Adding fish to my display

Voltaire81 · Dec 28, 2015

Hi All - Im gonna try to keep this short. I recently upgraded to a 225 after purchasing livestock from a fellow reefer. While the fish were in my old tank, I noticed white spots so I went ahead and decided to treat all fish and moved my corals/rocks/inverts to the new tank and will be fallow for ~2 months. Since then, I acquired new fish and sold others

Well, in a couple of weeks, it will time to move them all to the display after going through TTM (all fish except 3 that came from an established reefer and have been in a separate QT for observation).

My question is, should I add them all in one night or spread it out over a couple of days or longer?

Here is the list:
- Achilles Tang
- Chevron Tang
- Blonde Naso
- Purple Tang
- Blue Hippo
- Bellus Angel Female
- Masked Swallowtail female
- Japanese swallowtail male
- Japanese swallowtail female
- Cleaner Wrasse
- Naoki Wrasse
- Royal Gramma
- 1 pair of frostbite clowns
- 1 pair of snowflake clowns

Also, a follow up question. Is my stocklist fine? I chose 5 tangs from each of the major species groups (Acanthurus, Ctenochaetus, Naso, Zebrasoma). Another four from the genicanthus angels with only one male. Im also worried about the 2 pairs of clowns.

Thanks in advance.

James55r · Dec 28, 2015

I would add them at the same time only minutes apart so they can find there territory but not be territorial .to me to many tangs but it's your tank lol

Naiad · Dec 28, 2015

I would add them in blocks to make sure the tank can handle the bioload. The clowns are iffy, it is a large enough tank for two females to establish separate territories hypothetically but that being said it comes down to where each pair wants to settle and the attitude of the individual fish. Same goes for the tangs, you have done well in picking them out now you just have to wait and see if the individual fish will tolerate eachother. My purple killed a kole in a 300 gal. holding tub but does fine with my hippo in a 220.

Voltaire81 · Dec 28, 2015

Thanks @Naiad - I have 5 QT's and my temp/salinity all match with my DT so acclimation will not take a long time. So by "in blocks," do you mean wait a day, a couple of hours, longer?

I was planning to add clowns, wrasses, and gramma as the first group. Followed by the Angels as the second group and Tangs last group.

Naiad · Dec 28, 2015

I would usually wait a week to two in between so you can monitor any changes in your parameters. The exact time really just depends on how the tank reacts. If it should start cycling then you will need to go really slow. If in a few days there are no changes then you can proceed.

eatbreakfast · Dec 29, 2015

I agree in spreading it out over a few weeks. I wouls start with the gramma, the naokae, and the clowns(both prs should be fine in that size tank), next should be the Genicanthus angels simultaneously, along with the cleaner, finally add all the tangs simultaneously.