How To Decide Appropriate Tank Size For Any Fish !

[crunch7]

People need to be. A fish is a pet just the same as dogs, cats, hamsters, gerbils etc. In the US you will go to jail for abusing a dog or cat, but people neglect and abuse fish by keeping them in tanks to small with other fish that want to eat them and blah blah blah and apparently it is okay. So forgive me if I am a little peeved that keeping 2 demasonis in a 20g tank with tiger barbs and a jewel is thrown at me as a good example of a jewel being peaceful. That poor fish has probably been through hell and back with the demosonis and I am amazed the tigers havent become food.

Hahaha truly you made your point, you have your real life experience, so did I when I saw that tank of his and how the fish were doing. I will warn him about the demasonis for sure its seems they are babies now thats the reason hes not facing any problems. The demasonis had however joined the barbs shoal . It was only after watching his tank did I started doing my research on demasonis and jewels, all I have seen is guppiies goldfish bettas and other peaceful fishes nearby.
Dieses you gotta see his jewel though its completely timid and at ease. Colours brilliant red with those sparkles.TBH its even better than the images on google.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Like I said, the problem may not be there now. But it will be. I would bet my life on it. Those demosanis get to be 4-5 inches long. They will quickly outgrow the tank and kill everything in it, including this "peaceful" jewel. Or if he is lucky, they may kill the jewel without her killing one of them first

 

[crunch7]

Like I said, the problem may not be there now. But it will be. I would bet my life on it. Those demosanis get to be 4-5 inches long. They will quickly outgrow the tank and kill everything in it, including this "peaceful" jewel. Or if he is lucky, they may kill the jewel without her killing one of them first

Woohoo now that's bad news, gotta inform him next time I see him. Dieses can you share the link to the pics of your jewel and severum tank if there is any. ..
I have become a fan for jewels and demasonis after doing so much research on them.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Like I said, the problem may not be there now. But it will be. I would bet my life on it. Those demosanis get to be 4-5 inches long. They will quickly outgrow the tank and kill everything in it, including this "peaceful" jewel. Or if he is lucky, they may kill the jewel without her killing one of them first

Woohoo now that's bad news, gotta inform him next time I see him. Dieses can you share the link to the pics of your jewel and severum tank if there is any. ..
I have become a fan for jewels and demasonis after doing so much research on them.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/378103-my-psychopath/page__p__3165167__fromsearch__1#entry3165167

They are best kept in pairs if you decide to have multiple jewels. Or if you are going to keep jewels with other fish, it needs to be ONE jewel, not a pair. They are even more vicious when breeding. Generally they do not get along with anything except synodontis catfish. Mine gets along with my severums, and they swim together, but I also have a 75g tank so that she can have alone time when need be. In a smaller tank (30 being the smallest for a single jewel, but bigger is recommended) then I would suggest her only tank mates being synodontis species catfish.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Hiya Crunch. I got to thinking about your business associates tank, and I thought of something that may potentially work for him. It was suggested to me a while back that keeping Jewels with Mbuna species could work (didnt work with mine) so his situation could be okay. What I would suggest to him would be to get a bigger tank. A lot of my thoughts were based on the tank being 20g with such aggressive fish. If he were able to spring for say, a 50g that is heavily rocked (and plants if he chooses although they will probably get dug up) I think that when his fish are fully matured, they could potentially live in peace

I really hope that his community continues to go well.

 

[crunch7]

Hey thats gonna be surreal, I just wished we could have got more insight about the topic so that we make some thing more conclusive.

 

[ian]

I just want to add to this thread...

There is some good content in this thread and that is the reason it is staying open. I will also add that if anyone ever feels they are being victimised in a thread then either PM one of us or hit the report button. The reports get dealt with very quickly.

As for the main content of this thread (this is me from personal experience), there is never one way to advise how to stock a tank. Looking at tank calculators isn't always the best way forward either. Sometimes even asking on forums isn't the best way, as we all have varying levels of experience, though asking on a forum is IMO the best way, out of the rest. Sometimes just having a little bit of Patience with people is the best thing to do, sometimes, somethings don't get put across properly, that's because we are all sat behind a keyboard crunching letters, rather than talking face to face. Just keep this in mind when replying to peoples posts on the forum. Last of all remember this is a family orientated forum, with youngsters reading the posts.

 

[raptorrex]

I just want to add to this thread...

There is some good content in this thread and that is the reason it is staying open. I will also add that if anyone ever feels they are being victimised in a thread then either PM one of us or hit the report button. The reports get dealt with very quickly.

As for the main content of this thread (this is me from personal experience), there is never one way to advise how to stock a tank. Looking at tank calculators isn't always the best way forward either. Sometimes even asking on forums isn't the best way, as we all have varying levels of experience, though asking on a forum is IMO the best way, out of the rest. Sometimes just having a little bit of Patience with people is the best thing to do, sometimes, somethings don't get put across properly, that's because we are all sat behind a keyboard crunching letters, rather than talking face to face. Just keep this in mind when replying to peoples posts on the forum. Last of all remember this is a family orientated forum, with youngsters reading the posts.

yes true.
i was thinking more of a minimum tank size, guide, for any given fish. with an explanation as to how it is arrived at.
compatibility is a whole other game though.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I believe this topic is EXTREMELY important. One of the saddest trends I see on this forum are folks who have all the right intentions, but have purchased a 10 gallon tank, and don't understand that it just isn't big enough for half the fish that they have crammed into it. And as Raptor stated (correctly IMHO), many LFS are to blame because they do give BAD advice when asked many times. Not all LFS are bad, nor is all advice given there bad. It almost seems as those the training manual for some stores is to read "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish".

It would be great if there was a thread/article on this forum to point newbies to in terms of tank size and appropriate stocking.

To add my two cents: Perhaps a format like this:


Either by dimensions or by volume - list all species (just like in the 10 gallon thread in the Beginner's Resource Center) and why they are ok in that size.


10 gallon:
Pygmy cories
Microrasboras
betta
etc.


20 gallon:
neon tetra
harlequin rasboras
virtually all corydoras
etc.

and so on...


Something like this might just keep folks from buying a single bala shark and putting it into a 2 foot tank, because "fish only grow to the size of their container", or a goldfish in a tiny bowl. There should be a disclaimer at the top that just because two fish are compatible in TANK SIZE, that doesn't automatically mean that they would be compatible in the same TANK. You wouldn't want to add corydoras to a Malawi cichlid tank, while they could both be placed into a 3 foot tank.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Well said eagle. You listed a lot of mistakes I made as a newbie lol. I remember my lil 10g setup.....with my common pleco lol. Now I have a 10g betta tank....

 

[crunch7]

Will be updating the orignal post soon. All your suggestions as said earlier are expected and highly appreciated. Its important you share your experience and thoughts about the topic 'minimum/appropriate tank size'and please lets try not to deviate this time .

 

[crunch7]

I believe this topic is EXTREMELY important. One of the saddest trends I see on this forum are folks who have all the right intentions, but have purchased a 10 gallon tank, and don't understand that it just isn't big enough for half the fish that they have crammed into it. And as Raptor stated (correctly IMHO), many LFS are to blame because they do give BAD advice when asked many times. Not all LFS are bad, nor is all advice given there bad. It almost seems as those the training manual for some stores is to read "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish".

It would be great if there was a thread/article on this forum to point newbies to in terms of tank size and appropriate stocking.

To add my two cents: Perhaps a format like this:


Either by dimensions or by volume - list all species (just like in the 10 gallon thread in the Beginner's Resource Center) and why they are ok in that size.


10 gallon:
Pygmy cories
Microrasboras
betta
etc.


20 gallon:
neon tetra
harlequin rasboras
virtually all corydoras
etc.

and so on...


Something like this might just keep folks from buying a single bala shark and putting it into a 2 foot tank, because "fish only grow to the size of their container", or a goldfish in a tiny bowl. There should be a disclaimer at the top that just because two fish are compatible in TANK SIZE, that doesn't automatically mean that they would be compatible in the same TANK. You wouldn't want to add corydoras to a Malawi cichlid tank, while they could both be placed into a 3 foot tank.

Well said, It looks better and undoubtedly easier too. But the list must follow the parameters, members must know on what basis we are calculating tank size and recommending the fish. That way even if a fish species is not mentioned in our list THE MEMBER CAN MAKE OUT THE TANK SIZE ON HIS OWN.
Thats going to be the real DEAL.

 

[CezzaXV]

The trouble is though that you can't just figure out a tank size by looking at a fish. It depends very much on the characteristics of a fish and requires a bit of knowledge. There's not a set science to it. As I said earlier in this thread, as an example, white cloud mountain minnows need a much bigger tank than say a betta even though the minnows are smaller, just because they like to do lots of swimming but the bettas don't.

I think trying to create a method to calculate it would be foolish and it's just impossible, and since everyone should research their species BEFORE buying them, this is the type of thing they should know anyway.

I do think a list of fish categorised by tank size would be a useful resource for the numerous people we get here who ask "my tank is X gallons, what should I put in it?"

 

[Nick16]

stop trying to write rules that have already been written...

if people say 60G is the appropriate size for a fish, i always go a tad bigger...
i keep 80G fish in a 105G

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I do think a list of fish categorised by tank size would be a useful resource for the numerous people we get here who ask "my tank is X gallons, what should I put in it?"

This is something that we do have, but only for small 10G tanks. It would be nice to see more like that. In all honesty, that thread is extremely useful, but I think that it would be helpful to have that list expanded a bit more, as well. There are only about 6 different fish listed in there.


...OH and PHOTOS! Photos are always needed for people to see the fish to determine if they like the look of the fish. Personally, I there are some fish that I really don't prefer the look of, like many loaches... Khuli loaches look VERY different from say... clown loaches. So, merely saying LOACHES isn't a very helpful piece of information.