Stocking Question

[canuckaquarist]

I have a 12 gallon aquarium, it has been stocked with the same fish for 4-5 months now, no deaths or diseases thus far.

Here is what I have stocked in this aquarium.
- 3 Gold Dust Mollies
- 2 Blackskirt Tetras
- 3 Baby Gold Dust Mollies

Now my fiancee was at the aquarium store last night to get a pump and airstone to add to this aquarium to pump some more oxygen into it. We also have a Pengiun BIO-Wheel Power Filter as well.

Anyways she saw a lonely Neon Tetra in an aquarium all by himself, and bought him feeling bad for it. I read up about them, and noticed they like to live in schools of 3 or more.

With this information about the aquarium, and its current stock. Could I add another two Neon Tetras? Or am I pushing the limit of fish?

Thank you very much for any feedback, and sorry for the lengthy read, I just wanted to give as much information as possible to make a sound decision.

-Blake

 

[malkore]

Blake,

First, welcome to AA.com!!

Since neons are so small, and you have small fish to start with, I think you can get by with having a school of 4 neons in with the rest. But at that point you're maxed out.

Also, a bio-wheel filter will MORE than adequately oxygenate your water. An air pump itself doesn't inject oxygen...its the bubbles that break the surface of the water taht promote gas exchange...removing the CO2 the fish breathe out, and adding O2.

Typically any HOB filter does a fine job of this...the bio wheels definitely do since they are so splashy.

add the air pump if you want it for decoration...but its by no means necessary for fish health.

 

[canuckaquarist]

Awesome, thank you for the advice and the welcome! I think I will go buy a few more Neons now to keep him company, he seems to be hiding all the time, only coming out to eat

Good to know the BIO-Wheel is good enough, I think I will keep the airstone going anyways, I have seen the fish swimming through it a lot, they seem to enjoy it.

Also, nice Felheart Shoulders

-Blake

 

[Alshain]

That sounds like typical behavior for a lone shoaling fish. In fact, your black skirt tetras are shoaling fish as well. I have read that different types of tetras won't shoal together but my brother-in-law has black skirts, buenos aries, silver tips and neons and they all shoal together.

You might find that your black skirts join the shoal of neons, but not likely if there is just one of either type.

Oh and uh...

<-- Has the full nemesis set

 

[canuckaquarist]

Thanks for the reply, great information from you both, appreciate it very much!

That would be really cool if the Blackskirts schoal with the Neons, kind of excited to see if they will. My local aquarium store is getting a new stock today or tomorrow.

6/8 Judgement here

 

[Alshain]

You might be able to encourage them to shoal by rearranging decor in the tank. If the scenery changes enough, it could break the existing school that the black skirts undoubtedly have and cause them to reform the group. I may be barking up the wrong tree, I'm not incredibly knowledgeable of tetras. I've never really raised them myself.

 

[JustOneMore20]

Buy a couple more black skirts as well. Schooling fish are better with a minimum of 4. So get 2 more black skirts and 3 more neons. Then don't add anymore fish to the tank!

 

[Cinder]

Just some additional info: Mollies actually do best in brackish water (some salt added to their water) but the others don't. You may want to consider moving the Mollies to their own tank (if money/space permit) and then you could up the number of tetras for each school in your current tank.

 

[joannde]

The mollies will also continue to breed, which may not be an issue right now, but you could end up with lots of them You might want to start thinking about plans for the little babies if you decide to keep the mollies.

 

[canuckaquarist]

Well we only kept (caught) the first batch that they had, which was three (im sure they had more, we just never saw them). If they have more were just going to let them fend for themselves, we just dont want to be getting another tank. We bought the mollies just to break in the tank, but have grown to love them.

We have not added any salt yet, and the molloes have done great so far. Like I said, we have had all these fish from the beginning, no deeths, no illnesses. Got the Blackskirts about a month in, so they have been in there for 3-4 months now.