Does having a reef packed with corals take up fish space?

[glennf]

This fragtank however was a real problem for the fish to navigate through.
Because als small frag has grown out to become a dense mass of corals.

With a consumption of 5,45dkh/day this was an absolute extreme.....

 

[Kayanarka]

Nah, i’ve had tanks with corals growing out of the water and from edge to edge.

Now my tank is new (1 year or so), frags are still frags my fish pretty much swim and spend most of their time under the cover of rock work, Including my tangs.

Unless you have large groups of fish I find very few fish swim around openly much. The tank I have now I built the rock work about halfway and left the front 1/3rd open. 99% of the time all my fish are in the rock work or below the rock line.

half the tank is open water. 2 tangs, 2 clowns, 2 blennies, 2 gobies and a filefish. 4x3x2

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I agree with you here. I have very little experience, but one thing I learned right away is the fish prefer to hide. I have a lot of open space in the front half of my tank. The only time the fish are in open water is when they are begging for food. The majority of the time they spend swimming inside the rock work.

If I would suggest anything, it would be to make sure you have plenty of caves and tunnels big enough for your largest fish to explore.

My clown fish spend the entire day hanging out with the heater. You would think my heater was a major celebrity. I feel like you could keep clown fish in a bowl if it had my heater in it for entertainment.

One thing I did try to plan for was coral growth, by keeping one type of coral on each rock. It is hard to resist buying every cool coral in the store when first starting out, but I just keep reminding myself that these things grow, and grow big.

 

[alvinhsu]

I'm going with number 3, mainly because (like many reefers) my tank is essentially an attrition tank. I know what I put in, but I never know what ends up surviving and growing out.

 

[prasunchoudhari]

i won't vote for this question for a very simple reason being I never tried keeping corals in my tank though all the fishes are reef safe. please suggest some species which i should try as a beginner with corals. also would be happy if someone would provide some small frags for placing in the tank as my LFS has no corals for sale

 

[0scarofthesea]

I'd say most fish learn to coexist with corals when they take up under 60% of the tank but when they literally can't move you have a problem!

 

[Kayanarka]

i won't vote for this question for a very simple reason being I never tried keeping corals in my tank though all the fishes are reef safe. please suggest some species which i should try as a beginner with corals. also would be happy if someone would provide some small frags for placing in the tank as my LFS has no corals for sale

I could send you a piece of my xenia, it's like the weeds of coral. If you can grow a dandelion you can grow a xenia. There are lots of online places to buy corals also, and some are cheap. Start out with zenia or cheap Zoa, or cheap torch. Torch is fun and flowing, and we have had great success. YMMV

 

[prasunchoudhari]

h

I could send you a piece of my xenia, it's like the weeds of coral. If you can grow a dandelion you can grow a xenia. There are lots of online places to buy corals also, and some are cheap. Start out with zenia or cheap Zoa, or cheap torch. Torch is fun and flowing, and we have had great success. YMMV

buying and selling corals in India is illegal so i will have to rely on the frags provided by forum users.
so will be great if i could get any frags from any of the forum users housing corals in their tanks