Stocking Question...thinking Of Adding A Few More

[DBridges]

Hello all,

Currently I have a 47 US gallon aquarium, heavily planted, with 14 zebra danios, 8 corys, 2 otos, a few Amano shrimp and snails. Everything so far is going great: water parameters are right on, everyone's healthy, and no diseases, troubles, etc. However, I'd like to perhaps add a small school of active tetras to add a little color to the tank. I have been thinking a school of 6 or 8 Serpae tetras or Rosy tetras.

However, I haven't decided yet if this will be a few too many fish or not. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

David

EDIT: I also use an Eheim 2128 canister filter and do a 50% water change once a week. I'm also fertilizing my plants on the EI method.

 

[Wills]

Id go with Rosy Tetras, Serpae Tetras have a bit of a reputation of being a bit nippy. How about a few feature fish in there? Some nice medium/dwarf species of acara would go nice with that stock like the Laetacaras or even a few of the smaller Aequidens or any of the Nannacaras would do well - have a look at Nannacara Anomala and Laetacara Dorsiger or Laetacara Curviceps

Wills

 

[BigFairy]

just remember though that everytime you add different fish you create a feeding imbalance as some fish are faster/have different feeding habits etc.

 

[waterdrop]

I was about to say the same thing about the Serpaes but then I got to looking at the overall stocking and situation and thought that perhaps this was one of the situations where the Serpae would actually not have anyone it was likely to bother and so might really go ok, especially if its the look you're after.. could be quite stunning in a nicely planted tank actually.

I had decided not to comment since the overall stocking size seems a bit hard for me to figure out (danios are just so slight that I'd tend to count them only as an inch but perhaps others would disagree and I'm not that good at stocking size estimates.) The tank is a good size and the filtration should be excellent, so overall my feeling was the addition should be fine. I'm a real sucker for shoals of tetras in planted tanks.. its super hard to decide because there are so many species that look great like this.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[DBridges]

I think we're thinking along the same lines. The danios don't really put that much of a strain on the bioload IMHO, despite the fact that there are fourteen of them. That, combined with lots of plants, good filtration, and hefty water changes, I think I'd be OK with 6 or 8 small tetras. But I guess I have a hard time getting away from the old rules of thumb concerning stocking (inches per gallon, inches per surface area, etc.).

I know the Serpaes can be nippy, but I figure they would bother danios or corys much. Anyone know much about Rosy tetras? Are they fairly active fish?

I was about to say the same thing about the Serpaes but then I got to looking at the overall stocking and situation and thought that perhaps this was one of the situations where the Serpae would actually not have anyone it was likely to bother and so might really go ok, especially if its the look you're after.. could be quite stunning in a nicely planted tank actually.

I had decided not to comment since the overall stocking size seems a bit hard for me to figure out (danios are just so slight that I'd tend to count them only as an inch but perhaps others would disagree and I'm not that good at stocking size estimates.) The tank is a good size and the filtration should be excellent, so overall my feeling was the addition should be fine.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[waterdrop]

Rosy tetras I don't know. Rosy barbs can be nasty as all getout (if not in a very large tank with a big grouping and ideally some even bigger fish to keep them in their place, lol)

~~waterdrop~~