Over Crowding Concerns

[The Sandman]

Hi all, I have the feeling that ive gone over board and over stocked my 20Gl tank.
The dimensions of the tank are 24"x15"x15"

The fish I have are:
12 guppies
2 Peppered Cories
2 Black Widow Tetras
5 Neon Tetras

What cha think? just a bit concerned that maybe my filter (IPF duo 3) wont be able to cope, although there are no physical indications so far that confirm my fears.

Thanks in advance

 

[newland]

I'm not sure if the tank is over stocked. I should think an established tank of that size would be able to cope with that. (but i'm no expert so don't take my word for it)

Did you add all the fish in at once? or over a period of time?

 

[sylvia]

If the guppies are all male, you aren't majorly over-stocked and everything will be fine. However, female guppies are larger and, if you have a mixture, you are considerably over-stocked. I am not familiar with your filter but I'd think that it should be able to cope provided you keep up with maintainance, possibly increase water changes once the fish start reaching full size, and provided the tank is established enough and not still in the cycling process or unstable.

One more note... if you have any male guppies - especialy fancy types with long fins - the black widows will eventualy start shredding them. Also, tetras should be in groups of 6 - the neons would be ok but the widows might end up seriously chasing and causing some damage to the other fish' fins. I know there's nothing you can do now as you can't fit any more fish in but watch them all closely and be prepaired to take the widows back to your LFS if they are bullying the other fish.

 

[annka5]

Was going to make same comment as Sylvia.

The basic thing is generally that you can figure on 1" per gallon, thats US gallon, excluding tail, and adult size of fish.

However. personally, I reckon you need to "tweak" that for the simple body shape differences of fish, and therefore biological impact; those two give you an idea of water quality issues.

Also where in the tank they like to swim (e.g. your tetras and guppies problly stay in mid-zone), if they're territorial, how active they are (for basic swimming space), etc will give you an idea if they will feel "squashed" or always be "in each others way".

 

[The Sandman]

Thanks for all your replies,

The tank is fully cycled, and i added the around 3-5 fish in monthly intervals so not to overload the filter. The filter is an internal one and is recomended for 3' tanks.

The guppies, im afraid are mixed tho their tails aren't fancy n wavy.

Could please elaborate and explain tho whole "tweaking" thing plz??

Thanks again

 

[annka5]

I meant that if you were to take fish like a neon tetra, which has a slim body shape, and a fish like, e.g. angel fish, then per inch of length the neon would produce less waste than the angel fish, becuase the angel fish is "taller".
Am not explaining this very well, but if you think of the volume of the fish, then you'll see that measuring only in terms of inches of length could be a bit misleading.