Stocking Levels

[alexdallimore]

I am fairly new to keeping tropicals so interested in views from for experienced fish keepers. Thats probably most of you . There seems to be many stocking guides. The most popular seems to be the Inch per Gallon one. Surely this is very rough as fish have different body sizes. My rainbow fish are the same length as my flying foxs but their body is bigger. So hows' best to jusdge when keeping a community tank. Is it better to judge on Nitrate levels. My community tank stays at roughly 10ppm. I can't get it below this as there is 5ppm in the tap water anyway. As it is suggested that you keep the nitrates below 40ppm then surely if your levels are way below this it is safe to add further fish. I realise nobody wants a craped tank but if you get fish for the upper, middle and lower parts and the nitrates stay below the 40ppm then does the Inch per Gallon go.

I have looked at www.thinkfish.co.uk and used their guide to keeping fish. Anyone who hasn't seen this, you can add your tank details and fish and it will show compatibility probs and stocking levels. Their stocking levels show that loads can be kept if using an external filter.

So any view? Sorry its a long winded email but was hoping to get a fair amount of response and a debate perhaps going

cheers

Alex

 

[Tolak]

Stocking is just as much art as it is science. With experience, you get a sort of gut instinct about it; this comes from watching fish behavior.

The inch per gallon of slim bodied fish that grow no larger than 3" as an adult guideline is a decent start, as long as you take compatibility into account.

You are correct in thinking that you can take fish that mainly occupy different levels, and go beyond the inch per gallon guideline, but I wouldn't attempt this until you have a bit of experience with aquatics. I've never used one of those online programs where you enter your fish, I'm sure most of my tanks would come out as overstocked. I also don't do water tests unless I sense something is wrong.

External canister filters are great, but other than holding much more bio media than a hob, they can't increase your stocking level by a whole lot. Breeders are famous for overstocking, sponge filters are commonly used. These do the best job of bio filtration at a cheap price. The best way to keep an overstocked tank is to do large water changes often.

 

[iroc]

WOW that cal tool from www.thinkfish.co.uk says I can have 50 inches of fish in my 20 gal tank.........................that seems like a lot to me

 

[dwarfgourami]

I've never used one of those online programs where you enter your fish, I'm sure most of my tanks would come out as overstocked. I also don't do water tests unless I sense something is wrong.

Not if you used the thinkfish one, mate. It is amazing how much fish they'll allow you! I've tested them on a number of combos and they always come up with about twice as much as I would think would be suitable.