Am I overstocked?

[mrhelton]

I have a 29 gallon tank with the following:

8 Zebra Danio
1 GloFish
1 Common Pleco (he's going to a bigger tank soon)
3 Black Skirt Tetras
3 Bloodfin Tetras
2 Dalmatian Mollys
1 Bosemani Rainbow

Unfortunately I put fish in this tank a little before I found out about fishless cycling, but I kept up with water changes and all was good. Once my ammonia and nitrite was 0, I added the bloodfins, rainbow, mollies, and the glofish.

Right now my ammonia reads .25 and my nitrite is hitting 2-3 ppm, forcing me to do daily water changes.

So did I either overstock my tank or add too many fish at once once I saw the ammonia and nitrite at 0? Will the nitrite go down once the bacteria catches up, or do I need to find a new home for some of the fish?

Any advice? I have some wisteria plants and amazon sword plants right now with a 48 watt bulb. Don't know if this is relevant at all.

I suppose I'll kill 2 birds with one stone here. My second question: My work has city water. Is this OK to bring home for water changes as long as I add Prime to the jugs first?

 

[LyndaB]

Your pleco is a huge waste producer. That's probably driving your numbers up.

What are your nitrates?

Personally, I think you're both overstocked and poorly stocked. Tetras really need schools of 6, 8 is better.

So, you do need to rehome the pleco.

If it were my tank, of your stock, I'd have:

8 Zebra Danio
6 Bloodfin Tetras

I'd also add a school of 5 corys to the bottom.

I wouldn't bother with the work water unless your home water has obscene readings.

 

[mrhelton]

My house well has 140+ ppm of nitrate, which I started out with in my tank, but through water changes I've gotten it down to around 40. I've used my neighbor's well water that has close to 0, but I don't really like to bother them too much, so I try to avoid that.

If I moved the Pleco out and got 3 more bloodfins and 3 more black skirts, would I be overstocked? I didn't do enough research on those two fish until I bought them and only then did I realize they are schooling fish. I wanted to get more but I was afraid of adding more fish.

I think I put myself in a bad situation. I'm moving in a few months to a much bigger house, and will be getting a 90-120 gallon tank then. Do you think they would be ok in this tank until I get that and transfer a few over, assuming I keep up with water changes? Will my nitrite go down at all with my current stock?

 

[jetajockey]

Yes that'd be too much. Don't even think about adding anything until you get the toxin issues resolved. If anything, start moving out some of the things that need to be rehomed anyway.

Personally, I'd move out the pleco, the rainbow, the glofish. The more you move out of the tank the easier it will be to get the toxin levels under control.

 

[mrhelton]

Well the problem is I don't have a place to put them at the moment. I have a 10 gallon that I'm cycling as fast as I can. The pleco is going to a friend until I get the 120 gallon. I think I might have to throw some of the tougher fish into the half cycled 10 gallon because it will be much easier to do daily pwcs and then the 29 can restabilize.

 

[NoFishingAllowed]

Wow! That sounds like alot to me, but I am VERY new, lol. I have a 37 gallon with 3 mollies and 2 guppies. :/

 

[absolutangel04]

Ouch. I agree that your stocking has some issues. Jeta and Lynda gave you good advice. Is there a store you can give the rainbow and glofish to? Since they need friends and your tank not stable, you should try to return them to the fish store or ask if a store will accept them as adoptions.

 

[mrhelton]

Thanks for all the advice. I talked my friend into holding them all until I get ky new tank. I'll be sure to research and get the right number of each species when I get them back.

 

[mrhelton]

Well I just did a water test (24 hours since the test in the first post). I had 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. Haven't tested nitrate yet, but I'm not concerned about that because my regular water change schedule will take care of that.

I'm still going to be on the safe side and remove some fish as suggested in this topic.

 

[LyndaB]

Haven't tested nitrate yet, but I'm not concerned about that because my regular water change schedule will take care of that.

Not necessarily. If you overfeed or are overstocked, your nitrates could get dangerously high.

I'm left wondering which test kit you have. Obviously, it's not one that's all-inclusive. Do you mind sharing?

 

[mrhelton]

I use the API test kit that most people here seem to recommend.

 

[LyndaB]

But you don't have the ability to do a nitrate test? Or, you choose not to do the nitrate test.....

 

[mrhelton]

I just didn't test it since I was planning to do a pwc anyway and i didn't think nitrate was quite as urgent as nitrite and ammonia.

 

[abrahamavelar]

also this might sound dumb but r u over feeding them

 

[mrhelton]

I was and have since cut back. This has been a learning curve but I'm learning a lot and will hopefully not have these issues on my next tank.

 

[abrahamavelar]

a quick tip for ur next tank grab a nylon or a piece of that and add some of the gravel from ur stablish tank and that will help to cycle faster

 

[mrhelton]

Thanks for the tip. I actually dropped some gravel into my 10 gallon tank's filter and the thing is almost cycled in less than a week. Every day I add ammonia up to 4 ppm and it's almost 0 the next day. Nitrite is staying pretty low and nitrate are going up as well.

 

[abrahamavelar]

thats good!!! keep us posted and maybe try posting some pics =)