I am known for excess

[mikedel]

I have been known to over do it from time to time, so I want to check with you guys before I over do it again. I want to make sure this stocking list is going to be ok. I have a 55 gallon tank with an Emporer 400 power filter, a UGF, and a sponge filter. So here is the list and numbers of the fish I am wanting to stock, tell me what yall think.

2 Dwarf Gouramis
5 Zebra Danios
5 White Clouds
5 Albino corys
5 Cory Reticulatus
15 Cardinal Tetras
6 Lemon Tetras
3-4 YoYo loaches
and 4 or 5 Otos

Am I over kill or am I ok? I am very religous about my water changes too.

 

[LMOUTHBASS]

hmmm

pushing it a bit but all the fish are small - so with lots of water changes and heavy filtrations you can prob pull this off -
i sometimes over do it myself -maybe cut back on the cardinal or eliminate something else like the zebras - actually noe that i look at it the bottom is where you running heavy cut back on the cories a bit

 

[fishdude]

heres a little formula for finding out how many fish can be in your tank.

take the surface area of your tank( length times width), then divide that number by twelve for tropical freshwater, and that is the max inches of fish you can safely have in your tank.

The reason that the inche of fish to gallon formula doesnt work is because surface area determines the amount of oxygen that dissolves in the water.


so for example. My ten gallon tank has a length of 20 in, and a width of 10. So multiply 20 and 10 and you get 200, divide that by twelve and you get 16.999999999 rounded out thats about seventeen inches.

all freshwater fish need about 12 sq in of space
all coldwater need27 sq in
and all marine need 47 sq in

sertain fish though, like anabantids(gouramis and siamese fighter fish) can live in low oxygen conditions. The reason for this is that they have an auxillary breathing organ called a labyrinth which lets them breath air. thats why siamese fighters can live in small cups and such.

 

[TKOS]

I might consider cutting the white clouds as they are cold water fish and need a much higher dissolved oxygen level that warmer water can't really deliver, at least with an over stocking sitution. The rest should be fine if you are really diligent about water changes etc..

The white clouds can take higher temps and live quite well but probably not with that high a load.

The reson I understock is so I can go away for a couple of weeks and not have to rely on someone to change my water, just drop by every three days to drop in some food.

 

[snakeskinner]

yeah, I think you're over-doing it on bottom feeders. maybe axe the loaches unless you're just hooked on them. Also, finding some of the smaller breed cory's will help out. The other fish should be fine since as listed, they are so small. I am pushing the numbers in my 55 but mine are mostly small tetras with several platys and mollies. I'm about to be overcrowded though since my wife just adopted around 30 molly fry from a petsmart so I'm trying to talk my mother and my brother-in-law into setting up tanks. Otherwise if most of them survive, I may have to get another tank or two or see if I can talk an LFS into trading me out. Kyle

 

[dethjam316]

i too "push the numbers" in my 50g with high filtration and frequent water changes. i also rationalize it since there are 6 gouramis in there that "need less O2" but whatever...

anyways, i'd say ax the white clouds, they're coldwater. and ax the zebras, i've always found them to be a sort of subpar schooling fish, and they can be nippy. what your left with should be just about perfect. just stock it slowly.