HELP! Overstocked in a 29 biocube?

[Wet Nerd]

Hello. I have a 29 gallon biocube with 16 lbs of live rock. Before you violently rip my throat out, i have aprox 2'' live sand. I have two little ocellaris clowns, one full grown fire goby, one dragonface pipefish, 1 emerald crab, 2 fire shrimp and some snails. Am i overstocked? Will I have too many phosphates for corals? I also really wanted to add a tiny pistol shrimp-goby combo. 5 fish doesn't seem too crazy for a 29, considering my fish are pretty small and i have only 16lbs lr. Please get back to me. thank you

 

[DaveK]

Your about at your maximum stocking limit at this point. I would not add anything else,

By the time you add live rock and a sand bed, the actual amount of water in your system is only about 22 to 24 gal or so. You can figure about 1 inch of fish per 5 gal of water. Figuring your fish at a conservative 2 inches each, you already have about 8 inches of fish in a tank that should have about 5.

You also need to allow for growth, Clowns can easily get to 3 or 4 inches over time.

While we are on the subject. 16 lbs of LR is far too little. You usually want about 1 lb per gal of water, so you should have about 10 more lbs of rock in there. Keep in mind that in a SW reef system, the live rock is the biological filtration. Don't skimp on it. You can use dry reef rock to add to what you have. It will be a lot less expensive compared to actual live rock. It will become alive with bacteria and other things in time.

 

[Desmond]

I would think you are at your limit. As said above you need to add some more live rock to your tank

 

[Desmond]

Hello. I have a 29 gallon biocube with 16 lbs of live rock. Before you violently rip my throat out, i have aprox 2'' live sand. I have two little ocellaris clowns, one full grown fire goby, one dragonface pipefish, 1 emerald crab, 2 fire shrimp and some snails. Am i overstocked? Will I have too many phosphates for corals? I also really wanted to add a tiny pistol shrimp-goby combo. 5 fish doesn't seem too crazy for a 29, considering my fish are pretty small and i have only 16lbs lr. Please get back to me. thank you

Do you mind me asking how old your tank is ?
dragonface pipefish can be difficult to feed . Do you buy copepods for fedding or how are you feeding it and is it eating ?