What's the shape of the tank?
The general rule is 1 inch of fish for 1 gallon. Less for large ciclids. You can house more fish in a short rectangular tank than in a tall "show tank". A little more accurate rule is to take the length and multiply by the width and devide by 12 (12 sq inch of surface area per inch of fish in a tropical tank). It's really all about surface area at the top where gas exhchange takes place. Filtration is another thing. A lot of people overcrowd, overfeed, over water change, and over filter. What I'm talking about is what is safe from an oxigen standpoint for your fish. If you follow this, normal maintenance and normal filtration will do as well. If your tank is 60X24X24, then you can have 60X24/12 = 120 inchs of fish. I would stay a little below this number for larger fish. After having your fish for a few years they would be about
3 6in clown loaches for 18in
4 6in bala sharks for 24in
1 18in red pacu for 18in
1 12in tire track eel for 12in
1 12in clown knife for 12in
for a total of 84 inchs of fish. So I would say you are cool as far as the rules go. But if this is only a 24in wide tank, it could become uncomfortable for the Paco. And they grow fast. I've seen 16 year old loaches that are only 4 inches and a 1 year old Paco that is 12. I'm with everyone else. I'd get rid of the Paco and Knife soon. I always thought that the biggest fish were the coolest, but it's funny - if you get like 30 Tetras, the way they school and swim around....I almost think of them as "1" fish. There's my Tetras, my loach, my shark, etc. Think of how many 3 inch fish you could keep if you had 120 inchs to play with. That would be around 40 fish....wouldn't that be cool. Or you could just have a really large Pacu.
Joe
