Aquarium stocking help

[peachyykeen]

I’ve only gotten into the hobby within the past six months or so, and I’m not going to lie I don’t really understand how to tell when a tank is overstocked. I was considering adding a small school of pygmy corydoras to my tank, but I’m unsure if that’ll be pushing it? I currently have:
four green emerald corydoras
seven guppies
two angelfish (I got both of them when they were around the size of a quarter so they’re pretty calm and leave smaller fish alone)
a female betta
two ghost shrimps
and a handful of mystery snails
in a 45g tank. I know that not all of my fish are full grown so that kinda makes it hard for me to gauge whether or not I could add a few pygmy corydoras. Or if anyone has other suggestions by all means let me know?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Rule of thumb is 1 inch fish/1 gallon of water. Based on that you are not overstocked and could easily put in a school of pygmy corys.

The 1"/g rule doesnt take account of a lot of factors though and should just be a guide. What filter are you using? Is the tank planted? How much tank maintenance are you prepared to do? What specific fish are you keeping? (12 x narrow bodied 1" fish will have much less bioload than 1 x 12" goldfish for instance).

If you can keep on top of your water parameters and the fish are happy and healthy then you can overstock quite safely. I would say if your water parameters are good and you arent having to do massive regular water changes to keep them good, go ahead and get your corys.