Tank Population Question/Overcrowding???

[Mantis_22]

Hey everyone, I have a small question...

I have a 10 GL right now and it is halfway threw cycling...
It has 4 Cherry barbs and they get along fine...

Lately I have been wondering whats the capacity this 10GL could hold. Is it possible to add to this tank 3 baby Peppered Corys? I dont think I could, maybe 1 but I still wouldent like that. Should I just forget about it and put 4 corys in my other cycled 5gl???

[brianfl]

With 4 Cherry Barbs, you are about at the max. It is usually considered one gallon per inch of fish. The cherries usually get about 2" so that is 8 gallons, but this is compounded by the amount of swimming they do which is usually quite a lot.

[wetmanNY]

I think it also depends on how densely planted the tank is, how matured and well balanced it is, how often the filter is cleaned, how much food is fed, how hot the system is (heat -> lower O2 + higher metabolisms), how much of the food is live vs. flakes...

I'm looking at a densely planted ten Gs with 5 Black Ruby Barbs, 2 old Tiger Barbs, 2 Otocinclus-- and two well-grown adult Botia modesta. No trace of NH3 or NO2, NO3 <10ppm.

It seems that the answer to every fish question is "It depends."

[Harry Tolen]

I think that the answer, to interpret some of WetmanNY's comments, is that you could probably get away with the 3 corys if your tank is (a) well-established and planted, (b) well-filtered, and (c) well-maintained.

[superstein61]

I agree - I wouldn't limit yourself to the 4 cherry barbs - if you do it right (ie filtration and maintenance)

[Mantis_22]

so you think i could add a lilttle cave and maybe 2 corys?? I clean it often and the filter is changed every four to five weeks...

[Tetratastic]

I have 11 fish (four of which are cories) in my 10gal. The tank is heavily planted, and all fish are happy and healthy.

So I agree that adding a few cories should be fine - and yes, a cave for them would be great.

I have a chunk of barnacle that I bought at my LFS that the cories LOVE to hang out in when they're not cruising for food :)

So just make sure that you maintain a regular tank maintanence schedule, and feed a variety of foods for optimum fishy health.

[Mantis_22]

thanks for all the help everyone


BTW - Whats a barnacle???

[CharlyBaltimore]

This could well be the most popular topic on the boards. :D

[Tetratastic]

Barnacles, like the kinds that grow in clusters on the bottoms of ships, when they die, the cluster of shells is all that's left.

Here's a link with a pic:

http://seashellworld.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=S6080&Category_Code=Barnacle

You can see why they make great caves. :)

[Mantis_22]

hmm thats new to me, thanks for telling :)

[Firsttanks]

One word of caution about the barnacles....be sure to clean them out thouroughly. The one we were using (have removed it since) worked like a little soup bowl and collected loads of gunk in each barnacle. The gravel vac was too large to fit inside the barnacle openings and we had to constantly remove it to clean. Looked good but IMO more work than it was worth.