Could Someone Check My Stocking Plan Please?

[RipSlider]

Hello all.

My last two tanks were 650 litres and 1,100 litres. Since then we've moved to a house where the floors can't really cope with the weight of the big tanks, we've had a kiddie ( who know babies took up so much of your time ) Mrs Steve has started her own business, taking over half the house in the process. So, between 50kg bags of chocolate and stuffed Gruffalo's, theres not been much space to keep fish.

Having used the Husbands Secret Weapon ( Mrs Steve was sent on an all expenses paid trip to the shoe shop.... ) we've juggled things around and I'm getting a tank again. The issue I have is that it's 180 litres - which I know is an OK size but to me is tiny. I'm finding myself really unsure what an acceptable stocking level is.

The tank is just coming off it's first cycle now ( it'll cycle a second time - see below ) so it'll be ready for it's first fish in about 4-5 weeks time. I was wondering if someone could look at my thoughts and give comments in terms of density issues, territories in such a small space etc etc.

Tank setup
Amazon river setup, planted with a fair amount of bogwood in.
Filtration: Fluval 305, VectronUV, Fluid Bed filter, 30ft denitrator coil @ 50itres/hour -- Now the tank has initially cycled, the denitrator coil will cycle, which will take about 4 weeks. When it's done, I shouldn't ever see nitrates about a couple of ppm. I know it's a heavy filtration setup, but I figure I try to make my dog as comfortable as he can be, so why not the fish as well.

Target water stats are pH 6.8 and "fairly soft" water - still trying to see what that shakes out at - we have quite hard water where I live, but don't want to use RO if I can avoid it. Still working out what can be done with bogwood and Co2.

So, thats the tank the fish will be in.

My thoughts on fish itself are:

15 x x-ray tetra's OR 15 x lemon tetras - Gives me a central "shoal" fish
8 x cory julii - these are a little smaller than something like a sterbai - gives me a "bottom shoal"
3x Bolivian rams OR 3 x Krobia Xingu OR 3x Apisto Cacatuoides - gives me a bit of colour.
Plenty of Amano shrimp - may loose a few if I go down the Krobia route, but there will be plenty of hiding places.

once the tank is completely settled - 6 months or so later

3x otos.


Thats the plan at the moment.

So, my questions to you kind people:

1) Am I under/over stocked? If yes to either, by much or a bit?
2) Do you think I can get away with a larger cory, such as a sterbai?
3) Do you think I could get away with a pair of slightly larger chiclids instead of the three dwarves? - Specifically a Festivus ( Flag Chiclid )
I know these fish are claimed occasionally to be a bit nippy but I've kept them in communities in the past and they have been treasures. The tank would be well planted as well.


Thanks for any thoughts you have

Steve

 

[FishFanatic04]

I have a 46g and I had planned 3 opaline gourami, 3 apistos, 15 tetra and 8 cories. So you probably have room in yours for a bigger showy fish.

I feel understocked with that list. Can't help on the cichlid issue though. No experience.

 

[FishFanatic04]

I can't wait to see what you do. You have a ton of experience behind you.

 

[RipSlider]

I can't wait to see what you do. You have a ton of experience behind you.

Definately wouldn't say that - only been keeping fish a few years.

 

[minnnt]

Why not go with keyholes? You would easily fit a pair in there, maybe even two. A few members here have had bad experiences with festivums, eye gouging s.o.b's! Some of the dwarf acara's are excellent, check out magpie's pictures in the new world section. Unsure if cacatuoides are a hareem species of apisto's or if they're better off in pairs?

I have a shoal of 15 glowlight tetra's in my 180, and I am considering adding another 5. I also have a pair of cacs and 4 platies. Check out my thread in the members aquariums section.

Oh yeah, welcome back to the hobby.

 

[coldcazzie]

Why not go with keyholes? You would easily fit a pair in there, maybe even two.

Agreed, keyholes are lovely fish and you could definitely put a pair in 180L.

Unsure if cacatuoides are a hareem species of apisto's or if they're better off in pairs?

I believe Cacs are hareem.

I think you could go up to 20 tetras, and probably a few more than 3 otos as well, perhaps 6-8 as a start and go from there.

 

[Juggler75]

Tbh, I quite like your original stocking ideas, I'd go with them and then see from there. once the tank matures a bit I'd be tempted to go with more ottos. Gives you a chance to see which species you like too. I'm looking for Epactionotus aky as I think they look great but also like pitbull plecs.
One question though, why the denitrator? If heavily planted won't the nitrates be close to zero anyway? Dont get me wrong after reading about them they seem an excellent idea but unsure of the value in a planted tank.

 

[FishFanatic04]

To me...1,100 litre tanks = ton of experience

 

[RipSlider]

Thanks for the info guys.

I hadn't thought of Keyholes. Not sure why. Are they OK in a dark-water setup? Lots of tannins etc? I kind of thought they were a clear water fish. I'll look into them a bit more.

Sounds like I can bump up the otos and perhaps the tetras and the go looking for a pair of slightly larger chiclids. The shrimps are a must have, so finding something that won't decimate them is a key thing I have to keep in mind. ANyone know how keyholes do with Shrimps?


Juggler: I think there's two reasons for the denitrator. The first is that I want the nitrates at pretty much zero, pretty much all the time. I.e. where I would be thinking that 5ppm of nitrates is a major spike. I don't like the idea of the fish swimming in "bad" water. "normal" plants, like swords and crypts aren't going to grow fast enough to give me a nice wide margin to play in. Even if they did, they would still be locking up the nitrates WITHIN the tank, there is only a limited capacity.

Therefore the goal is to get the nitrates out of the tank completely. The simplest ways of doing this, at least in my experience, is to either use an algal scrubber, or to grow pondweed on the surface of the tank and remove it by the netfull each week. Algal scrubbers are brutal at removing nitrates ( at removing pretty much most nasty stuff ) but, at least initially, I want to go sump-less until I get back up to speed with fish keeping again without spending huge amounts of money. Pondweed is my favourite form of filtering, the fish love it, it's good for the water, it helps keep white spot at bay, it rips out nitrates from the tank and it's great in the wormery as well - but in this setup I'm going to have a crack at a "fully planted" type affair, lots of light and CO2 and all that jazz and I'm already tight on the light budget at about 1.4watts/gallon. So sadly using duckweed is out as well.

The other thing about both of these methods is that they're going to completely remove the "good" nutrients from the tank as well. I'll be pulling the iron out of the water as well as the nitrates.

With a denitrator, they're a bit of a pain to make, and they smell funny when they're cycling, but they'll give me a full anaerobic breakdown of the nitrate without removing the iron, and without blocking the light. With a 30foot coil in a 180 liter tank, I would expect to never have more than 1ppm of nitrate, even if I didn't do a water change for a month ( which I wouldn't do of course ) Only risky bit with them is that if you have a long power outage - say 12 hours or more, you can have a HUGE cycle event and wipe your tank out, so I have the denitrator pump running from a 12volt battery, and a trickle charger topping the battery up. That way the pump will run for 3-4 days without mains power, and it keeps the tank safe.

Thanks again - any other thoughts or comments, let me know.

Steve

 

[Juggler75]

Thanks RipSlider, until you'd posted I'd never heard of the idea, you learn something everyday in this hobby.
I only asked as I run 2 'low tech' low light tanks and every test I have done over last few months before water changes (every week to 10 days) have had nitrates at less than 2ppm so have been under the impression that the plants were soaking them up and was worried that your idea might have been detrimental in a planted aquarium.

Unable to help on the keyhole/shrimp question as never kept either species, only cherrys and CBS and in their 90L I only keep pitbulls, male endlers and mosquito rasboras to be on the safe side (although the cull stock seem to be surviving and multiplying in the community tank as there are lots of hiding places).

Looking at info available for Keyholes they seem to come from Blackwater environment so should be fine.

Hope someone can help you further.

 

[FishFanatic04]

I am wondering if your plants will lack for nitrogen. I am dosing Potassium nitrate and It leaves my nitrate tests at 20-40 ppm. When I am not dosing the KNO3 my nitrates test around 5. Probably not for long though because my plants would use much more then that in a few days...

 

[minnnt]

I still don't understand why you would want to remove all the nitrates when they're beneficial for plant growth as that is what type of setup you want to go with. The fish you want to keep are all pretty hardy, so I would have thought even nitrates at 60ppm would be acceptable. Also, if running co2 then you will need to be dosing ferts, a lot of which contain nitrates so it seems a bit daft really as the thing you want to implement will just remove it.

 

[coldcazzie]

A high tech planted tank with co2 addition will need macro fertilizer addition (nitrate and phosphate) for nutrients not to become a limiting factor. Are you worried about algae?

 

[RipSlider]

I makes more sense if you consider the entire system as a constantly changing system, rather than at a point in time.

Nitrates will be being produced every second of the day. Some of that will be taken up by the plants, some will further break down into Nitrogen, some will be consumed by anerobic bacteria in the substrate and perhaps in the filter etc etc etc

When you do a water tes, your testing for "spare" nitrates really.

Th denitrator will only run VERY slowly - about 5 liters an hour. It'll take 36 hours to cycle the tank once. Anything else that wants the nitrates will be able to get at them with no problems - plants - any any excess will be removed.

It would be different if I was removing the nitrates really fast - nothing else would get a chance to consume the nitrates, and so I'd be removing ALL the nitrates, rather than just the un-used nitrates.

Steve

 

[coldcazzie]

I see. I understand what you're saying - removing excess nitrates.

The reason for the concern is that when running a high tech tank we dose both micros and macros to excess, deliberately, so that nutrients do not become a limiting factor to plant growth. The whole point is that we don't know how much nitrate the plants need so we dose more than they need to make sure they get enough. There's a certain amount of trial and error when you start up your tank and start dosing - you spend usually several weeks adjusting the dosage to make sure you're providing more than what the plants need, rather than less. The risk with removing the excess is that it isn't excess at all, and this would show up in your tank as less than optimum plant growth. If your aim is not to have very fast high tech growth, then remove the co2, allow your fish waste to be the only plant food and again you'll have no need to remove the nitrates as the plants will do it for you, along with your weekly maintenance. I'm not sure whether removing the excess will work out the way you envision, but I'm intrigued to see it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm interested to see how it goes - a journal in the planted section would be really interesting, but please keep an open mind in case it doesn't work out for the kind of tank you want.