Stocking Of My 30G (114L)

[KRamgren89]

I'd really like an honest way to figure out how to stock a tank.... is it 1 gallon per inch of fish....do u measure by waste.....ive also read that you can go by the layers of your tank because you have top dwellers, middle dwellers and bottom dwellers....

seriously my 30Gallon tank has 6 corys on the bottom 2 mollies, 2 platys, 2 swordtails. will be adding 1 more molly over as soon as she is healthy enough. and i seriously dont feel like i have enough fish in this tank.... can i add more... and if i can what does anyone suggest?

 

[blizowman1]

what you have to think about is that the fish you have may not be very many fish but they have big bioloads. plus all the fish you have are live bearers and will very well reproduce and most likely over populate. the only way you know how many fish can be put into your tank is water testing over a period of time and record and keep track of your paremeters. set up a water change schedule and figure out how many you can keep while keeping your water in the right range. everyone is going to give an opinion but its up to the tests and your schedule its just important to add slow and dont over do it. i currently have 20 fish in my 29g and my water stays just right cause i have a strong enough biofilter established and i do great enough water changes every week to two weeks.

 

[Joanne_]

I used this link as a guide for my tank:

http/www.howmanyfish.com/#page=page-1

 

[KRamgren89]

what you have to think about is that the fish you have may not be very many fish but they have big bioloads. plus all the fish you have are live bearers and will very well reproduce and most likely over populate. the only way you know how many fish can be put into your tank is water testing over a period of time and record and keep track of your paremeters. set up a water change schedule and figure out how many you can keep while keeping your water in the right range. everyone is going to give an opinion but its up to the tests and your schedule its just important to add slow and dont over do it. i currently have 20 fish in my 29g and my water stays just right cause i have a strong enough biofilter established and i do great enough water changes every week to two weeks.

ok we will have to start doing that and we dont plan on keeping any fry unless one really catches our eye, we have an LFS that we will bring them to to be sold. pretty much if we add anything to our tanks its going to be within the platy/swordtail/guppy/mollie family and i used that link that Joanne_ attached, and i guess im not sure what 'type' of fish i have. are mollies, platys, swordtails, and corys are they slenderbody fish or fullbodied fish??

 

[soybean]

There isn't a reliable formula else you would've come across it by now on this forum or online elsewhere.

The more important things to consider, to me, rather than numbers, is the dimension of the tank and the compatibility of stocking. Eg a ten gallon tall hex has different dimensions to a ten gallon long, and is therefore has different stocking options despite being the same capacity.

Mollies are quite active and can get pretty chunky, along with swordtails, so while being similar to platys for example, they're not like for like in numbers.

I think you could get away with about 3 mollies and swordtails and maybe 4 or so platys, along with the six corys.

Like already said, you stock slowly and keep testing to know if you're filter can keep up, and it's better to be under than over stocked.