Stocking reduction

Dego510

Dego510

AC Members
Oct 22, 2009
66
1
6
Chicago, IL
I've been fishkeeping for a year and currently keep mbuna. I have a 55 gallon with 10 juvenile demasoni, 11 adult-sized demasoni, 7 juvenile yellow labs, 4 acei, 3 synodontis petricola, and one bn pleco. I just picked up the 11 adult demasoni this past weekend to curb some of the demasoni aggression that I've been having with the original 10 juveniles. The tank seems to be doing great right now.

I know I'm a little overstocked at the moment, so here's my question: Who should remove? I was thinking of removing the 4 Acei and 3 Petricola.

Here are some pics of my tank . . .


 
Hmm I would remove the acei since they get to be quite a bit larger than the labs and demasoni. I think the petricola are fine since they have a pretty low bioload.
Here's what I would do. I would leave the labs you have and remove extra dems as the grow. If you have some that are being really nasty or are obviously male I would remove them. If you widdled the demasoni numbers down to 15 or less and kept the labs and petricola I think you will be just fine. Just over filter and keep up with water changes. Neither demasoni or labs get very big.

BEAUTIFUL tank! I love that species combination :)
 
Ya, I'm definitely going to remove the Acei since there's too much blue/purple in there right now. My current filtration is a Rena XP3 and a Penguin 200. I will soon be switching the Penguin with an AC70.

If I eventually brought my demasoni down to 15, kept my labs at 7, and removed the Acei and Petricola, do you think I could add 3 albino socolofi? I think some kind of white fish would look great with the black background.

blue2fyre - I'm thinking of removing the petricola since the other fish provide tons of activity and clean up any remaining food at the bottom of the tank. Makes them kind of pointless. I didn't know that they didn't create much bio-load. Good to know.
 
I think in a 55 gallon the socolofis would be pushing it. I would just stick to the demasoni and yellow labs. Socolofis get bigger than both.

I have a group of petricola and I just think they are fun fish :) I mostly keep mine for something different and fry control. I've had no fry survive in my tank since I got my petricola.
 
blue2fyre said:
I think in a 55 gallon the socolofis would be pushing it. I would just stick to the demasoni and yellow labs. Socolofis get bigger than both.

I have a group of petricola and I just think they are fun fish :) I mostly keep mine for something different and fry control. I've had no fry survive in my tank since I got my petricola.
Click to expand...


I disagree to an extent. Final stocking of 12-15 dems, 4 albino socolofi(1:3), and prob 5 yellow labs, along with the synos would be fine. In fact, the constant flurry of activity would prob keep aggression down.

The synos dont really count in stocking guidelines as they dont claim any territory and bioload is small. I think ur fine right now with just removing the acei since some people dont think they belong in a 4 ft tank. They get massive. This would be a fine example of an overstocked tank and would look amazing....I would just watch the Demasoni and as they grow up, I would try to vent them and keep more females as u bring the numbers down some
 
Well, I have a somewhat different but similar opinion. I would do it with 12 dems, 5 labs and 4 albino socolofis with no synos. Just my opinion, but the final decision is yours.
 
just curious efors, but why no synos? is it bioload? or having 4 species? petricola/lucipinni stay very small and add a very cool aspect to the tank. I love my 4...
 
I vote for Labs and the Dems sweet setup my friend love those Big Ol Dems..
 
Ok, so it seems that the general consensus is no Acei and reducing the Labs to 5.
As far as the demasoni, I'm not willing to go below 15. I've had a tough, long battle with them. Any time it dropped below 15, all hell broke loose. Ever since I added the 11 adult demasoni this past weekend, I finally noticed happier fish . . . everyone is swimming out in open waters. Actually, I just noticed last night that one of my demasoni is holding. That's the first holding demasoni ever for me. :woot:
 
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