Starter Questions - Size, Water, Types, Everything

[Sarah_Ayr]

I have been keeping fish since the beginning of the year. I have told the staff at the aquatics centres how big my tank is and what I already have and they said it was fine, but I think I am over stocked. I have just been reading about how many inches of fish you should keep for each square inch of tank.

It works out that I have a 70l tank with what will be when they are all fully grown 65" of fish!!!

I have

5 Serpae Tetras
6 Black Phantom Tetras
3 Clown Loach
3 Silver Mollys
2 Black Mollys
1 Red Tailed Black Shark

What should I do? Should I take out some of the fish and put them into another tank or just buy a bigger tank and keep them all together. The only thing being that the tank cost me 89.99 only a few months ago.

Please help.

Thanks.

Sarah

 

[fishyfeet]

thank does sound a lot of inches, are your fish as big as they say? What is your water quality like, you can ver grossly overstocked as long as you do daily water changes to keep the nitrates down. Id do a test and see how your filter is coping, you could maybe get a bigger filter, or bigger tank (second hand one maybe) and if push comes to shove maybe get rid of a the mollies. di

 

[Sarah_Ayr]

thank does sound a lot of inches, are your fish as big as they say? What is your water quality like, you can ver grossly overstocked as long as you do daily water changes to keep the nitrates down. Id do a test and see how your filter is coping, you could maybe get a bigger filter, or bigger tank (second hand one maybe) and if push comes to shove maybe get rid of a the mollies. di

They're not all full sized yet, so there is still room, they are all only a few months old so they are quite small still. How do I "get rid" of some though, as I don't have any friends with tanks? I think my only option is to buy a seperate smaller tank that I just put the mollies and maybe and the shark in. Although in a tank with less fish the shark might attack them. So far he has been well behaved.

I change the white top part of my filter every week, the black one every 2 and the green every month. Is this enough?

Also, I think I picked badly with the gravel that I have (it's just bog standard brown) and I have seen fine black that looks brillant. How easy is it to take out all the fish, the water, plants etc... and rebuild it? Will I need somewhere to keep the other fish for a week while the water gets up to temp and the chemicals balance out?

Sorry about all the questions. Your help is much appreciated. Thanks.