Stocking Level?

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conorod

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I have an 80L tank with some plants (bacopa caroliniana, cryptocoryne X2, floating water sprite and vallisneria nana). Currently I have the following fish:
- 12 neon tetra
- 6 bronze cory
- 6 amano shrimp & 3 nerite snails

Is this fully stocked (or close to fully stocked)? If not I would think about possibly adding a few more neons or shrimp.
I have tried looking up stocking advice online but it seems to vary wildly so hoping I can get a slightly more accurate answer for my tank after describing it.
 
Your question comes at a good time, @HoldenOn and I were literally having a conversation yesterday on how to tell how your tank is coping with it's bioload.

Three questions for ya:
1) how old is the tank? (This tells us how established it is)
2) what is your water change amount and frequency?
3) before your next water change, please test your nitrates and tell us what you are reading BEFORE you do your regular water change. Also if you have nitrates in your source water that would be good to know.
 
Thanks for the reply. Tank is about 3 months old (although the filter & many ornaments/plants came directly from my smaller aquarium which was there for about a year, if that makes a difference). I'm currently changing about 50% per week, I'll be doing one next Thursday so I can check the nitrates then and see what they are.
 
With the stock you have now you should be able to add a few more neons with no problem. As long as it's not a lot of them as that would mean a lot more ammonia being made in the tank. Shrimps have a low bioload so they'd also be OK.
I always prefer to keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrite levels for a few days after adding fish, until I'm certain there isn't going to be a spike in either of them.
 
I think with the fact that you probably have a good amount of bacteria that came from the old tank, as well as the fact that you are planted, and you seem to have a good water change routine you're probably fine doing a little something without going crazy.

As you probably know, bellwethers indicating that a tank is at its limit are nitrates that don't go away (though harder to see with plants), as well as if you start seeing some kind of deficiencies in your plants or an algae bloom, since that would indicate that your tank is using up the micronutrients you reintroduce weekly with your water change more quickly than they are being replenished. I am just personally starting to learn about these more intricate and nuanced details of water chemistry (stuff we don't measure for normally), so I might not yet be understanding the full picture on how all the small parts for together, but what I do have to say is it's interesting stuff and clearly on the macro scale, the question is "can my tank handle all the ammonia generated" and then on the micro scale it becomes "do I have an appropriate balance of micronutrients in the water to support my plants, fish and inverts without causing them harm over the long term?"

Anyway, this is probably overthinking it a little bit, basically if your params are stable and you don't have a ton of nitrates in the tank before water changes, then I'd go with what @essjay recommended :)
 

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