Thoughts On Stocking

[chrisbassist]

How do you work out how many fish you can have?
I've read different places advising 1 inch per gallon, 2 inches per gallon, even one based on surface area of the water (which i personally think is rubbish since your tank could be 10" or 5 foot deep)

When I introduced myself here, I said what I have already and have been given some great advice by Wills but wanted to hear everyone elses thoughts on the matter, basically, he suggested adding certain fish which would take me up to 15" over what I thought was fully stocked based on 1" per gallon. He did also explain a few reasons why it would be ok to push it up a bit with the fish I have,and what his suggestions were, but what does everyone else take into account when deciding how many fish will fit?

 

[nessar]

There is this:
http/www.aqadvisor.com/AqAdvisor.php?AqVolUnit=gUS&AqTempUnit=C&AqLengthUnit=inch
But Ive heard its not too foolproof

 

[fishyfeet]

Its also dependent on the number of water changes, the amount you change, how many plants and what type, the size of your filter and how often you clean that. Also the type of fish and how much you feed and how you clean out the tank.

So i dont use any of those silly 1" per gallon rules, i use my water quality as my guide, if my nitrates go up, i feed less, or clean more may be both till i get the results im happy with. When i had goldfish and again when i had guppies, the water changing frequency and amounts were out of this world, i decided it was too much got rid of the fish and started again. A good rule of thumb is whatever is in your tapwater add 20, thats the nitrate level you need to use as a cut off point, below is fine, above and you need to start thinking when you can do a water change, now becaused i keep the same amounts of fish etc, not much changes so i do a 30% water change fortnightly, havent had any probs, if i add more fish then id go back to weekly for a while.

 

[markandhisfish]

the inch per gallon rule is a basic rule of thumb often advised to new fishkeepers to prevent overstocking. however i think its very misleading. for example taken purely at face value it implies that say a 12 inch oscar would be fine as the sole fish in a 12 gallon tank which obvioulsy isnt the case. i think important factors are tank size in relation to fish size temperament of the fish , how territorial they are , how many different territories are within the tank , what will the competition for them be, then you take into account things like filtration maintainence regimes etc.

 

[Truck]

I don't use any rules, they don't work despite what people say, I just add fish until it looks right.

 

[chrisbassist]

okay, so the general consensus is the inch per gallon rule,although a useful guide for newbies, is pretty flawed.

so how do you determine what the right stocking level is? add fish and keep an eye on ammonia/nitrate/nitrite/ph/behaviour???

 

[Truck]

Yeah, keep an eye on behavior and water stats.

 

[Deleted member 55926]

As a newcomer to fishkeeping myself, I initially used the 1" per gallon rule as well, but it has become apparent that it's not really the be all and end all. I'd say it's a good guide as a starting point though.

However, I was recently at the 'limit' for this rule with my stocking, and have had absolutely no problems with water quality. I feel that my tank would have no problems with a couple of extras, and will be getting a few shrimp soon. I know this will take me slightly over the 1" rule but it will be fine.

 

[yhbae]

inch per gallon doesn't always work because it is meant to only work on specific sized species on specific sized tanks. It just happens that beginners tend to choose these combo more often. I would not use it either.

There seems to be a common misconception that AqAdvisor is just a calculator that uses formula blindly to calculate bioload %. This is not the case. It is heavily based on reverse engineering - i.e. a lot of stocking plans suggested by the _experienced_ members from different forums are checked against and if wrong, receives tuning. At this point, I have done more than 500 different stocking configuration checks plus probably more by the users who confirmed what it reports is about where they were expecting. Rarely do I need to change bioload factor for common species now. Those who claims it has grossly mis-reported the bioload %, I'd like to see the thread and the stocking plan.

Having said that, AqAdvisor is not perfect in the area of compatibility. This is MUCH harder to address because of the shear number of possible combinations. There is not a single person in the world who knows what would happen if you mix any combo of 800 species with another. Hence it is taking time to populate knowledge data and as some have suggested, I may not even get it right the first time but it will get there eventually.

 

[Mikaila31]

I don't have any rules. Tanks get stocked til I feel good about how Its functioning. That includes what water stats are balancing around and how dependent the tank is on maintance. Ideally tank makes shouldn't eat eachother too much...

 

[yhbae]

I don't have any rules. Tanks get stocked til I feel good about how Its functioning. That includes what water stats are balancing around and how dependent the tank is on maintance. Ideally tank makes shouldn't eat eachother too much...

That only works once you add your fishes in the tank.

I've created this tool so that people can think about their possible theoretical setups and promote further discussions in the process. I have quite a few users who say they found stock plans using AqAdvisor that they would not have thought of. It just gave them more ideas for them to talk about in the forums. If you know 800+ species already, there's no point getting any advices either from people or apps.