Would you consider this an over stocked tank?

[acejock999]

I think my tank is lightly stocked but I get kinda skittish on adding fish. Do you think I should add more? I count about 40 haps and peacocks primarily with about 8 mbuna and a few babies from some unintentional spawning.

I have a grow tank with about 12 fish, incl 2 venustus that I will eventually add.

The tank is a 180 gal 6 ft tank.

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[alyxandria]

Try this: (if you have filtration exactly rated for your size tank) give mbuna a value of 3, peacocks a value of 4, and haps a value of 6. Add it all together and if the number exceeds the number of gallons you have then you are probably overstocked.

It also highly depends on what your filtration is as well. If you have adequate filtration you can overstock your tank.

I'm not an expert on this though so if someone more experienced can correct me please do so!!
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[mitnart]

Hi. I think it does look a bit overstocked with too many rocks, maybe if you removed a couple the fishes have more room to swim at the bottom. I think they would be happier to be able to swim all over the tank, rather than in the upper half. Looks like you have different size fishes, the bigger fishes take up more space along with too many big rocks. Not much room for the big fishes to swim around.

My planted 36g tank has over grown Hog Wort plants on the upper half of the tank, one HUGE driftwood and a couple of plants at the bottom. All my fishes are about the same sizes, mollys, tetras, guppies and roughly around 30 babies swimming around. Doing the math, my tank is way overstocked but thank God they're all alive.



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[dalto]

Your tank is clearly overstocked in the traditional sense.

However, I would assume you are doing so von purpose somewhat to manage aggression.

I would say that if you add the dozen fish you are growing out to the tank it will be really well stocked.

You just need to be willing to manage the implications of that. There will be at least two.
- You will need over filtration to handle the bioload of all those fish.
- You will be creating a significant amount of nitrates so you will need to be doing frequent large water changes.

As long as you are willing to do the work, overstock away.

 

[dalto]

Hi. I think it does look a bit overstocked with too many rocks, maybe if you removed a couple the fishes have more room to swim at the bottom. I think they would be happier to be able to swim all over the tank, rather than in the upper half. Looks like you have different size fishes, the bigger fishes take up more space along with too many big rocks.

The fish are more likely to be happy for some rocks to hide in than the ability to swim across more of the tank. That is a 180, swimming room is probably not at a premium.

 

[acejock999]

Thanks for the comments.

Dalto, you are correct in that the intention is to overstock so that I can minimize aggression. My question was really have I gotten there yet.

I think in the 180 there is enough room for them to swim around and have necessary space as well as for the rocks in the bottom.

My current filtration is a fluval FX6 as well as a large sump filter which puts back a lot of water. I am thinking about drilling a couple additional holes in the acrylic tank and putting in another FX6 if additional filtration is necessary. Currently doing weekly water changes of about 40%.


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[dalto]

The unfortunate(fortunate?) reality about keeping those type of fish in a tank that size is that you can actually keep a whole ton of fish in there from a logistics perspective. It is really about how much water changes you are willing to do in a tank that size.

An easy way to figure it out is to measure your nitrates immediately after your next water change and then again immediately before your next water change a week later. The difference between them is your weekly nitrate growth. If you divide your weekly nitrate growth by your target max nitrates the result is your requirement for weekly water changes. So if your tank is producing 5ppm a week of nitrates and you want to keep it under 20ppm 5/20=1/4=25%. You need to change at least 25% of the water per week. I suspect that based on your above stocking levels you are generating more than 5ppm per week though.

I would measure and see where you are now for weekly nitrate growth and go from there. Then you just have to decide what you are willing to do. Are you willing to change 75% per week, 75% twice a week? For me personally, I get uncomfortable anytime I need to change more than 50% per week.