Design questions

[dr.ben]

Hey. I am new to reef aquariums, and I am looking at setting up a new system. Working backwards I want these fish:
2 Clownfish
1 Six Line Wrasse
1 Royal Gramma
1 Orchid Dottyback
1 Neon Blue Goby
1-3 Blue Reef Chromis

1 Bartlett's Anthias
1 Green Mandarin

I'm thinking of getting set up with the Red Sea E260 which is about 69 gallons total, a bit less in the swimmable tank I believe. My first question is whether I'm too ambitious with this list of fish for that size tank?

My second question is do people really put 50 snails and 20 hermit crabs into an enclosure this size? Any good rules of thumb for invertebrates?

My plan is to cure the live rock, add a few corals, then invertebrates, then most fish, then add more corals, then the anthias and mandarin. Is this wise/reasonable?

 

[hijinks7]

That's a lot of fish for that sized tank. If you add that many I'd really space it out. That's like 12-18 months of stocking if you really want to succeed. I'm generally not a fan of packing a tank with fish because it has too many downsides. I like my fish to have room since stress leads to disease.

 

[dr.ben]

That's a lot of fish for that sized tank. If you add that many I'd really space it out. That's like 12-18 months of stocking if you really want to succeed. I'm generally not a fan of packing a tank with fish because it has too many downsides. I like my fish to have room since stress leads to disease.

Thanks. I don't want to overstock but apparently I want to collect them all. I guess I'd better cut down my wishlist or go bigger.

 

[mjlash22]

Stock may be pushing it for that size tank, and like mentioned above, you would definitely want to space out introducing them to not add too much stress to the system and give it time to adjust.

As for the inverts (snails/crabs), it really depends on the size. Some snails are very small (less than half an inch) and same thing for crabs. That being said, it would probably still be a little overkill but if they are all small, possible. I currently have a 55G display and have 15 hermits and about 15 snails of different species.