How many fish

[Verity Coleman]

I have a relatively new tank (5 months) and am almost done filling with fish. It is approximately 180l I think although was custom made to dimensions rather than volume so I don’t know for sure. I have the following fish and am hoping to get a couple more Corys (because one will be lonely) and a couple more guppy but it may be too much:

5 x rosy tetra
5 x runny nose tetra
5 x neon tetra
4 x rainbow
2 x dwarf gourami (1 male/ 1 female)
2 x guppy
1 x 3 stripe Cory
6 x painted platy

 

[Essjay]

You can use the calculator on here to work out the volume of your tank, it's in the How To Tips at the top of the page.

Do you have hard or soft water? You should be able to find out on your water supplier's website. They should give a number and a unit - you need to know the units because they could use any one of half a dozen!
The reason I ask is because you have hard water fish (guppies, platies) and soft water fish (all the rest).


Besides more cories you also need more of each species of tetra. While 6 is the minimum number, they do better with more.
But this depends on your water being soft enough for these fish. If you could let us know the hardness (number + unit) we can advise you better.

 

[Colin_T]

To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.
When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

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What species of rainbowfish do you have?
Some of them can get to 4 inches long and could rough up the guppies or eat the tetras.

 

[Verity Coleman]

You can use the calculator on here to work out the volume of your tank, it's in the How To Tips at the top of the page.

Do you have hard or soft water? You should be able to find out on your water supplier's website. They should give a number and a unit - you need to know the units because they could use any one of half a dozen!
The reason I ask is because you have hard water fish (guppies, platies) and soft water fish (all the rest).


Besides more cories you also need more of each species of tetra. While 6 is the minimum number, they do better with more.
But this depends on your water being soft enough for these fish. If you could let us know the hardness (number + unit) we can advise you better.

Hi

I have soft water. 52 CaCo3/ml. But the shop did sell me a KH buffer to add with water changes to suit the platys.

 

[Verity Coleman]

To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.
When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

---------------------
What species of rainbowfish do you have?
Some of them can get to 4 inches long and could rough up the guppies or eat the tetras.

Not sure about rainbow fish breed. Google doesn’t seem very helpful! But I’ve had them about 4 months and they are about an inch long if that.

Calculated water volume is 176l

 

[Colin_T]

If you can post some pictures of the rainbowfish I might be able to ID them for you. Otherwise check out the following link. It has colour pictures of all the rainbowfish known as well as information about their care and keeping.
http://rainbowfish.angfaqld.org.au/Melano.htm

 

[Essjay]

52 mg/l CaCO3 is 52 ppm and 2.9 dH, the two units used in fishkeeping. It is very soft, too soft for guppies or platies. But making the water harder is not a good idea as the other fish won't like hard water.
A KH buffer won't make the water harder, another piece of mis-information from a shop.


The best thing to do would be to rehome the guppies and platies - see if the shop will part exchange them for more cories and tetras. Take the tetras up to 8 each and the cories to 6.

You do need to identify the rainbows as a lot of them are hard water fish.

 

[Byron]

I agree. There really is no "middle road" here. The soft water species will be happier with the water as it comes out of the tap (GH and pH). There is no value in making life more difficult for them in order to try and accomodate fish (livebearers like platy and guppy) that need much harder water. In a separate aquarium, this could be more easily achieved with a calcareous substrate (or an additive, though the one they sold you as essjay said is not going to do what you need). But staying with the one tank, and soft water fish, is the way you really must go. The rainbows may be OK or not, once we know the species.

 

[Discus-Tang]

hardness/pH is really not a big deal unless it's unstable (potentially due to a low KH); most captive bred fish, even neons will be fine between 5.8-8.6 pH and 2-10 dGH.

 

[Byron]

hardness/pH is really not a big deal unless it's unstable (potentially due to a low KH); most captive bred fish, even neons will be fine between 5.8-8.6 pH and 2-10 dGH.

I feel the need to clarify a couple things with this. While commercially-raised fish may have a wider tolerance than wild caught, there are limits. And in many cases the fish are not really doing all that well, even though they may appear to be to us. A species that has evolved over thousands of years to function best in fairly specific water parameters is not going to change course because we want it to. And again while some show some adaptability, some do not.

You cannot keep livebearers healthy at a pH well below 7 and a GH below 10 dGH. The minerals these fish need to assimilate from the water passing through their system are not sufficient in soft water. And the continual adjustment the fish must make to maintain their blood at the same pH as the water is causing problems long-term.

 

[trash.binh91]

Your tank is not properly stocked, you have too many schools. You see, when you have too many schools, they become stressed out, so my advice is to get rid of the hard water fish, so you are left with the three species of tetras, rainbowfish, gourami and cories. Then you should get rid of one species of tetra, and populate more on the other two, and we need to see pictures of your rainbowfish to decide on advice. You also need to get about 3 more cories.

 

[Verity Coleman]

If you can post some pictures of the rainbowfish I might be able to ID them for you. Otherwise check out the following link. It has colour pictures of all the rainbowfish known as well as information about their care and keeping.
http://rainbowfish.angfaqld.org.au/Melano.htm

 

[Verity Coleman]

Not the best picture but here is the rainbow fish

 

[Verity Coleman]

Nobody has ever said anything about most of these points. The shop is go to is a fairly reputable, nationwide shop. They have mentioned lots of things about fish which are incompatible with each other/ don’t like being solo etc. But they have not mentioned needing as many as 6 of a species, nor that certain fish I have like different conditions (I specifically asked!)

 

[Essjay]

Fish shops are just about the worst place for advice. So many of the people who work there don't know or don't care and will make up any rubbish to get a sale. If you're in the UK (you use litres not gallons), there are two nationwide chains - Pets@Home and Maidenhead Aquatics. While MA is better than P@H their advice should still be taken with a pinch of salt.
So many shops sell fish as £x each or £y for 5. This just encourages people to get only 5. My favourite shop sells fish as £x each or 10% off if you get 5 or more, which is a much better idea, so if you get 8 you get the discount on all of them.

This forum is the best place to ask for advice as none of us will make any money from selling you things. Or look fish species up on http://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/ before buying anything.