Will my tank support one more fish?

[knowthemath]

I'd like to add one more fish to my tank, but I don't want to overload it. I love what I've have, but would like one that is a little bit more social.

I want to stay away from anything that likes to feed off the rock. My mandarin is quite happy eating the copepods and would like to keep that supply for him.

 

[petcrazy213]

hmmmm ...

After looking at you specs I'd have to say you're at you max and not to get another fish. Your Mandrin actually should have a bigger tank as it is and the Maroon clown, if I'm not mistaken will get fairly large. I think the other 2 fish are fine, I'm not very familiar with the one but the yellow watchman doesn't get all that big I don't think.

 

[rayjay]

You can remove a fish and then add something that you really want. A limiting factor to doing that will be if the maroon clown isn't removed, it could show extreme aggression towards any new tank mate.
To keep your mandarin alive, you will most likely have to find a good supply of copods and mysid shrimp or he will slowly starve to death over the next six months to a year. Your tank size and rock quantity is not nearly sufficient to produce what one mandarin needs.

 

[knowthemath]

Thanks for the info. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but I was pretty sure of the answer before I asked.

My mandarin is still feeding well off the rocks, but I am trying to come up with another food source. Copepods are not as plentiful as they once were. I purchased before I adequately researched. May have to trade him if I can't get him to eat other things.

 

[wayne]

Refugium? Would likely help solve the pod problem for your manadarin, plus the extra water (if 5 gals plus) would give you comfort room for another midwater fish.

 

[knowthemath]

I'm not sure if I can work one out. My tank is on a built-in desk, but I'll to a little research. Right now my mandarin has a constant food source, but I am concerned that he may deplete it. Thanks for the idea.

 

[Cearbhaill]

I've purchased all sorts of pods and mysid shrimp from Aquaculturestore.com and Indo-Pacific Sea Farms- recommend them both.

 

[stephenray75]

try to slowly get the madrin to eat frozen brine shrimp. thats what i did. the lady who owns a lfs wont sell the madarin if it wont eat frozen brine shrimp.

 

[knowthemath]

I think he was eating frozen plankton last night. I'm trying lots of different things with my tank. Seems everyone wants to each something different.

 

[Guy W]

For what it's worth, in my experience Maroon clowns are not as agressive as people have made them out to be. I've had a Maroon in my 125g tank for years, my dad has put one is his tank with no problems, and in our breeder tank we paired up 2 Maroon clowns with no problems and they began to breed after 8 months.

I've never seen any of our Maroons act agressively towards any other fish.

Now thats not to say they aren't DEFENSIVE. they will protect their area of the tank for sure, but I haven't seen them hunt down and kill anything, and all the other fish have figured out pretty quickly that the clown lives over there and the agression is over within a day.

Anyway thats just been my experience.