# of gal. per inch of fish

[sff1334]

what is the rule of thumb for # of gal. per inch of fish in a reef tank?
i'm running 140 gal. with 70 gal. sump 150 lbs. live rock and 4" sand bed.

[FishKid]

its hard to say, the general rule is 5 gal per 1 inch of fish. so a 140 gal would be 28" of fish, but thats not really something to go by. Its better to go by what you think, start off with small fish, like a pair of clowns, some cromis, anthias, gobys and the like. and you will get an Idea of how many fish you can fit in the tank, after you get some smaller fish... I hate telling people dead up how to do things, Its your reef, make up your own sensible rules! ;)

mark

[golfish]

I agree with Mark, Each system is different. When considering the fish you must go by adult size not the size of the fish when you buy it....

[Biomanjcs72]

I can't remember the other rule, but there's one relating to inches of fish per square inch of surface area in your tank.

[tlc]

also consider how big the fish will be when it reaches adulthood. the inch theory is quite difficult. obviously a 6 inch tang has more mass than 6 inch blenny. also the swimming space of certain species are important too. things get pretty crowded quick with all the sand and lr. what i do is figure out what types of fish i want to house. then learn if they are compatible. then i usually post online to get opinions from different people who have kept these long term. you can usualy tell who knows what they are talking about and those who dont. go slow and keep the bio load light and you will be fine....

[organicreefer]

there are so many variables that you just have to use common sense every fish is different.you have to consider things like what biological load the fish puts on the tank: what does it eat ?is it messy? or does it live on amphipods/copepods or algea.if its the latter then id say its putting less of a load on the tank.how much space does this guy need:not talking size here im talking habitat/behavior does it roam far and wide(tang)or is it relatively docile/sedentary/territorial(lionfish,clownfish).obviuosly fish that roam need room to swim.just some (more )things to think about

oh yeah and all that said id say you have room for around 6-7 fish with just a couple med/lg

[Duncan]

There is no spoon, oh I mean there are no rules. Really there are only guidelines and theories. If you have a system that is well under what would be considered good filtration, then your # of fish would be drastically different as opposed to a system with great filtration. So rules in this case are quite fuzzy. So in order to figure out how many fish should be the max in a system one would have to be a bean counting freak, along with a biologist, a physical engineer, a zoologist, and hey lets throw in a major in theory and complex systems. Ok, bottom line is, every system is different and there really is no way to figure out what is exceptable for one particular tank. All you have to go on is what your system looks like when you peer through the glass. What your corals, fish, filters, water etc look like over time. We can sit here and give advice that we learned at the school of hard knocks, but that advice is in no way going to work for every system that it is applied too. As usual, all is IMHO.

Duncan.