Stocking?

[lilacamy931]

Hey guys
I am no good at stocking levels and need guidance! I have a 3ft = 160 litre tank. We are going to set up as a male guppy tank but wishing to add two other species as well, here is what I think, (dont yell!) but please do tell me otherwise

2 Bristlenose Plecs or perhaps go for pitbull plecs?
8-10 Lampeyes
30-40 guppies?

Ok hit me how wrong am I ?

 

[Wills]

I'd go for the pitbull plecs and up them to 4 of the same L number. Lampeyes numbers sound good, but with the guppies 30-40 males I don't know I get the feeling you might have a bit of nipping. If it were me I would get 20 mixed sex and let it populate and just take out extra fry when you get over run and give/sell them to an LFS or other members on here.

 

[lilacamy931]

Hi Willis thanks for that. I have been discussing in the livebearer forum on the male/females and felt we would be absolutely overrun, there was also mixed feeling on the whole all male guppy tank, some find it successful and others dont so plan to add the guppies in batches of 5 and 10 and keep a close eye on it, I thought the pitbulls may be better, thanks for that! Would you say limit of 30-40 or am I exceeding?

 

[Wills]

It depends on your filtration really IMO you dont have any territorial fish in there. Though if it were me I would balance out the lampeyes with the guppies.....though if it were me it wouldnt be guppies just not my thing. But yeah if you whack a nice external on there that would give you somthing like 5-6x an hour filtration lots of biological like the rings etc and I think you should do okay.

Also is this a new tank or is it a stock swap on an older tank? As if its a new one I would maybe add in your lamps and the bulldogs and maybe 20/25 of the guppies let it run a few more months and then top up your males as well.

Wills

 

[lilacamy931]

Thanks again Wills! It was a brackish tank but we went a little deep with this so bringing it back to something visually stunning and relatively simple to look after So in a way it will be a completely new tank as striping to wash and rid of salt and reintroduce eveything including new live plants, the tank itself has a fluval 4 plus (which we will be cloning relevant media to have an "instant" cycle). We just like pretty guppies, I know they can be boring but think for now would be great
I think I will go with your suggestion and stock gradually so to not shock the system x

 

[craig855s]

40 guppies + the rest seems a little high stocking to me. Id go with 25,mixed group too. But then again,i wouldnt have all guppies in a tank like that, yes theyre colourful but so are lots of other fish,and other fish school making their colours look even more impressive

 

[lilacamy931]

We wanted relatively easy setup, also easy access to the fish in question as LFSs around here really do not carry that much or are extremely expensive.

 

[Wills]

We wanted relatively easy setup, also easy access to the fish in question as LFSs around here really do not carry that much or are extremely expensive.

I can understand this but I mean dont let ease or expense put you off other fish, I mean to be honest if you get some week guppies which is easy to do really then your entire stocking could just fall in a few days I got some guppies for a tank I set up for my mum once all seemed good in the store tank, from a good store but out of 5 I got home and 2 were dead in the bag and the rest didnt last a week. Just putting it out there that some guppy stock is weak. And often guppies are the same price as other community fish - just throwing it out there as an option...

Also just to answer craig, I was agreeing with this stocking as these are all small fish no massive polluters especially in ratio of that size tank, and with that size filter I really dont see the problem in the long term with the proposed stocking. If there were a few bigger fish in the mix say like something in the 4 inch plus range then I would agree to stick to lower levels but there are plenty of cases where people have large quantities of small fish in over filtered tanks to keep up on water quality and in some cases I have to admit these fish are some of the healthiest fish Ive seen. But as I said stock slow and add the "overstock" well down the line when the tank is well and truly mature.

Wills

 

[natalie265]

I don't know why people are trying to talk you out of guppies, i think guppies are beautiful!

I've actually thought about doing a species tank w/all male guppies, but coincidentally, i've decided to go w/a brackish tank instead. I think you're right about getting overrun if you do a mixed group. When i was looking into a guppy tank, i never came accross any info that suggested that all males would be nippy, but i wouldn't know for sure.

 

[lilacamy931]

Thanks very much guys for all the explanations and information, you have all given me exactly what we need lol. As to the males dying off, my sister does have a mix of guppies in her community so if need be can always get mature fry off her. Or alternatively set up a small tank for two females and one male to produce fry though unsure how big something like this would need to be..That picture natalie is really stunning and hope to get some beauties like that x