Question on stocking tank

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Kev79x

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Feb 24, 2005
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I have a 10 gallon tank, I have had one for about two years now. It has been going fine, but a month or so ago I had a few fish die for I don't know what reasons. 3-4 months later, everyone is living fine. I have...

3 Serpae Tetras
1 Black Neon
1 Mountain Cloud Minnow (or whatever it is)
1 Pleco (about 2 inches, plan on getting rid of him when he gets to big)
Too many tiny, tiny, tiny snails to count.

I was thinking about adding some more fish in, but I'm not sure how many is to many ya know. Whenever I read of Serpae Tetras, it says they are happier in groups of 6, so I was gonna get 3 more. I wanted to put in a fancy guppy though (man, they look cool), I was thinking maybe 2. But that's a lot, maybe to many fish. Anyone have any idea what I should do?
 
No, with the pleco in there the tank is overstocked. With the other fishes that tank *should* be overstocked, becuase white clouds and both types of tetras need to be kept in schools of atleast 6.

My advice to you is to return or rehome the pleco, buy a 20g long tank or larger, and increase the school sizes to 6 then add 1 male and 2 female guppies. Or you could go with a 29g and go with three more guppies and three ottos for algae control, if you think it's nessisary.
 
Well, I initially had most of the fish in schools. The single white cloud left was the only one after that holocaust went on in my tank. Oh, seems one of the serpeas died to, so now I'm down to two. I had 5 serpeas at one time and 5 white clouds. I threw 2 black neons in there at some point.

Anyways, I have 4 fish now. And buying new 29 gallon tank as the solution to my stocking problem is kind of a ridiculous recomendation. I know you guys mean well, but c'mon, if I had the money/space for that I probably would have done it already. I may try to get rid of the pleco and put two of those tiny catfish in, but I don't have much of an algea problem and I do have a million snails, maybe they'd keep the tank somewhat clean.
 
Since you're not in a position to get a larger tank to allow you to have a good sized school of each fish, it sounds like your best option is to pick one of the types of fish and build up their school size a little bit, leaving the others as the small numbers they are so you don't overload your tank. While it's not ideal, there are certainly plenty of fish that end up in community tanks as single fish or small groups. Since schooling fish tend to be very stressed if they don't have others of their own kind, your other focus would be to keep their environment as stressfree as possible otherwise.

Whether it'd be better to keep a schooling fish as a single individual or in a pair or trio will depend alot on the characteristics of the species and the dynamics of the tank. My ex had a tank with 3 of each of 6 different schooling fish and they all did fairly well--though the worst characteristics of each were accentuated. Neons hid, tiger barbs were more agressive, etc.
 
Yea, today I'm giving the pleco to my local pet store, then I'm going to get 4 serpeas to bring me up to 6, that's 8 fish in the tank.
 
kev79x said:
And buying new 29 gallon tank as the solution to my stocking problem is kind of a ridiculous recomendation.
Click to expand...

No it is not, Actually your common pleco will need a tank 180g or larger at one point in time, unless your OK , with a very unhealthy tank and stunting your fish wich causes the fish to lose all it's carachter (wich it probably soesn't have becuase of those improper conditions), cause spine deformity, and mess up the development of the organs, the two later things being very painfull to the fish.

Also, if you do not want to recieve good advice, DO NOT ASK FOR IT!
 
Your advice to give the pleco away was good, which I did, went to the local fish store today.

The advice to upgrade the tank, even after getting rid of the pleco, seems a little unnecesary though. If it was as easy as upgrading a tank size everytime I had a problem stocking, I would have just bought the hugest tank possible in the first place. Someday maybe, not right now though.

Anyways, With the pleco gone, I bought some fish, kind of went with Wishfuls idea.

5 serpeas (1 died in the bag, jeez, is 5 ok?)
1 black neon
1 mountain cloud
2 occtinfkjsfjls whatever catfish (tiny guys)

The tank seems pretty open, and they all seem fine.
 
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