I Must Have Enough Filtration For These Fish.....

[Matthew Lee Newell]

i have 13 fish in my 30 x 18 x 12

5 mollys
2 sword tails
2 black widow tetra
1 gourami
1 sucker loach
1 silver dollar
1 feather fin catfish

I AM AWARE THAT SOME OF THESE FISH WILL OUTGROW THE TANK.

however the filters im running are:
aqua one internal filter
eheim aquaball internal filter
and eheim 2213 external canister

surely i must have great filtration??

 

[bagu]

yes you do

 

[arobinson1984]

What exactly is the point you're trying to make? lol

Andy

 

[Matthew Lee Newell]

What exactly is the point you're trying to make? lol

Andy

well its just that people keep going on about if i have too many fish in my tank then my filtration may not be able to handle it, so i took extra precautions ....

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, its true that its a good thing to learn how to judge whether you have enough biological and mechanical filtration to handle your stocking load and its very good that you've taken action to accomplish that!

There are any number of "next thoughts" that one should have about heavily stocking a given tank. Of course, I sure you've already thought about and perhaps are well into discussions about.. the stocking itself, the fact that certain species will thrive in different shapes and sizes of swimming space and of course all the community compatibility issues, shoal size issues and the adult size issue that you've mentioned.

But another "next thought," just to throw one out, is "What about power failures?" These can be the big "Gotcha!" with overstocking. Once your electrical filtration and heating systems are not working, the grace period you've got for saving the fish goes way down the more you're overstocked. Now sometimes a fishkeeper overstocks because they've got a "fish house" or "fish basement or garage" with dozens of tanks and other containers and equipment and so they know they can perhaps move fish or take other drastic actions in these cases. But for beginners, these situations can be quite a bit more difficult, so its definately a good thing to think about ahead of time.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Matthew Lee Newell]

But another "next thought," just to throw one out, is "What about power failures?" These can be the big "Gotcha!" with overstocking. Once your electrical filtration and heating systems are not working, the grace period you've got for saving the fish goes way down the more you're overstocked.

~~waterdrop~~

i have a question for you along these lines.....
is there any kind of backup that you can have if there is a powercut? like a backup pump that has a built in battery in case such things should happen??

when i first set up the tank i thought to myself, filtration, i dont want to have my fish die because my internals wont be able to handle the stocking, so i put a cannister on also,
every since i have had the cannister running my water has been great.

thanks waterdrop

 

[waterdrop]

Well, I believe every now and then people find little battery operated pumps for sale but they turn out to be ineffective as the energy pumps need just use up the batteries too fast. Of course you can have a little gas powered honda generator or whatever outside the door but those are pretty expensive and noisy. There are though, DIY folks on here who keep some extra lead-acid car batteries charged up out in their garage and have a little hand-truck/cart they can use to roll them near the tank. They can just use one of those DC to AC coverters commonly available for cars. The problem comes in the keeping and maintaining of a battery like that, its just a hassle for most people.

All of these things depend somewhat on the likelihood and frequency of power outages in your particular area. In my area, once in a long while, we have outages from hurricanes and I'm shuttering to think how unprepared I'll be for one of those now with the fish tank.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[arobinson1984]

Not much chance of a hurricane in grimsby

Andy

 

[drobbyb]

Here it's ice and big thunderstorms. Luckily the thunderstorm outages are usually short. The ice ones can last weeks. I pray that ice storms pass us by in the winter.

 

[waterdrop]

Here it's ice and big thunderstorms. Luckily the thunderstorm outages are usually short. The ice ones can last weeks. I pray that ice storms pass us by in the winter.

me too, I wish I'd built an underground cement bunker for my old age...