Do I have enough rock for my fishies to feel safe?

[caesarino]

Hey everyone,

the first tank is a 120g/500L (4x2x2ft)/(130x60x60cm). Currently there are living a bunch of hermits, snails, a sanddollar, a tuxedo urchin (iirc) and 4 fishes in there: A dwarf zebra lionfish, a chelom butterfly, a tomini tang and a large melanurus wrasse. The box is for the wrasse but it found a better place to sleep aparently. Will be adding more sand soon because I am planning on a rescape anyway. The reason for this thread is the glass surfing of the chelmon and the melanurus that occurs from time to time, although the melanurus is only in this tank for 2 weeks now so I am not too stressed about it. However the chelmon is in this tank for about 5 weeks now so I am concerned that he might die from stress at some point and I do not want that to happen. Hes eating fine btw. His favourite food is artemia and aiptasia. Back to the topic: So my question is: Is there enough rock in there for my fish to feel safe?

the second tank is a 306g(345g w/sump)/ 1116l/(1300w/sump) (6.5x3x2.1ft)/(200x90x62cm). Its my dads tank. To make it short: every 2-4months a fish that is already a long time inhabitant dies due to starvation or gets bullied all of a sudden. My assumption is that the fishies grow but the rockwork doesnt have enough hiding spaces for the other fishies to hide when a bigger one decides to move to a new territory because the old one got too small. So my question about this tank is similar to the first one: Is my assumption right, or is it something else that causes the bullying/ seemingly random starvation? Does this tank provide enough hiding spaces for the fishes?

Thank you for reading and have a nice day!

 

[s1oliver]

What are the parameters of the tank the fish are dying in and how long has it been running? What methods are being used to export nutrients? Skimmer, water change volume and frequency, filtration method, carbon, etc. would be helpful to know. It would also help to know what fish are in that tank as well, it's possible there's one or two that don't naturally get along and are the cause of it. Has the tank had any extra additives added to it such as vibrant, reef flux, etc.? If you can provide more information you'll have an excellent chance of someone providing you good insight as to what the possible issue(s) could be. I don't think a lack of rock is the issue, I've seen tanks with less that don't have fish fighting and dying like that.

 

[caesarino]

What are the parameters of the tank the fish are dying in and how long has it been running? What methods are being used to export nutrients? Skimmer, water change volume and frequency, filtration method, carbon, etc. would be helpful to know. It would also help to know what fish are in that tank as well, it's possible there's one or two that don't naturally get along and are the cause of it. Has the tank had any extra additives added to it such as vibrant, reef flux, etc.? If you can provide more information you'll have an excellent chance of someone providing you good insight as to what the possible issue(s) could be. I don't think a lack of rock is the issue, I've seen tanks with less that don't have fish fighting and dying like that.

The 345g is now 2.5 years old. Parameters are stable or only very slowly changing (NO3/PO4). I am talking about weeks here. Currently only dosing a 2 part kh buffer (1x 1ml daily and Red Sea NOPOX (1x 25ml daily) to help keeping the nutrients stable. Slowly stopping the dosage now though.

Equipment:
- Skimmer Nyos Quantum 220
- 2 vectras vm2
- sometimes active carbon but not constantly to not cause HLLE
- 2 reefwave 45

Nutrient export:
- Skimmer
- Refugium
- NOPOX

Water changes once a month 15%

345g Parameters:
- NO3 15
- PO4 0.1
- Ca 440
- Mag 1400
- KH 9.2
- Sal 1.024/ 34 g/l / 34‰

Stocking list (alive):
- 1 Blue tang
- 1 Purple tang
- 1 Yellow tang
- 1 bristletooth tang
- 1 chelmon butterfly
- 1 ocellatus butterfly
- 1 flameangel
- 1 bicolor angel
- 1 bicolor goatfish
- 1 marine betta
- 2 maroon clowns
- 1 banded sleeper goby
- 8 chromis virids
- 7 indian ocean lyretail anthias
- 1 dragonet
- 1 canari wrasse (recent addition)
that should be it I believe ... might edit it if I recall something else

What died over the years:
- 1 lawnmower blenny
- 2 chromis viridis
- 1 lyretail anthias
- 1 lemon peel tang
- 1 tomini tang
- 1 dragonet
- 1 banded sleeper goby
- 1 bicolor goatfish
- 1 flameangel
- 1 bicolor angel
- 1 quyoi parrot