Planted Tanks And Stocking Levels

[Chri$]

In a Planted tank, especially a heavily planted tank is it best to understock due to the amount of space taken by plants?

Or can stocking levels stay relatively the same in comparison to a non planted tank?

 

[nry]

Depends on the fish, my danio love open space, so I need some open space. My tetra prefer cover, so I have tried to balance open spaces with dense planting. My cory don't seem to care, they just like swimming around and being generally mad!

 

[RadaR]

A proper dutch scape pretty much fills the tank up and there isnt really much space for alot of fish.
Natural scape usually only have a shoal of tetras or cyprinids for a centre piece.

 

[Themuleous]

Also, depends on the type of tank. In high light tanks, its best to understock so you have better control over the NO3 and PO4 levels (which you adjust with ferts). In lower light tanks, where stability isn't such an issue, you can get away with higher stocking levels, as it doesn't matter quite as much if the PO4 and NO3 levels vary.

Sam

 

[Chri$]

Thanks for the replys

Sam - What would you consider a hight light tank, over 2wpg?

 

[RadaR]

Thanks for the replys

Sam - What would you consider a hight light tank, over 2wpg?

2WPG i would call medium. 3-4WPG is high.

 

[Chri$]

Thanks for the replys

Sam - What would you consider a hight light tank, over 2wpg?

2WPG i would call medium. 3-4WPG is high.

Thanks RadaR.

 

[Themuleous]

Depends on the size of the tank as to what consitutes low and high light.

Sam

 

[lljdma06]

Depends on the size of the tank as to what consitutes low and high light.

Sam

I would understock any tank that required NO2 and PO4 dosing, so that could be either a 10g with 4WPG or a 50g with 2WPG. You have more controll over your nutrients. Whether or not a tank is high light depends on its size, as Sam said above. An 8g with 3WPG is still a low-light tank. My 2.5g with 5.2WPG is also a low-light tank, whereas my 20g and 36g, which have 1.4WPG and 1.86WPG respectively are more moderately lit tanks. All are overstocked, because I don't dose NO3 and PO4, and need the nutrients provided by the fish. I like it better this way, since I especially enjoy keeping fish. The smaller the tank, especially with tanks 10g or less, generally the more wattage you need to make it a high light tank and WPG doesn't work as well as a gage. There is then a small range where WPG works very well, between 20-55g. For larger tanks, not as much light is needed for the tank to be considered high light. This is over-simplified and the following links explain it much better.

http/woo.gotdns.com/Aquarium/Lighting.htm

http/www.fitchfamily.com/lighting.html

llj

 

[Chri$]

Thanks llj.

Very usefull links as well