More fish or nah?

[TX_REEF]

Hello friends. Both my frag tank and display tank suffer from consistently low to zero nitrates. I have already removed the skimmers from both, which helped a bit, but I suspect coral growth and denitrification are smothering nitrate. I've been dosing neo-nitro, but I feel silly to do so when I could theoretically add more beautiful, magical ammonia factories (fish). Check out the below stock lists, and let me know if and what you think I should add to my systems.

Frag Tank 50 gallons, 48x24x12 inches, 40 breeder sump. limited rockwork, 1 in each corner. High flow.
Current Occupants:
Tomini Tang
pair of goldflake maroon clowns
sixline wrasse
Yellow-tail blue damsel
Humbug damsel (lives in the display fuge where he helps keep it free of leftover food and produced more ammonia for the corals in the frag display)

Main Display Red Sea reefer 350 G2, 70 gal display 47x20x21 inches, ~20 gallon sump. Dense rockwork, lots of hiding places.
Current Occupants:
Yellow Tang
pair of ocellaris clowns
sixline wrasse
starry blenny
coral beauty angel
2x springeri damsels

pics:
FRAG TANK

MAIN DISPLAY:

 

[BristleWormHater]

Blenny for the frag tank?
Cardinalfish! (Banggai,pajama,threadfin,yellow-striped,red eye) a lot of choices!

 

[fishywishy]

These are some good choices:

dwarf angel for frag tank
hawkfish
Midas blenny
Forktail Benny
red rooster wasp
DWG
Fire fish
A couple of cardinals
Some more wrasse(you got a lot of options)
Trio of chromis or anthias
royal gramma(or any basslet)

All of these fish produce a lot of waste so they would help with your nitrate problem.

You could also start heavily feeding a high protein diet to help increase nitrates, if you haven’t already.

 

[bobnicaragua]

Hey, TX Reef!

You should be able to add one or two more larger fish to your display. More tangs, a fox face, or pyramid butterfly.

I’ve always been able to keep nutrients up from just feeding the fish with substrate in the tank. The only time I really struggled keeping nutrients detectable was when I was running bare bottom.

A pellet auto feeder also helps.

 

[TX_REEF]

Hey, TX Reef!

You should be able to add one or two more larger fish to your display. More tangs, a fox face, or pyramid butterfly.

I’ve always been able to keep nutrients up from just feeding the fish with substrate in the tank. The only time I really struggled keeping nutrients detectable was when I was running bare bottom.

A pellet auto feeder also helps.

Thanks for the thoughtful insight! A butterfly would be sweet for the frag tank, fighting Aiptasia there..

I’m hesitant to just feed heavier because my phosphate is where I want it, and I’ve found that feeding heavier pushes phosphate much harder than nitrate. Also, more fish is preferable to wasting food from my perspective!

 

[TX_REEF]

Blenny for the frag tank?
Cardinalfish! (Banggai,pajama,threadfin,yellow-striped,red eye) a lot of choices!

I’ve always found cardinals kinda boring… maybe just me? Then again I’ve only ever seen the benggais. They just look so lazy and useless! Hahaha

 

[KrisReef]

Klein Butterfly for Aip's

 

[Reefering1]

To be clear, this is 2 independent systems?More snails and a fish or 2 sounds reasonable.. I like snails because they help keep things clean, provide ammonia, and self correcting population.
If you want to get crazy, how about adding a satellite tank with a eel or puffer or angels or something..(?)

 

[TX_REEF]

To be clear, this is 2 independent systems?More snails and a fish or 2 sounds reasonable.. I like snails because they help keep things clean, provide ammonia, and self correcting population.
If you want to get crazy, how about adding a satellite tank with a eel or puffer or angels or something..(?)

Yes, 2 separate systems.

I did just order a CuC re-up. Both systems have plenty of trochus snails as well.

Don't tempt me with a satellite tank! I have 2 reefcasa 18s that I haven't found time to setup. Goal here is to see what interesting fish I might be able to add to the existing systems to add more ammonia load since I can't sustain a health nitrate level without dosing...

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I haven’t added a new fish in almost 2 years, it feels oddly nice to avoid the stress of picking the fish then acclimation, QT, adding to main tank praying it gets along with other fish, checking on it constantly over the next few days….. I don’t miss that lol (I currently have 17 fish). So right now my mood is to say ‘nah’ lol. Good luck whatever you decide.

 

[bobnicaragua]

Klein Butterfly for Aip's

They are big time acro polyp nippers. I tried one. You’ll have no polyp extension.

 

[Reefering1]

I’m hesitant to just feed heavier because my phosphate is where I want it, and I’ve found that feeding heavier pushes phosphate much harder than nitrate

What do you currently feed? How much/often??

butterfly would be sweet for the frag tank, fighting Aiptasia there..

Yes, great idea! I suggest cbb.

 

[TX_REEF]

What do you currently feed? How much/often??

Yes, great idea! I suggest cbb.

flakes 3x a day (large pinch that can be eaten before filter gets it), frozen 2-3x a week, reef roids 2x a week

 

[Reefering1]

Maybe favor frozen more or feed more frozen?

 

[Maho.B]

I don't have an opinion on fish additions but I struggled with getting Nitrates up as well. I have 7 fish in a 110 gallon and I increased feeding as much as I could and only saw tiny increases. I decided to include regular coral feeding and that really helped. In addition to my regular mixed frozen and pellet fish feedings, I started feeding Oyster feast and Rotifeast each daily, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and I also added live phyto daily, and Benereef once a week. After just a couple weeks of this I saw the Nitrate go from around the .8 - 1.2 range to 3.8-4.2 range. Also, the corals seem to be loving it as well. Every system is different but thought I would throw it out there.