Fish Tank Calculator website I made!

[ambrosia04]

Hiiii! I made a AqAdvisor kinda page and wanted you all to give feedback! I'm still adding a lot of fish so if some popular ones are not there be patient hahaha
https://ambrosia04.github.io/FishTankCalc/
I want to know if the parameters are correct and if you like the UI to see if it breaks in other PC's!

It's still a WIP and I accept all the changes y'all think are necessary!

 

[GaryE]

I don't think any app can calculate stocking. There are far too many variables.
interactions
fish bulk
fish diet as affects waste production
behavioural needs and group social interactions
territorial needs
growth rates
oxygen needs/current

and more I can't pull off the top of my head. Each species would need that for the app to be valid. Things like one inch per gallon were a fish seller's calculation in the 1950s, designed to sell more. They aren't valid.

The existing apps online that people use grossly overestimate in my experience. They tell us what we (and retailers) want to hear, and not what we need to think about.

 

[ambrosia04]

I don't think any app can calculate stocking. There are far too many variables.
interactions
fish bulk
fish diet as affects waste production
behavioural needs and group social interactions
territorial needs
growth rates
oxygen needs/current

and more I can't pull off the top of my head. Each species would need that for the app to be valid. Things like one inch per gallon were a fish seller's calculation in the 1950s, designed to sell more. They aren't valid.

The existing apps online that people use grossly overestimate in my experience. They tell us what we (and retailers) want to hear, and not what we need to think about.

If there are numbers, it can be made into an app!

I want to know all those things to make an all in one app!
I get your point of it not being feasible tho hahahah, rn I look at
"latin_name": "Caridina mariae 'Tiger'",
"common_name": "Tiger Shrimp",
"category": "shrimp",
"type": "freshwater",
"size_cm": 3,
"min_tank": 30,
"temperature": [20, 25],
"ph": [6.5, 7.5],
"aggression": "peaceful",
"schooling": true,
"min_school": 10,
"max_group": 100,
"bioload": "low",
"plant_safe": true,
"activity": "medium",
"tank_position": "bottom",
"eat_shrimp": false,
"eat_snails": false,
"needs_algae": true

currently it looks at:
- Latin Name (Common Name): Amount
Energy: low/medium/high
Aggression: peaceful/semi-aggressive/territorial/aggressive/predatory
Min Tank Requirement: N L

- Overcrowding: Capacity at XX%
- Species incompatible with tank type
- Temperature overlap: MIN °C - MAX °C
- PH overlap: MIN - MAX
- Territorial conflicts: Species A & Species B may fight
- Predatory risks: Species X may eat smaller tank mates
- Schooling requirements: Species X needs at least N fish
- Group limits exceeded: Species X max group size is N
- High and low energy fish together
- Shrimp/snail risks: Species X may eat them
- Algae requirements unmet

- Total Bioload: XX L
- Maximum Min Tank Requirement among species: XX L
- Required Tank Size (if overstocked): XX L / XX Gal

 

[GaryE]

Dwarf Cichlids have a certain popularity, and availability. If you combine them with other substrate territorial types, then you have to take into account spawning strategies (cave/open/mouthbrooder). You have to look at attitudes toward fish like the cory group. Nannacara often kill them, or try to causing stress. Apistogramma cacatuoides tolerates them with chasing during spawning. Dicrossus maculatus or filamentosus are available dwarf Cichlids, but not substrate oriented. Mikrogeophagus ramirezi has a totally different spawning strategy. How does a warm water Apistogramma interct with a Dicrossus?

How do numbers cover that?
You end up with formulas like 'if the fish is a Nannacara, it...., but if it's a eunotus complex Apistogramma, it...."

I could offer examples of barbs, Characins, cory group fish, anabantoids and other groups where species behaviour in the aquarium determines numbers far more than any formula can cover. It's still a hobby of (hopefully grounded by study) judgment calls. Rather than an app, I'll still argue for reading and research prior to decisions.

It might give you a rough guide to stocking for low quality aquarium stores and absolute beginner aquarists. But even there, its attempt to reduce biodiversity to an app falls short of its goal, unless its goal is to survive and get hits online.

aqadvisor does that. I've played with it when posters here have cited it as 'gospel truth', and to me, that's about what it is. You have to have faith in it to accept those suggestions, and I find it consistently in favour of overstocks. People want that, so it survives and is cited.

What I'd like is an app like the cooking apps that store links to recipes that could make it easy to store pdfs of scientific papers. It could also link to credible hobbyist sites. I'm for words, not numbers... and combinations of them.

 

[anewbie]

IMHO the biggest problem is territory required of fishes and there are 100's if not 1000's of kept freshwater fishes that have different territorial need.

There are some basic rules of imcompatilbility and these can mostly be covered but they won't of course be 100% accurate which is probably ok (such as no catfish with dwarf cichild which is an over simplification of cory don't mix well with territorial fishes); but even many characin have territorial need and the expertise to capture this information is scarce.

For example while cardinal tetra for example school happily as one large family Nannostamus sp sao gabriel have definite territories and will attack even larger cichild to defend them. That also begs the question if the territory requirement is within a species or global.

The issue you run into is if your ap is conservative and admits when it doens't know an answer then people will frown at the results and if it is too aggressive and makes assumptions (such as treating all nannostamus the same); then people will make potentially make very costly errors and curse the ap creatror.

I hate to be negative but after seeing aqadvisor frequently incorrect results i've gave up on these things (though at least aquadvisor will sometime point out obvious incompatibilities - it misses a lot).

To write such an program is you need 10's if not 100's of experts in the field to provide update on individual species they are expert knowledge. Even then you will get weird combos that no one know the answer - like can you keep xyz with qrz in tank size nzr for which this combination has never been seen. Worse with the constant discovery of new fishes the updates would have to be frequent for years and years.

It goes back to my begging the question - will xyz work in a 20x20 (feet) aquarium even if it breaks in a 5x5 (cm) aquarium. No one knows because no one really understand the general territorial requirements of many fishes - only that they are territorial.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Good luck. I am always fascinated by people who try to do the impossible. Most of the important fish information I had acquired came in one of two ways. The first was by consulting with the experts who should have the answers and advice I needed to succeed. The other was from experienced. The latter way may have taught me but it also cost a number of fish their lives.

Here is the other thing I learned. Science is mostly interested in the natural world when it comes to doing the research about fish. But once we put them into a glass box this changes certain things. And what makes this complicated is what works for one fishkeeper may not do so for another. Every tank is unique. There are simply too many variables.

Ask 100 people who all keep the same species of fish what the best set-up for them is right down to foods and about the only thing they will agree on is fish need to be in water and to eat.

And then there is another issue- finance. I can afford to buy any size tank I need for a given fish project. I can pay up for a better filter, I can afford to buy pricier fish foods which may be the more nutritious. But what about a youngster just getting into the hobby who has minimal money to spend?

When I set up my first tank over 25 years ago I had a bunch of rules I made based on what I learned from reading and searching online. I would ben had one of thise under the tanks filters (canisters). I still have two of three going. I would never get any of those ugly foish which would suck onto the glass or other things (plecos). To date I have had about 2,000 plecos born in my tanks. I would never have live plants, artificial was the way to go, I am downsizing these day and only have 9 mostly jungle tanks filled with live plants.

Here is the problem with your project

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I will say only this. According to National Geographic:

There are more than 800 known freshwater fish species in North America alone. Worldwide, the number is over 10,000 species. Some species of freshwater fish, such as salmon and trout, are called anadromous.

So, eliminate half of them as not being appropriate to keep in home awuariums and all you have to work with is 5,000 species. Ok, let us make it even simpler, do it for thr 1.000 most commonly kept species in home aquariums.

Here is what the Live Aquaria site says about all this. I assume the blow includes both fresh and saltwater fish.

Questions to ask when choosing fish​

The correct way to set up a new aquarium (after you are sure a fish aquarium is right for you) is to first research and decide what type of fish you would like to have in the aquarium. There are over 25,000 identified species of fish and over 3,000 of these are available to the aquarist. To help narrow down your list of desirable fish you need to consider all the following questions about the potential candidates:

• How big is the fish going to get?
• If the fish gets large, will it prey on or frighten smaller fish in the aquarium?
• Is the fish too small to fit in with the other fish in the aquarium?
• Is the fish territorial and will it require a large space of its own?
• Does the fish eat other fish (many tropical fish do)?
• Does it nip the fins of other fish?
• Is it aggressive - or is it too shy and nervous to live with certain other species?
• Does it eat live plants?
• Does it dig in the bottom of the aquarium?
• What kind of water does it require (pH, hardness, temperature, etc.)?
• Is it available where you live?
• What does it cost?
• Is it raised domestically or live caught?
• Does this particular fish need to live in groups, or does it prefer to live alone

from https://www.liveaquaria.com/blogs/a...g-the-right-fish-for-your-freshwater-aquarium

 

[SammyTargo]

Before I check the website, after reading replies:
I disagree. There are many factors that affect the stocking of your tank, however it is still useful for constants such as water parameters and tank size. It can't get specifics but that's in general just not even the point of these websites. It gives a good overview, and is good to organise your thoughts instead of individually looking at each inhabitant's needs. Once the calculator gives the main okay, then you specialize. Nobody in the right mind should be using a single webpage or software to do all of their preparation, and it is important to spend longer amounts of time doing the research on the pets you plan to own. I will now look at the website:

After looking at website:
This is a decent calculator. I like it, but AqAdvisor still does your software's role better. It has more customization in terms of juvenile sizes, and filtration. The problem is I slotted in the stocking on my most successful tank, with some generosity towards populations because multiple specimens in the tank had bred and I only included minimum amounts of fish that were in the tank; it told me I had 125% stocking levels at least, but my tank realistically ran perfectly after 2 months on 0 NH4 and NO3, ~10 NO2 consistently, running for generations of fish and many years. It can't factor in certain things, which is fine because I know it is hard with these apps, and fishkeepers aren't always able to achieve the levels I achieved in some of my tanks. I did changes 1-2 times a month and it ran flawlessly because I had a very stable bacteria layer, and surprisingly when people ask me, a non-excessive filtration. The only fish that died in that tank were from infections. I see the point of the app, but it can't determine personalised scenarios. It is a good guide for the inexperienced keeper that needs to follow the general, appropriate procedure.

 

[ambrosia04]

I will say only this. According to National Geographic:



So, eliminate half of them as not being appropriate to keep in home awuariums and all you have to work with is 5,000 species. Ok, let us make it even simpler, do it for thr 1.000 most commonly kept species in home aquariums.

Here is what the Live Aquaria site says about all this. I assume the blow includes both fresh and saltwater fish.

from https://www.liveaquaria.com/blogs/a...g-the-right-fish-for-your-freshwater-aquarium

I added as many things as I could lol, but it's true it's impossible hahaha, every fish is its own little world, but oh well, I'm going to keep making this as a passion project, I'll put a "Always as professionals first" as a warning at the top

 

[ambrosia04]

Before I check the website, after reading replies:
I disagree. There are many factors that affect the stocking of your tank, however it is still useful for constants such as water parameters and tank size. It can't get specifics but that's in general just not even the point of these websites. It gives a good overview, and is good to organise your thoughts instead of individually looking at each inhabitant's needs. Once the calculator gives the main okay, then you specialize. Nobody in the right mind should be using a single webpage or software to do all of their preparation, and it is important to spend longer amounts of time doing the research on the pets you plan to own. I will now look at the website:

After looking at website:
This is a decent calculator. I like it, but AqAdvisor still does your software's role better. It has more customization in terms of juvenile sizes, and filtration. The problem is I slotted in the stocking on my most successful tank, with some generosity towards populations because multiple specimens in the tank had bred and I only included minimum amounts of fish that were in the tank; it told me I had 125% stocking levels at least, but my tank realistically ran perfectly after 2 months on 0 NH4 and NO3, ~10 NO2 consistently, running for generations of fish and many years. It can't factor in certain things, which is fine because I know it is hard with these apps, and fishkeepers aren't always able to achieve the levels I achieved in some of my tanks. I did changes 1-2 times a month and it ran flawlessly because I had a very stable bacteria layer, and surprisingly when people ask me, a non-excessive filtration. The only fish that died in that tank were from infections. I see the point of the app, but it can't determine personalised scenarios. It is a good guide for the inexperienced keeper that needs to follow the general, appropriate procedure.

I see, could you please tell me what you inputted? I want to look at them and figure out why it's calculating it as that! It'd be pretty useful for me to learn too