How many fish can I keep?!?

[polerz]

I have a very tall aquarium, its an octagon shape with 27cm sides. I've calculated the surface area to be approximately 395 square inches. The tank is about 1.5m high, so its about 382L in volume. If anyone could confirm that I'd appreciate it haha my math is sketchy.

I currently have one 2-3 inch gold fish, and 4 others I'm unaware the names of.

I've taken photos (as best I can, of the fish I have). If you can identify them, PLEASE do! It would help me tremendously!

Pictures of the aquarium:
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/aquar/IMG_0201.JPG
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/aquar/IMG_0204.JPG
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/aquar/IMG_0206.JPG

First fish shots (I have two of the same kind):
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0225.JPG (on the left)
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0226.JPG
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0227.JPG (on the right)
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0228.JPG (bottom)
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0229.JPG
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0230.JPG (left)

Black fish shots (only one):
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0227.JPG
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0228.JPG (top)
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0234.JPG (sort of hard to see, in the middle there)

Gold fish shots (only one):
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0227.JPG (bottom)
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0225.JPG (on the right)
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0230.JPG (right)
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0233.JPG (right)

Other fish sort of white (I think it has had ammonia poisoning and survived, its gills are off white colour, sort of look bruised):
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0231.JPG (left)
http://members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/fish/IMG_0235.JPG (middle)

If you cannot positively identify them, I will take more shots.

That makes a total of 5 fish, how many more do you reckon? I was thinking of getting some cat fish to help the tank out. But apart from that, I dont know. I'm from melbourne aust, what fish do you suggest ? (preferrably easy to get and not too expensive, as I'm new to the fish keeping world). I wanted some fish which swim in schools, I think that would look cool!

Filtration: 1 Jebo 838 cannister filter (1200 Lph)
1 Fluval 4 internal power filter (bout 60gal ph)

Ammonia: 0
PH: 7
Hardness: bout 200-240 atm

Thanks guys!

 

[ringfinger]

They all look like Gold Fish to me, even the 3rd picture of the black one.

I have never seen a tank quite like yours! The first thing I thought of was a spiral "staircase" of driftwood with different levels of live plants attached to it. Wow, that would be a project.

Corydoras Catfish swim around together cleaning the bottom of the tank and are quite entertaining. It seems like you have adequate filtration, but once again I have no experience with a tank that tall. You could handle more fish, but not as many as you could without the Gold Fish. Those guys are pretty messy keeping the aquarium bacteria well fed and busy. Gold Fish also prefer cooler temperatures than most other fish which limits your options.

 

[jsoong]

I agree. Looks like you have all golds - white one maybe not, can't tell for sure ... may be a common, a koi or even a tropical? Closeup & top view will help.

Goldies don't go by the usual rule for stocking .... First off they are round bodied, so the fish will be up to 8x heavier than a tropical of the same length, and your stocking limit is pretty much by weight. Second, to allow for growth, you should figure in the mature size of the fish. Your 3 fancies will be 6-8", the black maybe 12". The white if a koi may get to be 24" & will be too big for that tank at maturity. <You should be looking at a pond in 2-3 year's time.>

Finally, goldies need lots of O2, and for that you need lots of surface area. A tall tank like yours has low surface to volume ratio & will limit your stocking. Generally goldies do much better in shallower tanks as these have much bigger area for gas exchange & also for swimming <golds are horizontal swimmers, esp the commons.>

If you just look at your surface area, you are pretty much fully stocked with what you have. Since your fish are juviniles, you can stock more (say up to a dozen fancies, but will have to remove the fish as they grow - great excuse to have another tank or a pond!!). You can increase the stocking by have higher gas exchange - say a bubble wand, wet/dry or plants. However, I am a bit leery of overstocking achieved by mechanical means - failure of your device will mean the fish die.

Because you have large water volume, you can support more fish .... just not more golds. What temperature are you keeping the tank? That would limit your choice. <Note that fancies golds like to be in the mid 70's - although they would tolerate up to 80's.>

One caution you on corys. Golds have been known to eat small cories & because of the spine on the cory choke on the fish & die. You can consider 2-3 drawf pleco (rubber lip or bristle nose) as your bottom dwelling catfish, but I would avoid the common or large pleco as they have been known to attack golds when large. White clouds can be kept for upper level movement & interest. Goldies consider those tasty snacks, so if you want to try them, suggest having a large school (12+) and plenty of hiding places (dense plants are good). White clouds are fairly prolific so the ocassional casaulty should not be too much of a problem.

 

[jsoong]

for fun I reworked your tank numbers -
An octagon of 27cm sides has surface area of 3500 cm2 (540 sq in).
At 150 cm tall, volume is 525 l (130 gal).

So your tank is bigger than you stated! If this is true, you can take the number of fish I stated above & increase by 20%. <But if you have a koi in there, that tank will still be too small in a few years.>

 

[lyquidphyre]

That is a very interesting tank with tons of possibilities.
Here is an off the wall suggestion-
As much as i love goldfish, you could do something so much more interesting with that tank. I suggest finding the goldfish a new tank (a 55 gal maybe?) or a pond.

Now, if you do find a new home for the goldfish, what you could do is put a tall piece of driftwood from top to bottom with plants (artificial or not) and turn it into an amazon looking tank with angelfish, tetras, hatchets etc. You could get REALLY creative with a tank like that

If you decide to keep your goldies in there... you might not be able to keep much more. Goldfish are cold water fish and will eat anything that will fit in their mouth. Also, other larger fish might be aggressive towards the goldies.

 

[polerz]

sorry for the late reply, I was on holiday haha.. the tank doesn't have a heater, its a cold water tank, thats why there are so many gold fish! I dont know any other fish to put in there that are cold water.

If I was to heat the tank, water changes would be a nightmare, we're draining something like 80-90 litres every 2 weeks to keep this thing clean... I'd have to heat 90 litres of water before putting it back in? That would be a bitch.

The gold fish I got were just for cycling the tank, as theyre very harty etc.. So far I've got the ammonia to 0 and ph to 7 and it has sustained for the last couple of weeks (tank is about 2 months old now). So everything is going good.

Any suggestions for cold water fish? *NO MORE GOLD FISH*!

 

[DepotFish]

You've got quite the variety of mixed breed goldfish there. Some look like fancy/single tail mixes. That white thing doesn't even look like a goldie or koi. Maybe an oranda mix. They of course can't live in a short tank like this, they'd get bent backbones. If you ask me its just plain cruel to use goldies for cycling and then give them the dump. Use a piece of shrimp, its dead so it doesn't have to live through the spikes of a cycling tank. You'll need just one or two bottom feeders and then some algea eaters that will do the sides of the tank at all levels. A school of top-dwellers maybe, not too many though because there is hardly any surface area. Pay most attention to the mid-level swimmers. You'll need extra oxygen and maybe some live plants to help with the gasses. This tank is a disaster waiting to happen if you ask me because there isn't any surface area for air exchange. But I've seen people with them and they've done fine so far.