How Many Fish?

[jimboberdy]

hi,
i have recently been given a small 28 litre tank for my birthday. i have just about completed cycling my tank with fish (2 Plattys) ammonia 0.1: nitrite 0.01: pH6.8

i have good filtration and have added a 4inch airstone. i have a fineish white substrate and some plastic plants (for now)

i was planning on having the following fish in there but want to make sure that it isnt too overcrowded as i want them to thrive.

2 plattys
1 bristlenose
3/4 neons or cardinals (cant make up my mind)
1 pakistani loach

possibly a ghost shrimp or 2 at a later date.


any suggestions would be welcome as to the overcrowding and/or what order to slowly add my new friends.

jim

 

[dwarfgourami]

Hi jimboberdy and welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately, 28 ltrs is quite a small tank, so I'm afraid it couldn't really house a bristlenose. They need more space and they produce a surprising amount of mess- I'd say a 60/70 ltr tank was a minimum. I don't know a lot about pakistani loaches, but suspect that they need more manoeuvering room.

I am going to assume that 0.1 is the lowest reading your test kit will give and that you therefore have no ammonia or nitrite. If there are traces of either, you need to wait before adding fish.

A very very basic guiding line for the biological side of things is not to add more than 1 inch of smallish fish per gallon of water (larger fish you have to do different calculations because of greater body mass). 28 ltrs is about 7 gallons, so allowing 2 inches each for the two platies you have that, that only leaves room for a couple more fish. Note that this is only the start of the calculations, you then have to take into account whether the fish need to school or not, whether they are fast swimmers who need a long tank, whether they are territorial etc etc.

Starting with the two platies you have, are they male or female? You will se this if you look at the anal fin (the one by their bottoms): females have an ordinary fan-shaped fin while males have a sort of rod-like contraption.

If they are a male/female pair, you should really add another female to take stress off the first, as males want to mate non-stop. The only problem with this is that the tank will quickly fill with babies. Then again, the parents may well eat the babies. 3 grown platies would take up most of your stocking, but you could add some shrimps.

If they are both males, it may be a good idea to add a couple more males, as they can get a bit scrappy with each other, and more males spreads aggression. This would complete your stocking. Even so, there isn't a lot else to add, as most fish small enough to make the remaining tank space need to be in larger groups, like tetras. You could get away with a small group (3-4) of the tiniest corydoras- like corydoras habrosus.

3/4 neons is a possibility, but not ideal as neons prefer larger groups.

A female/female pair should be ok and you could then add something else that is small.

 

[jimboberdy]

thanks for the reply,

they are 2 female plattys

how about if i simply add 4 neons and leave it at that?

would i be ok without an algea eater?

 

[jimboberdy]

are snails a good idea for removing algea?