Degener8
Active Member
Stocking Your Aquarium
This is an area which is very subjective. The 2 most common types of tank I have seen are mixed reefs and FOWLR (fish only with live rock). However there are as many types of tanks as there are ideas for tanks. People tweak the basics into multiple scenarios but they really fall back within the basic 2 groups.
Great Barrier Reef - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine
The above picture is what we want our aquariums to looks like (including divability) Picture courteousy of National Geographic.
Mixed Reef: This tank type has a vast array of corals, fish and invertebrates that come from all over the world. This can be a soft coral tank or LPS or SPS tank or a combination of all the above.
This is a nice looking FOWLR with artificial coral colonies. This shows that just because its a FOWLR it doesn't have to be just rocks and fish.
FOWLR: This tank uses live rock as its basis for nutrient processing but has an array of fish but does not have coral and generally few invertebrates.
One other type of system I see people setup is a biotope but generally these are not truly biotopes. Let’s take for instance a Caribbean coastal sand flat biotope. This type of tank would have little to no rock in the display at all. It would have a deep sand bed with grass flats growing. You would find crabs and snails in this biotope along with shoaling fish. Now the moment you introduce a coral from Australia to this tank it is no longer a biotope. It could be biotope themed but in reality it is just another mixed reef tank.
Why did I go through the trouble to explain all this?
Well all of this along with the hardware, lighting, plumbing etc is what leads us to the point of stocking our aquariums.
We need to consider what it is that is required for our planned stocking to work properly. We also need to understand what fish, corals, invertebrates to pick and why.
If a FOWLR system it’s probably easiest to pick stocking. This type of system only requires that you don’t pick things that will eat one another, and that won’t out grow the system they are intended to live in. Don’t get Lion fish and expect to keep a group of 10 green chromis with them. Don’t buy a puffer fish and expect him to not eat your snails, crabs and shrimp. Know what animals you are picking and know what’s on their food chain. A little planning will save you a bunch of money and a lot of lives through the process.
When you are planning your stocking list you should plan the number of inhabitants based on their adult size not their purchase size. Tangs come to mind when this topic comes up. I am in no way the tang police but I do feel that they should be placed in large enough systems to house them through adulthood. Their habit of swimming and foraging needs to be accommodated. This is our responsibility when accepting the responsibility of caring for these creatures. If you fish grows to a size that would require a 200 gallon system and you only have a 55 gallon tank… you probably shouldn’t buy it unless you plan to upgrade with its requirements.
Stocking a mixed reef is a lot more involved than that of a FOWLR. We have to consider all the same things as when stocking a FOWLR but with the added consideration of corals. Some fish will prey on corals as food. Adversely some corals will prey on fish as food. We have all read the reports of Elephant ear mushrooms of similar type corals eating slower perching fish. These corals don’t move quickly but on occasion they will capture and eat one of our prized fish.
You also have to consider the lighting when it comes to coral stocking. You should take care to provide several different zones of light, not all coral come from the same lighting when we get them so we may have to acclimate, them up or down in lighting intensity as part of getting them to thrive in our systems. Having areas of low light (overhanging shadowed areas etc) along with partially shaded and on up to full light areas will benefit us and our tank inhabitants. Having these light zone differences also will make for an interesting display as many corals colors will change in time as they grow into a lower or higher light zone as they grow out in our systems.
The flow of our tanks when talking mixed reefs must be considered when picking stock as well. If you have 90% of the tank covered in high flow water patterns it’s not going to be well suited for many LPS corals but is great for SPS. Most soft corals will adapt or get used to whatever flow you have in a system and survive but they require medium to low flow for the most part.
Ok now down to the dirty on picking stock. This section will probably not end how you imagine most would. I am not going to talk much about compatibility. There are tons of resources out there to let you know what fish are more likely to get along with others (just google it). This is about how to select the stock once you have decided what fish to buy.
Fish
I am not going to go over much about picking an individual fish other than make sure you look the prospect over well. The fish should be fat, unblemished and eating well. If the store won’t feed them then you’re gambling on if they are actually eating in captivity or not.
The one area that I don’t think most people take into account is the “other†tanks and fish that you’re not interested in buying. Every fish store I have ever been to runs multiple tanks off a central sump or banks of tanks of central sumps.
If you walk up and want to but a powder blue tang. It’s fat and eating and everything looks great. Or does it? Three tanks to the right there is a tanks with a Yellow tang covered in ich and some damsels in it which also have ich. Is this tank running off the same sump as the one your prospective powder blue is in? If so he is being exposed to an active ich outbreak and needs to be treated accordingly. Get to know your LFS learn about their system and make sure you assess the entire system and not on a one tank basis. I have walked away from purchases numerous times due to fish being sick in other tanks that I know ran off the central sump. This to me is one of the most overlooked steps when people pick new fish for their aquariums.
Corals
There is not a lot of talk about how to pick a healthy coral. Basically we all should have a pretty good idea about what a healthy coral looks like, good polyp extension, coloration, etc. Ask questions and find out how long certain pieces have been in their tanks etc. I have been known to put holds on corals that just arrived with a one week stipulation that if the coral is healthy in a week’s time I would be back to complete the transaction. This is another good reason to get to know your LFS very well. This is not something all stores will do, and mine doesn’t do it for everyone. Take your time when buying corals look them over well and do your best to pick smart and not impulse buy.
General rules I follow when picking out any stock for my tank no matter if coral or fish or other…
There are always those fish, corals and people who have been the exception to the rules I use and the things I have explained. The thing to keep in mind is those exceptions are far rarer than we would like to believe. Choosing your livestock wisely is extremely important! Why else would we spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars on this hobby?
Here is a survey conducted by Coral Magazine. The numbers to me are astonishingly low.
Marine Fish Survival Survey Results | Coral Magazine
I have read several reports with varied results trying to find a solid percentage of marine life loss from the time of collection to the time of our purchase. I can’t find conclusive numbers on this matter. Currently it would be a safe guess that 30-50% of all fish harvested meet their demise before we ever get the option to purchase them. Of those fish roughly only around 25-40% ever live longer than 3 years in our aquariums.
This was probably not the article you had imagines it would be. I do hope some of you will take something from this and become more diligent about choosing your live stock and insuring it’s the best possible match for your aquarium. While there will always be losses in our controlled little ecosystems we still have the responsibility to provide the best chance for long term survival that we can.
This is an area which is very subjective. The 2 most common types of tank I have seen are mixed reefs and FOWLR (fish only with live rock). However there are as many types of tanks as there are ideas for tanks. People tweak the basics into multiple scenarios but they really fall back within the basic 2 groups.
Great Barrier Reef - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine
The above picture is what we want our aquariums to looks like (including divability) Picture courteousy of National Geographic.
Mixed Reef: This tank type has a vast array of corals, fish and invertebrates that come from all over the world. This can be a soft coral tank or LPS or SPS tank or a combination of all the above.
This is a nice looking FOWLR with artificial coral colonies. This shows that just because its a FOWLR it doesn't have to be just rocks and fish.
FOWLR: This tank uses live rock as its basis for nutrient processing but has an array of fish but does not have coral and generally few invertebrates.
One other type of system I see people setup is a biotope but generally these are not truly biotopes. Let’s take for instance a Caribbean coastal sand flat biotope. This type of tank would have little to no rock in the display at all. It would have a deep sand bed with grass flats growing. You would find crabs and snails in this biotope along with shoaling fish. Now the moment you introduce a coral from Australia to this tank it is no longer a biotope. It could be biotope themed but in reality it is just another mixed reef tank.
Why did I go through the trouble to explain all this?
Well all of this along with the hardware, lighting, plumbing etc is what leads us to the point of stocking our aquariums.
We need to consider what it is that is required for our planned stocking to work properly. We also need to understand what fish, corals, invertebrates to pick and why.
If a FOWLR system it’s probably easiest to pick stocking. This type of system only requires that you don’t pick things that will eat one another, and that won’t out grow the system they are intended to live in. Don’t get Lion fish and expect to keep a group of 10 green chromis with them. Don’t buy a puffer fish and expect him to not eat your snails, crabs and shrimp. Know what animals you are picking and know what’s on their food chain. A little planning will save you a bunch of money and a lot of lives through the process.
When you are planning your stocking list you should plan the number of inhabitants based on their adult size not their purchase size. Tangs come to mind when this topic comes up. I am in no way the tang police but I do feel that they should be placed in large enough systems to house them through adulthood. Their habit of swimming and foraging needs to be accommodated. This is our responsibility when accepting the responsibility of caring for these creatures. If you fish grows to a size that would require a 200 gallon system and you only have a 55 gallon tank… you probably shouldn’t buy it unless you plan to upgrade with its requirements.
Stocking a mixed reef is a lot more involved than that of a FOWLR. We have to consider all the same things as when stocking a FOWLR but with the added consideration of corals. Some fish will prey on corals as food. Adversely some corals will prey on fish as food. We have all read the reports of Elephant ear mushrooms of similar type corals eating slower perching fish. These corals don’t move quickly but on occasion they will capture and eat one of our prized fish.
You also have to consider the lighting when it comes to coral stocking. You should take care to provide several different zones of light, not all coral come from the same lighting when we get them so we may have to acclimate, them up or down in lighting intensity as part of getting them to thrive in our systems. Having areas of low light (overhanging shadowed areas etc) along with partially shaded and on up to full light areas will benefit us and our tank inhabitants. Having these light zone differences also will make for an interesting display as many corals colors will change in time as they grow into a lower or higher light zone as they grow out in our systems.
The flow of our tanks when talking mixed reefs must be considered when picking stock as well. If you have 90% of the tank covered in high flow water patterns it’s not going to be well suited for many LPS corals but is great for SPS. Most soft corals will adapt or get used to whatever flow you have in a system and survive but they require medium to low flow for the most part.
Ok now down to the dirty on picking stock. This section will probably not end how you imagine most would. I am not going to talk much about compatibility. There are tons of resources out there to let you know what fish are more likely to get along with others (just google it). This is about how to select the stock once you have decided what fish to buy.
Fish
I am not going to go over much about picking an individual fish other than make sure you look the prospect over well. The fish should be fat, unblemished and eating well. If the store won’t feed them then you’re gambling on if they are actually eating in captivity or not.
The one area that I don’t think most people take into account is the “other†tanks and fish that you’re not interested in buying. Every fish store I have ever been to runs multiple tanks off a central sump or banks of tanks of central sumps.
If you walk up and want to but a powder blue tang. It’s fat and eating and everything looks great. Or does it? Three tanks to the right there is a tanks with a Yellow tang covered in ich and some damsels in it which also have ich. Is this tank running off the same sump as the one your prospective powder blue is in? If so he is being exposed to an active ich outbreak and needs to be treated accordingly. Get to know your LFS learn about their system and make sure you assess the entire system and not on a one tank basis. I have walked away from purchases numerous times due to fish being sick in other tanks that I know ran off the central sump. This to me is one of the most overlooked steps when people pick new fish for their aquariums.
Corals
There is not a lot of talk about how to pick a healthy coral. Basically we all should have a pretty good idea about what a healthy coral looks like, good polyp extension, coloration, etc. Ask questions and find out how long certain pieces have been in their tanks etc. I have been known to put holds on corals that just arrived with a one week stipulation that if the coral is healthy in a week’s time I would be back to complete the transaction. This is another good reason to get to know your LFS very well. This is not something all stores will do, and mine doesn’t do it for everyone. Take your time when buying corals look them over well and do your best to pick smart and not impulse buy.
General rules I follow when picking out any stock for my tank no matter if coral or fish or other…
- Never impulse buy, if you have not researched it, don’t buy it.
- Never buy a sick or damaged animal.
- Always quarantine each purchase.
There are always those fish, corals and people who have been the exception to the rules I use and the things I have explained. The thing to keep in mind is those exceptions are far rarer than we would like to believe. Choosing your livestock wisely is extremely important! Why else would we spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars on this hobby?
Here is a survey conducted by Coral Magazine. The numbers to me are astonishingly low.
Marine Fish Survival Survey Results | Coral Magazine
I have read several reports with varied results trying to find a solid percentage of marine life loss from the time of collection to the time of our purchase. I can’t find conclusive numbers on this matter. Currently it would be a safe guess that 30-50% of all fish harvested meet their demise before we ever get the option to purchase them. Of those fish roughly only around 25-40% ever live longer than 3 years in our aquariums.
This was probably not the article you had imagines it would be. I do hope some of you will take something from this and become more diligent about choosing your live stock and insuring it’s the best possible match for your aquarium. While there will always be losses in our controlled little ecosystems we still have the responsibility to provide the best chance for long term survival that we can.
