Yellow Neon Tetra

[bitsnbobs]

I'm new to this forum and hope someone can give me some advice.

I have kept tropical fish before, but not for some time. I do not have much room to spare and bought a Fluval Edge Tank which holds around 23 litres of water.
At the moment I have 4 Yellow Neon Tetras in it, which are doing very well - I left the tank running for 2 weeks before I added fish.

I wonder if anyone can advise me on how many of this species the tank can hold? on the box it says only 6 fish, but I have seen a 'rule of thumb' which states 5 inches of fish to one gallon of water, which to my reckoning would amount to around a dozen fish to be on the safe side.

All advice appreciated! Many thanks

 

[karin]

Hi there.

The rule of thumb and it is just that is 1 inch of fish to 1 gallon. It really depends on the fish and filtration and tank, BUT 5 inches per gallon will be way over stocked IMO. The other thing is that the Edge is sort of a unique tank with very limited air available at the top so this means there are air breathing fish, corys and bettas for example, that you should probably avoid. Finally, your tank is not yet cycled. Meaning you do not have the bacteria in the filter system that is needed to process ammonia and nitrites produced by the fish. You are essentially doing a fish-in cycle. Read the parts on cycling in the Beginner's Resources at the top of this section for information on this critical part of fish keeping. Remember that you are a waterkeeper first and a fish keeper second. You need a good liquid based test kit to know exactly what is happening in your tank.

Many people get a tank and add fish to soon and things go okay for 2 weeks or so and then they crash due to ammonia build up... by crash I mean the fish die. So get prepared to do daily water changes to keep that water clean.