Fixing this stocking?

[Lucy_S]

Hi Hi!

A while back I rescued some fish from craigslist - and got a 60x30x37cm (17 gallons, 66L) tank full of shrimp. We are now five weeks down the road, and the tank seems reasonably stable. I would like to adjust the stock to something better. Looking forward to your tips and thoughts:

I now have in the 60x30x37cm - which is heavily planted tank at 24 degrees Celsius - with Eheim 160 pickup filter + superfish 100 filter:

- 2 Honey gouramis (I would like to keep, M+F)
- 4 Red Phantoms (all males, displaying territorial behaviour)
- 3 Otocinclus
- 2 corydoras aeneus
- 50 fire shrimp (at least)
- 1 nerite snail

Can I switch to:

- 2 honey gouramis
- 3 Otocinclus
- 4 corys
- 5 phantoms (3V, 2M) ?
- 50 fire shrimps (max, get rid of some of them in the coming period)
- 1 nerite snail

Orrr do you advise me to do either tetras or corys? Or should I buy an bigger tank to properly keep these fish together?

And: Is a school of 5 phantoms enough (suppose I trade 2M for 3V), or do they need more animals? Can this species (in your opinion) thrive in 60cm at all?

I'm not quite sure of anything yet, so I'm looking forward to any suggestions!

 

[Aiken Drum]

I think with all the shrimp its stocked on the heavy side, but doable.

I would get rid of more of the shrimp and add a couple more corys and tetras, but thats personal preference on what i would want to see in a tank.

Thrive? A bigger tank is almost always better, but you should be good if you keep up with your regular tank maintenance.

 

[Lucy_S]

Thanks Aiken! I'd love to add some cory's/tetra's, but wasn't sure whether I could due to the small volume. Right now my water seems to do fine, but I wanted a second opinion none the less

 

[ColdKoi]

Generally overstocking is subjective, it’s more of an opinion of how much maintenance you want to do. Within reason of course, the fish need to have room to move around and not be bashing into things all day, but you can stock a tank quite heavily if you are willing to do the maintenance.

Also keep in mind of the fish’s adult size, just because they have room to move freely now, things can change quickly as they grow. It’s never a good idea to stock a tank to the point it will eventually be over filled or stunt the fish, but it is always an option to move some fish to another tank (or all to a large tank) later on.

But of course this has to be financially feasible for you, which is where that type of plan backfires for a lot of people. They have intentions of upgrading tanks when they overstock from the beginning, then when the time comes where they need that bigger tank, they just can’t afford it.