60 Ltr Stock
- Thread starter L_Plates
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Tizer
Team TetraTEC
i would say a trio of them but no more, maybe opt for pandas
BigbruiserAl
I ain't gettin on no plane fool
Pretty sure 6+ would make them secure and happy, then again 3 should be ok depend if you one of these people that will put the fidh 1st?
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
I am not one of the good stocking advisors on here but I'll make a few comments until they come along.
First of all, it is always good to take a stab at doing your own calculations for basic stocking capacity. Every beginner should get in the habit of doing this. Here's one way of going about it, perhaps not the best, but one way:
Make a list of each of your 4 species up there. Using TFF and a web search page, look up three or four species description pages (you know, those pages that tell you all about that species of fish, what food they like and how to breed them etc.) and jot down the largest size the page claims that species might grow to. If they list a "usual" largest size and then another bigger one they "sometimes" get to then just use the "usual" one. Now make a judgement call about which "largest size" to use or just average them. You may get a feel for which pages seem more serious than others (and by the way, in the long run you may find members on here that have opinions abour particularly good species sites etc.) Convert your lengths to inchs if they aren't in that already.
Now consider your tank. It's a 60L/15G roughly, right? So you've got 15 inches of mature fish to play with. So if you decide mollies can grow to 3 inches each, then you've used up 12 of your 15 inches, for example. Now just plain inches is very rough and one of the first things to think about is how "fat" the shape of the fish is. A mollie is an example of a "normal" thickness tropical fish that follows this "inch guideline" pretty well. Cardinals and glowlights are examples of thin little tetras that are not "fat" enough to be average, so you can squeeze more of them in and still fit the "inch guideline." A cichlid would be an example of a "fat" fish that would take more than its share of your "inch guideline." (drat, now I've said inch guideline 3 times and will probably start a stocking war with people who like to stock tanks like the fish market in Bangkok, lol.)
Actually, why do we care about the "inch guideline" as beginners? It's because it helps you to have a tank that almost "runs itself" as opposed to tanks that can, for instance, kill fish pretty fast when the power goes out! Running an "inch guideline" stocked tank for the first 2 years of being a beginner is a great way to establish a correct "feel" as your hobbyist baseline. From there, you will "feel" things that are going wrong if you later begin to experiment with a more loaded tank. TFF is teeming with longer term hobbyists and truly experienced hobbists that will scream and scream about this topic but as a beginner you are better off just being more lightly stocked for a while!
OK, there's lots more wrong! Each of your tetra species is living according to evolutionary rules that make them comfortable when the swimming in the midst of hundreds or thousands of their own kind. To them this means safety and safety to a fish is a life or death constant thing. When these fish get down to a group below double digits they are really stressed and scared. Most experts have settled on 6 as pretty much the bare minimum number to fool these fish into being reasonably less stressed. It's a very real thing and you really want to try not to go below 6 I'd say. Eight is better, 10 better still, you get the idea.
What about the "feel" of the water chemistry to them? Well, mollies can be notorious for needing very, very hard water. They really like a pretty good GH number, which usually means a pH up around 8 or so. The mollie experts can help with this, it depends somewhat on the individual molly species. By contrast, most of your tetras like soft, acid water to be really happy. But none of this chemistry stuff is an absolute. Many of these tropicals will live in the "wrong" chemistry just fine as long as it stays nice and stable. So staying stable close to your tap water parameters can take you a long way.
There are many more aspects to good stocking plans but your your 15G this is a good start to the thinking. Your new planning may need to include some "re-homing!" The members love this stuff, so hopefully they'll have some good ideas for you.
~~waterdrop~~
edit: spelling
First of all, it is always good to take a stab at doing your own calculations for basic stocking capacity. Every beginner should get in the habit of doing this. Here's one way of going about it, perhaps not the best, but one way:
Make a list of each of your 4 species up there. Using TFF and a web search page, look up three or four species description pages (you know, those pages that tell you all about that species of fish, what food they like and how to breed them etc.) and jot down the largest size the page claims that species might grow to. If they list a "usual" largest size and then another bigger one they "sometimes" get to then just use the "usual" one. Now make a judgement call about which "largest size" to use or just average them. You may get a feel for which pages seem more serious than others (and by the way, in the long run you may find members on here that have opinions abour particularly good species sites etc.) Convert your lengths to inchs if they aren't in that already.
Now consider your tank. It's a 60L/15G roughly, right? So you've got 15 inches of mature fish to play with. So if you decide mollies can grow to 3 inches each, then you've used up 12 of your 15 inches, for example. Now just plain inches is very rough and one of the first things to think about is how "fat" the shape of the fish is. A mollie is an example of a "normal" thickness tropical fish that follows this "inch guideline" pretty well. Cardinals and glowlights are examples of thin little tetras that are not "fat" enough to be average, so you can squeeze more of them in and still fit the "inch guideline." A cichlid would be an example of a "fat" fish that would take more than its share of your "inch guideline." (drat, now I've said inch guideline 3 times and will probably start a stocking war with people who like to stock tanks like the fish market in Bangkok, lol.)
Actually, why do we care about the "inch guideline" as beginners? It's because it helps you to have a tank that almost "runs itself" as opposed to tanks that can, for instance, kill fish pretty fast when the power goes out! Running an "inch guideline" stocked tank for the first 2 years of being a beginner is a great way to establish a correct "feel" as your hobbyist baseline. From there, you will "feel" things that are going wrong if you later begin to experiment with a more loaded tank. TFF is teeming with longer term hobbyists and truly experienced hobbists that will scream and scream about this topic but as a beginner you are better off just being more lightly stocked for a while!
OK, there's lots more wrong! Each of your tetra species is living according to evolutionary rules that make them comfortable when the swimming in the midst of hundreds or thousands of their own kind. To them this means safety and safety to a fish is a life or death constant thing. When these fish get down to a group below double digits they are really stressed and scared. Most experts have settled on 6 as pretty much the bare minimum number to fool these fish into being reasonably less stressed. It's a very real thing and you really want to try not to go below 6 I'd say. Eight is better, 10 better still, you get the idea.
What about the "feel" of the water chemistry to them? Well, mollies can be notorious for needing very, very hard water. They really like a pretty good GH number, which usually means a pH up around 8 or so. The mollie experts can help with this, it depends somewhat on the individual molly species. By contrast, most of your tetras like soft, acid water to be really happy. But none of this chemistry stuff is an absolute. Many of these tropicals will live in the "wrong" chemistry just fine as long as it stays nice and stable. So staying stable close to your tap water parameters can take you a long way.
There are many more aspects to good stocking plans but your your 15G this is a good start to the thinking. Your new planning may need to include some "re-homing!" The members love this stuff, so hopefully they'll have some good ideas for you.
~~waterdrop~~
edit: spelling
Let me add to WD's response. I find that fishbase gives fairly good species descriptions but that our own fish species reference is fairly good. It is located here. Fishbase requires that you know a species name but gives a fairly good list of water parameters. If you know that, it can be quite helpful.
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