Is My Tank Fully Stocked Yet?

[emmaisaguppy]

Hi all I have a 35 litre biube tank and I have been slowly stocking it over the last few months and now I have:

3 adult guppies
4 (I think) baby guppies (which somehow managed to survive)
6 neon tetras
2 Rams (1 of these seems to be a bit of a bully and does chase and have a go at nipping every single other fish in the tank - the other is really peaceful)
4 pentazona barbs

My stats are all very good and I keep an eye on them all a couple of times a week. I do seem to have a problem with the water being quite hard in my area (ph 8.5) and there is a slight nitrate reading from the water as it comes out of the tap, I'm not sure whether I can do anything about that? I have lots of lovely plants and feed the fish on frozen and flake food on alternate days. I have just read that you can feed them on greens too so I will try that too.

My question is (finally) whether my tank is fully stocked now or whether I might be able to get a couple more in there? I was thinking that something like a couple of dwarf gouramis might look nice as they are a completely different shape to the rest but if this is not possible I would be really interested to hear other suggestions on possible "centre piece fish".

all advice on anything I have mentioned here is greatly appreciated

Emma

 

[emmaisaguppy]

In addition I just read somewhere that gourami can be a bit aggressive when they are breeding. Just how aggressive is this and will they be dangerous to my other fish? I'm sure that the crazy Ram would give as good as he got but the guppies are a bit more gentle so would they be bothered by dwarf gourami?

 

[Davey Jones]

Hi all I have a 35 litre biube tank and I have been slowly stocking it over the last few months and now I have:

3 adult guppies
4 (I think) baby guppies (which somehow managed to survive)
6 neon tetras
2 Rams (1 of these seems to be a bit of a bully and does chase and have a go at nipping every single other fish in the tank - the other is really peaceful)
4 pentazona barbs

My stats are all very good and I keep an eye on them all a couple of times a week. I do seem to have a problem with the water being quite hard in my area (ph 8.5) and there is a slight nitrate reading from the water as it comes out of the tap, I'm not sure whether I can do anything about that? I have lots of lovely plants and feed the fish on frozen and flake food on alternate days. I have just read that you can feed them on greens too so I will try that too.

My question is (finally) whether my tank is fully stocked now or whether I might be able to get a couple more in there? I was thinking that something like a couple of dwarf gouramis might look nice as they are a completely different shape to the rest but if this is not possible I would be really interested to hear other suggestions on possible "centre piece fish".

all advice on anything I have mentioned here is greatly appreciated

Emma

I'm no expert but i think you may be a little bit over stocked, i wouldn't add any more until you know for sure. Are you from the UK or USA you havn't filled your profile out, if UK you have about 8 uk gal if USA it's about 10 US gal. I think the general rule is 1 inch of fish (their adult size) per gal

 

[emmaisaguppy]

Oh no really? There seems to be loads of room though! All my fish seem to like either the top of tank or the bottom so the middle is quite clear - does this make a difference?

I am uk.

 

[Fate2006]

it may look like lots of room left in the tank, but theres minimal room left now! 2 rams should get a 20gallon tank IMO... I recommend upgrading tanks sooner than later... the guppies (if more than 1 female and a male) will breed like mad, as will the babies when they reach 4months... let's see going by the 1" of fish per gallon of water rule...

3 adult guppies 1.5 each = 4.5"
4 baby guppies will reach about 1.5" each = 6"
6 neon tetras 1.5" each = 9"
2 rams 2.5" each = 5"
4 barbs usually around 2" each = 8"

so in a tank rated for 10 gallons that's 10" of fish in that tank you've got 32.5".....

all those fish really need a larger tank quickly... a 29gallon would be good for that many fish... then you could even add a couple of gouramis providing theres enough oxygen flow and filtration... sorry but that tanks more than a bit overstocked.... it's stocked 3 times it's capacity...

 

[emmaisaguppy]

thanks.

Thats really bad news - the instructions said that I could have about 18 tropical fish in that tank! I think they were using completely different rules to calculate that capacity!

Unfortunately I am not in a position to upgrade the tank. I may be able to get a second similar sized tank in another room and put half the fish in each. Poor fishies!

 

[nmonks]

Eighteen fish of what size, that's the thing! In a thirty litre tank you could probably keep something like that number of Endler guppies or neons. Anything around 1.5-2 cm. But remember, a fish twice as big has eight times the volume and so uses up eight times as much oxygen and pollutes the water eight times as quickly. (Volume is the cube of length, so 1 cm x 1 cm x 1 cm is 1 cubic cm, but 2 cm x 2 cm x 2 cm is 8 cubic cm!) In other words, eighteen gouramis is something very different to eighteen neons, or eighteen oscars, or eighteen red-tailed catfish.

I have a 30-odd litre tank tank containing far too many fish*, but I do perform regular water changes using nitrate-free water (rainwater). There's also plenty of plant growth in there, and that helps as well. A lot depends on the filter, and this one has quite a large filter. As a rule, experienced fishkeepers can probably break the rules because they know what to look for when things start to go wrong, and they have a feel for which fishes tolerate crowding and which ones don't. For less experienced aquarists, it's a good idea to err on the side of caution, and understock a tank rather than overstock it.

Cheers, Neale

* Eight cardinals, one male Normorhamphus ebrardtii halfbeak, two Danio choprae, four adult peppered cories, and five inch-long baby peppered cories.

Thats really bad news - the instructions said that I could have about 18 tropical fish in that tank! I think they were using completely different rules to calculate that capacity!

 

[DiscusAngel]

MM i disagree with the 1 gallon per fish ruse or what ever it is. because u get fish that are in shoals. i have one piece of adivce. Rams are cichlids most cichlids are aggressive. in the 10 gal there probs fighting because consistantly see each other and rams dont like tht well i found that with my two until they bred to much and gave them away in a 30 gal they still got aggresive. so if i was you i would just get rid of the rams keep everything and get 2 dwarf gouramis keep it like that chek stats make sure good waterchanges good gravel vac's.

 

[Jozlyn]

My Gourami are very placid and the two guppies I have seem to annoy them, IMHO I wouldn't put gourami's in with guppies, the guppies are just too active and aggressive for the gourami. I would like to add that while I have guppies and gourami in the same tank, I will not add any more guppies, when the two I have croak!

 

[Rhiannon]

Aggressive guppies? Wow. They are supposed to be peaceful schooling fish that dont annoy anyone.

I have a dwarf gourami with my 2 guppies and my guppies dont go near it, and the same goes for him. He keeps his distance from them.

Alot of people on this forum have dwarf gourami's with guppies. I say go for it. You will get alot of pleasure from him they are stunning.