Member

Posts: 22
From:Seattle, Washington, United States
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 11-27-2003 08:15 PM         

---

Hi, I have 3 swordtails (1male&2females), 2 corycats, 1 khuli loache, and 1 albino pleco in a 10 gallon tank, am I overstocking. I aslo have a 5 gallon tank that is empty, im planning use it as a nusery tank or the for the frys of my swordtails, if im overstocked should I move some of my fishes from my 10 gallon into my 5 gallon.

IP: Logged

Member

Posts: 448
From:
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 11-28-2003 01:15 AM         

---

You're pretty close to maxed out. You will need to consider a change for the pleco when he gets larger.

IP: Logged

Member

Posts: 13
From:Leicester
Registered: Oct 2003

posted 11-28-2003 06:21 AM         

---

The rule is 10gal per fishy

IP: Logged

Member

Posts: 122
From:austin,tx, usa
Registered: Dec 2002

posted 11-28-2003 08:13 AM         

---

10 gal per fish doesn't give you much fish no matter how big your tank is ; )
I think the rule is one inch of fish per gallon of water.

IP: Logged

Member

Posts: 22
From:Seattle, Washington, United States
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 11-28-2003 11:34 AM         

---

does overstocking mean not enough room for the fishes to swim because my swordtails are biggest in the tank and are the only ones swimmming around, my corys stay at the bottom, my khulie hides under a rock thing and comes out at night and goes crazy, im not cocerned about my pleco, hes really small but always has lines of poop coming out of him.

IP: Logged

Member

Posts: 122
From:austin,tx, usa
Registered: Dec 2002

posted 11-28-2003 11:40 AM         

---

well I think your tank sounds just fine! not too much fish for a 10 gal in my opinion.
those fish are doing what's normal for them from what I know about them.

IP: Logged

Member

Posts: 34
From:APG, MA, USA
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 11-29-2003 01:00 PM         

---

Don't worry about it but in about 6 more months buy a bigger tank.

IP: Logged

Member

Posts: 122
From:austin,tx, usa
Registered: Dec 2002

posted 11-29-2003 01:12 PM         

---

why do they need to get a bigger tank?
I'm just curious.. I mean I know the pleco will get way too big, eventually, but you can just trade that "sucker" (bad pun) in for a smaller one if/when that happens..
her set up sounds fine to me! plus, even if there's a tad too many inches of fish in there per gallon, can't she just do a little more water changes to compensate?

IP: Logged

Member

Posts: 22
From:Seattle, Washington, United States
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 11-29-2003 09:37 PM         

---

im a he, thx everyone who replied

IP: Logged

Member

Posts: 448
From:
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 11-30-2003 12:38 AM         

---

The measurement we went by (for those that are interested) when I was running pet shops was as follows:
Small tropicals-1"/gallon of water
Large tropicals (ex. cichlids) and Marine-1"/3 gallons or water
Scavengers (Otto's, Cory's, etc.) were excluded from calculation due to their feeding nature
These measurements were derived for oxygen requirements and bacterial filtration. They do not take into account the front to back depth of a tank in regard to fish size. For example a fish 18" long in a tank with a front to back depth of 12".

IP: Logged

All times are ET (US)