Split from What Aquarium Fish Stay Under 1.5"

[020292]

The whole 2 inches per gallon thing is wrong. It is one inch to every gallon and I am sorry, but to me that is too many fish in a 10 gallon and i am an experienced fish keeper. Let me know what you think.

 

[eschaton]

The whole 2 inches per gallon thing is wrong. It is one inch to every gallon and I am sorry, but to me that is too many fish in a 10 gallon and i am an experienced fish keeper. Let me know what you think.

Well,

1. The best LFS I have found in my area All Oddball Aquatics says 2 inches per gallon is fine provided you change the water once per week.

2. As for my personal experience, I do this with my two planted tanks (a 40 gallon and a 5.5 nano). In my 40 gallon, I have almost 75 inches worth of fish before you count snails or shrimp. My 5.5 gallon has three Dwarf African Frogs, a freshwater clam, Cherry Shrimp, some fry which need rehoming, and a few Nerites/Malayan Trumpets. Neither tank ever has any ammonia or nitrites, and nitrates always stay below 10. Aside from a persistant minor black beard algae problem in the 40 gallon and an acidic PH (which is likely caused by CO2 ferting), everything is fine, and my tanks are lush and healthy.

If I had things to do over again, I probably would have an overall lower fish load by having equal-sized shoals of slightly smaller fish, but everything works well at the moment. I don't think I would have been able to pull off this setup so well if I'm not so into aquatic plants as well...they've made a huge difference in scooping up nitrates for me.

Anyway, the inch per-gallon thing has been pretty routinely attacked on this forum from what I've read. It's a good yardstick if you have an unplanted tank, do monthly water changes, and are pretty lazy, but there's no reason to have a higher fishload within reasonable limits if you're willing to do the extra upkeep.

 

[LisaLQ]

Well,

1. The best LFS I have found in my area All Oddball Aquatics says 2 inches per gallon is fine provided you change the water once per week.

You should do weekly water changes whatever your stocking level, so that's not really accurate. Secondly a planted tank is going to have a lower nitrate level, but it doesn't stop overcrowding. It's all very well saying if nitrates are low there's nothing to worry about, but truth of the matter is that you can have too many fish in a tank - even if your nitrates suggest otherwise.

I've got a ten gallon tank sitting here empty, and am wondering about what to add to it. ut if I added 20" of fish, I can tell from looking that would be vastly overcrowded.

 

[KeeperOfFishyPeace]

I've got a ten gallon tank sitting here empty, and am wondering about what to add to it. ut if I added 20" of fish, I can tell from looking that would be vastly overcrowded.

well, if you put 10 dwarf gouramis in a ten gallon it will look very crowded but 20 neons or endlers would look a whole lot better IMO. I've had 11" of fish in my 5 gallon, and it looked just alright. even after 9 months nothing bad at all has happened.

 

[eschaton]

Well,

1. The best LFS I have found in my area All Oddball Aquatics says 2 inches per gallon is fine provided you change the water once per week.

You should do weekly water changes whatever your stocking level, so that's not really accurate. Secondly a planted tank is going to have a lower nitrate level, but it doesn't stop overcrowding. It's all very well saying if nitrates are low there's nothing to worry about, but truth of the matter is that you can have too many fish in a tank - even if your nitrates suggest otherwise.

I've got a ten gallon tank sitting here empty, and am wondering about what to add to it. ut if I added 20" of fish, I can tell from looking that would be vastly overcrowded.

My tank is helped with over-crowding because it has a "night crew" (Apple snail, Otos, and Kuhli Loach) that are never seen during the day. The other fish are a balance of high-water, mid-water, and bottom feeders, so unless it's feeding time there's not any huge clump of fish.

That said, I'm not particularly happy with my stocking. When I first bought fish it was at a LFS without a particularly good selection, and now I'm stuck with some larger, more boring fish than I would desire due to various injuries making them likely impossible for my new LFS to sell (Tiger Barb missing an eye, Albino Bronze Cory with pectoral fin missing on one side, Glowlight Tetra that's healthy but consistantly has flared red gills, etc). I've come up with a "fantasy stocking list" which would cut my stocking down to 60 inches, but it's essentially impossible until/unless my fish die of old age or I find someone to accept them. The current 40-gallon setup works for the current inhabitants though, which is the important thing.

 

[daspricey]

The whole 2 inches per gallon thing is wrong. It is one inch to every gallon and I am sorry, but to me that is too many fish in a 10 gallon and i am an experienced fish keeper. Let me know what you think.

i disagree with everyone on this.
lets say you have a 20g tank. some might put 20 inches of fish in there. but this tank could be a colum tank holding very little surface area. the surface area is the most inportant factor when stocking. lets say the standard 10g tank is 24"x12"x12"?
the best way is to...
24x12=288
288divided by 12=24
so 24 inches of fish counted at their full size.

many may think this is wrong and is just a way to get more fish in but if you put that colum picture in your head, it's the right way to go.
heigh doesn't matter much unless you want to keep angels or discus.
also when you look at a standard 55g tank.
48"x12"x12"

48x12=576
576 divided by 12=48
so 48 inches of fully grown fish.
i think thats the sensible way of stocking a tank.
it's the best way for your fish and the whole point of fish keeping is to keep fish happy.

david

 

[daspricey]

no one have a opinion to that?

 

[dizzied]

I don't really follow any "rules" when stocking. The "inches per gallon" rule is especially stupid. There's a lot to look at:

Minimum tank size required by each fish
Spacing between fish
Swimming level
Activity
Bioload
Compatibility, as territoriality and behavior can cut away swimming space

 

[eschaton]

no one have a opinion to that?

My only quibble is while this might be true in theory, when all other things are considered, tanks can end up very different. The main differences will be the amount of current within a tank, along with how planted it is. A heavily planted tank with a powerhead set up to pull suface water down to the bottom of the tank will have far more dissolved oxygen, at least during the daylight hours.

 

[three-fingers]

I don't really follow any "rules" when stocking. The "inches per gallon" rule is especially stupid. There's a lot to look at:

Minimum tank size required by each fish
Spacing between fish
Swimming level
Activity
Bioload
Compatibility, as territoriality and behavior can cut away swimming space

Me too, i completely agree with you .

The whole 2 inches per gallon thing is wrong. It is one inch to every gallon and I am sorry, but to me that is too many fish in a 10 gallon and i am an experienced fish keeper. Let me know what you think.

I think the rules cant really be applied to modern aquariums, but are good for people just starting off.
All of the above come into it, plus the fact that some fish are much messier than others. The most famous example is a 12 gallon tank, you could have 12 1" fish or one 12" oscar right? NO, but this is where rules like that can get dangerous.
As long as the fish are happy and healthy and the water stats are OK, then it doesn't matter how much fish there is.
My 16 gallon tank is a good example:

one Feather-fin Synodontis,
3 red eye tetras,
4 black neons,
2 white cloud mountain minnows,
2 marbled hatchets
and one small(at the moment) sailfin plec.

Though the syno and plec will DEFINATLY need a bigger tank soon (i'm getting one, and the plecs being rehomed), the fish are 100% healthy and my stats are ammonia-0ppm, nitrite-0ppm and nitrate-0-5ppm(nitrate sometimes a little higher if i skip a water change). According to the 'rules' i am overstocked, but because of all the filtration in my tank, i have a high bioload capability. My tanks pretty heavily planted too, so my nitrates are under control. I could easily more tetra sized fish if i wanted to (and i might) , since there is plenty of swimming room too.
I'm also going to be adding an external filter soon, so that can only help .