1st "draft" Of Stocking Plan

[David J]

Hi

I'm currently doing lots of reading up on the countless types of tropical fish available. I am getting my new fluval roma 90L for Christmas. It comes with the fluval U2 internal filter.

I've been using FishForums.net and have came up with the following list. Please can some good folks in the know give me some feedback on the list of fish, their compatibility, the numbers and anything else relevant that I may have over looked. I am also keen to know if these fish will give good overall cover, ie top, middle and bottom of the tank.

What about what the FishForums.net states regarding the filter? Would I really need another filter?
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Neon tetra X 6
Pygmy cory X 6
Guppy x 1
Dwarf Gourami x 2
High fin platy x 2
Galaxy Rasbora x 6
Dwarf Molly x 1
Cherry shrimp x 2

Your aquarium filtration capacity for above selected species is 88%
Recommended water change schedule: 2% per week.
Your aquarium stocking level is 17%
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Many many thanks in advance.

David

 

[crazyforcordoras]

What are Dwarf Mollies?

I would lose the galaxy rasboras. They are also known as Celestial Pearl Danios, and they require cooler water than a typical freshwater aquarium. Instead of them, i would add more to the neons. They look amazing in large schools!

 

[Electric Warrior]

If I were you, I would get an external. You will find that most people here that use tanks like the Roma or Rio, etc. decide to take out the internal and replace it with the external because they are generally superior. The internal is kind of unsightly, takes up quite a bit of room inside the tank, and with the external, you have a lot more space for holding media than you would in an internal. Something like the Eheim Ecco Pro 130 would be a good starting point for your tank. You can usually find some for a decent price on ebay or aquaristclassifieds, etc.

I second the up the number of neons and forget about the celestials. I would also HIGHLY recommend doing much more than a 2% weekly water change, lol! That formula is a bit incorrect. Also, how are you planning on cyclin your tank?

 

[leighton_87]

Looking at that stocking list there is no way that is 17% stocking for a 90 litre tank

I'm pretty sure you have used FishForums.net for the calculation. The standard settings on FishForums.net are inches and gallons. Please check that you have not done either a 90 gallon tank or put your cm dimensions in as inches. Lots on here wouldn't reccomend FishForums.net but I think it's a great start for beginners but please check you've put your dimensions/volume in correctly.

 

[leighton_87]

Just retread that and meant a lot wouldn't reccomend using the calculator as gospel but it's a great start for beginners

 

[David J]

Hi

Thanks for the replies.

First of all, after reading leighton_87's reply I can honestly say I HAVE NO IDEA why I said i had been using Fishforums.net as a calculator. It is FishForums.net that I was using. It was late last night when I wrote the orignal post so tiredness must have gotten the better of me.

You probably know already but it allows you to select your actual tank from a drop down menu so I selected the Fluval Roma 90 from the list and it populated the sizes etc. I've checked the dimensions and they are correct although Im not sure if it specifies whether its inches or cm's. The only thing that is a bit weird is that it says '408 US Gal'. My tank is 90 litres which I believe is about 19 UK Gallons but not sure how many US Gallons that is.

Crazyforcordoras - I saw Dwarf Molly for sale on a Tropical Fish online shop (i forget its name and Im at work just now) but it appears in the list of Molly's on FishForums.net. Thanks for your advice on the Rasbora's. A largers shoal of Tetra's sounds appealing.

Electric Warrior - Thanks for the advice on the filter. I am certain I will eventually upgrade to an external and will look at the one you suggest but for now I would like to get started with what comes with the tank (Fluval U2), even if it means less fish. Maybe in a few months i'll upgrade. I will be doing a fishless cycle starting ASAP after Christmas day. I am thinking that once I am cycled I would stock the fish gradually, building up to my capacity and I would at one point reach the capacity for my internal filter and that would be the time I would look to updgrade, although I read somewhere that if you've done a fishless cycle you can pretty much fully stock right away. What do you think?

I figured that the 2% water change was nonsense but glad you have confirmed. What do you reckon? 10%?

I'll have another look at the FishForums.net later and maybe just enter the details manually rather than selecting from the drop down menu.

One last thing, does anyone have any suggestions for a 'Centre Piece' fish? I wonder if the Gourami's would be classed as that. I've only seen pictures online so will need to go and have a look in a shop. I am looking to get a good number of smaller fish, a smaller number of medium and then a couple of bigger ones but im also keen to cover the bottom, middle and top of the tank.

Cheers folks, will check back later. Back to work for now

David

 

[David J]

Right, this is weird. Every time I type FishForums.net, and then submit my post, when I go back to read it, FishForums.net has changed to Fishforums.net. Even as I'm typing this I realised that once I have submitted the post, it won't make sense. Let me explain again. Every time I type 'Aq Advisor', (typed this time with a space in it) and submit the post, it automatically changes to 'fish forums.net'.

What's up with that? I thought I was going mad. Lol.

 

[David J]

I have checked aq advisor and the sizes in there are inches and when you,select my tank (don't know if this is the case with all tanks on list) it enters the number of cm's so I've converted the inches to cm's and entered those instead.

4 x Dwarf Gourami
10 x Neon Tetra
6 x Pygmy cory
2 x Cherry shrimp

It says my filtration is at 88%
I should do a weekly 25% water change
And the tank is at 94% stocking level.

Can anyone recommend another type of fish that is bigger than the tetras that I could add to finish off?

Thanks

David

 

[JenJ]

I have checked aq advisor and the sizes in there are inches and when you,select my tank (don't know if this is the case with all tanks on list) it enters the number of cm's so I've converted the inches to cm's and entered those instead.

4 x Dwarf Gourami
10 x Neon Tetra
6 x Pygmy cory
2 x Cherry shrimp

It says my filtration is at 88%
I should do a weekly 25% water change
And the tank is at 94% stocking level.

Can anyone recommend another type of fish that is bigger than the tetras that I could add to finish off?

Thanks

David

Just wanted to point out that on there the filtration is not a %age of your max capacity, but a %age of how filtered you are for that stocking ie you should be over 100%. According to this then, your filter is not enough for your stated stocking choice.

 

[David J]

Hi Jen

Yeh thanks. I intend on stocking the tank gradually, eventually ending up with those fish but will upgrade the filter at some point during the stocking process.

I'll probably get an external once I'm about 2/3 of the way through adding the fish.

Thanks,

David

 

[JenJ]

Great stuff. I'm hoping to get an external too, keep hearing on here how they're so much better

You could look at some of the fuller bodied tetras - black skirt/black phantom/lemon/X-ray.

 

[MBOU]

I believe the website/calculator is on the list of banned information on this forum to prevent people from advising it, its an awful website full of inaccurate and potentially dangerous information if taken too literally. You'd be far better off paying no attention to it at all.

For starter, a single guppy would be a very miserable one and secondly... there really isnt such a thing as a dwarf molly.

Here is a good bit of information on how to cycle your tank:
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/113861-fishless-cycling/

That said, I think it would be fine to start your tank off with the U2 filter, they are good.... but not excellant... the U2 is rated for max of 110L (but they work this out with no media in the filter and no fish in the tank)... you would want to halve that rating... so I would say a U2 will cope with a reasonably stocked 60L tank or less... besides.... you always want to aim to filter your whole tank 2-3 times over. So an external rated for 200 or 300L would be ideal for your tank (no need to keep pulling the filter out the tank, cheaper to buy media for if you use lots of biomedia and needs much less maintenance)... so something like Fluval 206 or 306 or an AquaManta 200 or 300 or a TetraTec EX700.

It will be easy to convert from internal to external, all you would have to do would be to set up the external on the tank and empty the sponges and biomedia from the internal into the external filter and carry on as you were.

As for stocking... stocking if you had an external would be far better than if you had an internal...

Internal:

2 x Dwarf Gourami (4 will certainly result in an all out war between gouramis, dwarves arent the friendliest species).
10 x Neon Tetra
6 x Pygmy cory
10 x Cherry shrimp (take up very little space and produce less waste than most fish)
6-10 x .... (any of the following)

-Black Phantom Tetras
-Red Phantom Tetras
-White Fin Bentosi Tetras
-Bloodfin Tetras
-Harlequins (normal, copper or hengeli)
-Lemon Tetras
-Beckfords Pencilfish
-Black Neons
-Emperor Tetras (purple emperors)
-Emerald Eye Rasbora
-Rice Fish

However... if you had an External filter.... and you had matured the tank and cycled it well and had lots of decor (real plants, drift wood etc... not just the odd ornament here and there.... too keep more fish, you need more territories!)

2 x Dwarf Gourami (4 will certainly result in an all out war between gouramis, dwarves arent the friendliest species)
2 x Honey Gourami (either yellow or red!)
10 x Neon Tetra
8 x Pygmy cory
10 x Cherry shrimp (take up very little space and produce less waste than most fish)
15-20 x .... (of the above species depending on size, maybe 6-8 larger like the phantom tetras or bentosi and 10-12 smaller like pencil fish, rice fish, copper harlequins etc).

That would be having a fully stocked tank and could take years to achieve and it is assuming the tank has the right kind of set up to keep so many different species happy. With fish... the general rule is "the more hiding places there are, the safer the fish feel... meaning they hide less"... if they have to dart from behind one bit of wood or ornament to the next, they wont be so happy as if they had lots of plants to zip in and out of.

Also, having lots of decor breaks up the view between the fish, they can get away from each other without getting angry with each other and means less fighting.

Either way... I would plan he cycling of the tank first and start saving like mad ask for aquatic shop gift vouchers for christmas!!

 

[Baccus]

The only problem I see is 10 cherry shrimp, unless you manage to get all female and not one of them already berried, there is a very slim chance that the cherry shrimp would stay at 10 for long

. Also I wouldn't put it past dwarf gouramis to eat cherry shrimp, neon tetras, harliquins anddwarf corys should all be fine with adult cherry shrimp though.

 

[MBOU]

Tbh if the end up breeding, plenty of shops will take decent looking shrimps but my thoughts were with all the other fish... shrimplets wont all survive.

I have similar species and regularly put netfulls of 20 odd neocaridina shrimp (blue tiger x cherry =blue and pink pearl coloured babies lol) in the heavily planted tank and occasionally i see one or two! The cardinals are the worst for eating shrimplets!

 

[David J]

Hi MBOU,

Thanks very much for your post. That is some great info and gives me lots to think about. I really appreciate the time you have spent replying. I will definitely use the thread on cycling when I am ready to start.

I now have a fair idea of what fish I want and I'm now looking at the substrate, decoration and plants. The tank is being delivered with bags of Dorset pea gravel. I've read that dwarf corys won't do well with this so I'm considering going for a much finer gravel or sand. I intend on having a piece of bogwood and some rocks. However, when looking into plants, I am very overwhelmed and finding it very difficult to decide.

Here are my thoughts so far:

I know I need to get a range of plants to go from the back to foreground. I know I need to create plenty of cover for the fish to make them more comfortable with places to hide. I am also reading that some floating plants will help the fish as some appreciate shaded areas.

My concerns/questions are:

I am worried that with me being a beginner with so much to learn about the fish themselves, that also having to learn about how to look after the plants will be too much. Am I worried about nothing? Will they pretty much just take care of themselves?

I am aware of the benefits live plants bring to the tanks. In light of my concern on maintenance etc, would it be a good idea to go for a mix of fake and live plants or should I choose one or the other?

As I said above, I am debating whether to go with gravel or sand. Does one have any benefit over the other when it comes to plants?

And here it is. The million dollar question. Based on the fish mentioned above, are there any particular plants you would recommend?

Thanks,

David