37 gallon tank help

[tomclx]

I have a 37 gallon tank. It has been running for about a year. It has 2 Oscullos clowns, 1 yellow tang, a peppermint shrimp, and 2 cleaner shrimp. as well as a mandarin fish and a royal gramma. 52 pounds of live rock and live sand. and 3 hermits. Is this to much for my bio load. I havent had any problems in 5 to 6 months.

 

[dhughesz28]

Watch out for the Tang Police! ! !

5 fish in a 37gal?? It might work if the fish are all small, but a yellow tang in a 37??? How is he doing? How is his color? How big is he? How long have you had him?
There isn’t that much room in that tank for the YT. With 4 other fish and that much LR, there cant be any room for that tang to be able to swim happily.
The rule of thumb is generally 1inch of fish per 5gal. So for a 37gal tank that would be 7.4” of fish. If you spread that 7.4” over 5 fish, that’s 1.48” per fish, I’m guessing that each of your fish is longer than then, especially the YT. IMHO, your tank is to small for those fish to be happy/stress free.
But what do I know, if your tank has been operating like this for 6 month with all those fish and shrimp, than you must be doing something right!! You know what they say, if it aint’ broke, don’t fix it. So if all your tank buddies seem happy and healthy, then don’t change a thing.
If by any chance your asking this question looking for encouragement to upgrade, then yes by all means, get the biggest tank you can fit/afford. You will enjoy the larger tank, and your fish will love you for it, I promis :jumping: :jumping:

 

[tomclx]

Thanks for the reply. The yellow tang seems very happy. He hasnt seemed stressed at all . He was given to me by a person that had to go overseas. He eats fisn, and seesmvery content.

 

[darth tang]

The Tang will eventually stress out due to lack of swimming space. This can cause a couple disease namely Ick. This can and most likely will spread to the other fish. Ask yourself if one fish is worth all your other fish....just something to think about.
Is the mandarin fish on frozen food or flake. If not they eat pods from the live rock and the tank you have can not sustain enough pod growth to provide for this fish. Your options are returning the mandarin and or buying live copepods to keep up your mandarin's diet. This isn't very cost effective or practical is it is difficult to get pods on a regular basis.
Just some FYI.....