other with most stacked under my MH.

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: fishfarmer ]</p>

 

[carver]

Surfsup: I have a 6 month old 46 gal bow front with 50 lbs of LR. I haven't put any fish in yet. Can you describe what you have in the tank. (fish and corals) The picture looks great.

 

[martinojon]

I am courious about that too. It looks like an angel in the foreground, I thought you cant have them in a reef tank.

 

[SurfsUP]

Thanks. Currently I only have one fish in my tank right now, ocellaris clown. The other fish disappeared a few weeks back. At different times last year I had a golden angel, emperor angel, queen angel, purple tang, black tang, percula clowns, red sailfin tang, sailfin tang, and some gobies. I didn't have them all at the same time but the most I had were 4 fish at a time, I just replaced the ones that died with another one or they just disappeared. I got them cheap anyways from my friend who own's a wholesale marine place. It's strange the only fish that has survived the last 1 1/2 yr is the same ocellaris clown you see in the picture. It was the first fish I put in after the live rocks cycled. The angels never bothered my corals at all.

I mostly have soft corals as you can see by the pic. The acro in the middle was an experiment to see if it could survive with just 4-55w pc lights and it's been growing pretty well. The flourescent green staghorn on the top left was also a test and it's been growing pretty fast with those lights and conditions. The fastest has been the pesky xenias and I have to pull some out every 2 weeks or they get out of hand. But my biggest problem has been a outbreak of bryopsis algae that keeps on coming back. It already has killed a very beautiful orange button zooan rock.

The only filter it has is a home made 18g tall sump and 5"-6" of live sand in the tank. I do have a Prizm protein skimmer but it is only turned on during the evening when the lights are out. I try to keep things as simple as possible.
Good luck guys. If you need help let me know.
Here is a pic of my other tank a 12g flat back hex: