60 Litre Tank - How Many Fish Can I Have In It?

[Bambi211]

I,ve always overstocked my tank, and lost all my fish via this. I never seem to be able to make a stable amount of fish live.

Ive got a 60 litre tank, How many fish roughly would you say I could have?

Im thinking of buying swordtails, Plattys, Black Mollies, Neon Tetras. (Possibly siamese fighter)

Any advice would be much appreciated

x0x

 

[drobbyb]

I,ve always overstocked my tank, and lost all my fish via this. I never seem to be able to make a stable amount of fish live.

Ive got a 60 litre tank, How many fish roughly would you say I could have?

Im thinking of buying swordtails, Plattys, Black Mollies, Neon Tetras. (Possibly siamese fighter)

Any advice would be much appreciated

x0x

That's roughly 16 inches of fish for that tank. Female swordtails can top 5 inches in length. You could keep one. Black mollies get to 3 inches. You could keep a few. Platy's get to 2.25 inches. You could keep a few. The tetras would be a good addition at 1.25 inches each.

With those choices I would say 6 neons and 3 black mollies. That's fully stocked.

 

[Truck]

1 inch per us gallon for the first 6 months then you can slowly creep up to 1cm a litre, but in my honest opinion i would say 10 small fish to get you started, thats after cycling of course.

and neons arent suitable for a new tank, they are best suited for a system of atleast 4 months old+

 

[Bambi211]

Ah right ok.

Dont worry ive had my tank for 8 months now. Its all fully cylced.

Just havent had much look with stocking of fish.

x

 

[Truck]

do you keep up with water changes etc?

 

[aaronnorth]

what filtration do you have on it? I have 17 black neons in my 60l, but it is filtered with a fluval 205 external, and 50% weekly water changes), so obviously if you over filter and keep up with water changes this also allows for more stocking than usual.

 

[Syphoniera]

Don't know if you've ever considered Black Phantoms, rather than the larger fish, but they are lovely and very nice-natured.
I've wanted some for some time - finally have 6 in an empty 15 gal. I'm using as a Q tank right now (they're going in a 35 gal tetra tank and might get a few more down the road) and am even more charmed than expected.
They are relatively tall for their size but quite flat in shape and only one and a half inches max, so can have higher numbers than with the larger fish, unless your heart's set on livebearers.
The males and females look rather different, so it's almost like having two similar types schooling together.
You could, if you liked, get some of these, and a half-dozen or so neons down the road, and make a very nice display, and possibly still have room for a few otos or small cories.

I also have in the Q tank, with the Phantoms, 4 Long Fin White Cloud Mountain Minnows (AKA Meteor Minnows, slender, torpedo-shaped fish, maxing out at an inch and a half also) bought at the same time and destined for a 15 gallon which already has 4 regular WCM, several pygmy cats, (which will eventually be increased to a school of 8 to 10, when I can finally get hold of some more) a male Betta and a very small male guppy/Endler cross, which shows how many smaller fish can go into a smaller but mature, well-planted tank - which is already very active and a real pleasure to watch, whenever anyone's actually visible among the forest within.
(I'm also running both an Aquaclear Mini and a box filter in that 15 g. - snicker at the old-fashioned box filter if you will, but I have the option of running charcoal if I like, I can run 3 filters off one pump, and my betta likes playing in the bubbles.)
There are real advantages to smaller fish for smaller tanks - so much more is possible.

Edit: hi, I'm running for the title of Typo Queen again this coming year, and I feel I have a very good chance of winning.