Adjusting fish population - advice?

[kaz]

on all my previous tanks I always bought a much higher tank size filter, for example my 20g I bough a biowheel that was for a 35 to 45g tank, for my 75g I bought a rena xp3 thats for a up to 125g tank, and I am thinking of getting another canister filter for my 75g do to overstocking and keeping the aquarium in good health plus lowering down on cleaning 2 times a week or once a week on filters. but i learn as like you when i started just buying everything I liked to just think of a theme and try to stick with that, region of fish, I now started to get into real plants too, I bought alot of fish before that eventually over grew my tank and thus I had to get bigger tanks for my fish. now with my 75g I research the size of fish and why I want that fish (s) for, for example to take care of diatoms I got otos, for micro organism I get shrimp, for green algae I got a pleco, for food that stays at the bottom I have cories and loaches, and now I am about to purchase my middle to top fish that will be dwarf rainbows and bosa rainbows, then a pair of boilivan rams and german blue. I am already thinking in a few months to end of this year upgrade to a 125g tank lol

 

[hsherman1986]

here's a good story for ya. I actually got my shark from my neighbor, he was really aggressive in her tank, chasing everyone around, nipping at fins, just all around being really mean to all of the fish in her tank. he was in QT for almost a month before he went into my tank, as she was battling some sort of fungus in her tank, and I did not want it to spread to mine, but she would have flushed the fish otherwise. So I took him in. he was really shy while he was in QT, and once he finished, I acclimated him to my 55g tank. Once he was released, all the rainbows surrounded him, and were kinda picking on him a little bit. They actually kinda tore his fins up a little bit, and I almost took him back out. Right as I went to get the net, he started picking back on the rainbows, and they backed off of him. He left them alone after that. Its like they all reached some sort of understanding, and they all leave each other alone now. Every now and again, he will chase them around, but no damage, or excessive chasing, so its all good.

 

[jbarr]

I've seen my red-tail attack my festivum. There was definetly some nipping involved there.

Nitrates shouldn't be 0.

 

[Purrbox]

The only time you should see 0 Nitrates is when your tank is still cycling (if this is the case it's very bad with the number of fish you have), a heavily planted tank where the plants are consuming all the Nitrates (still bad since plants need Nitrates, so time to dose), or the test kit is either bad or being used incorrectly.

 

[malloc]

I picked up an API master test kit today. Nitrates are not quite 0, but are very low, definitely below 5 ppm. ammonia is about .1 ppm, and nitrite is 0. I have been doing two 20% - 30% PWC's per week for a while, due to that problem I was having with green water. Could this be responsible for the low nitrate levels? This week I switched back to just 1 PWC per week. I did just replace that filter as well, so maybe the tank is in a mini cycle due to the new media?

Also, one of my otos was dead when I got up this morning. It showed no signs of being sick, and the second one still looks fine. My tank is very clean right now, not much algae at all. could he have starved? I drop algae wafers in there occasionally, but the otos have never showed any interest in them.

 

[supermazz9]

all those water changes would definately have lowered your nitrate levels...that's the way you have to lower your nitrate levels...water changes are a good thing.