Overstocking and plants

[JeffNebraska]

All right. I'm getting a little greedy, but things are going so well I can't help myself.

I have a very heavily planted 30G tank with the following guests

10 cardinal tetras, 3 honey dwarf gouramis, 4 praecox rainbows, 3 bosemani rainbows, 3 ottos, 1 clown ple*o, 3 cory cats, 1 blue german ram.

My very cute and knowledgeable LFS gal told me that you can definitely go over the 1-inch per gallon rule if you have plenty of plants.

With am. and nitrite at 0, and nitrate and phosphate quite low, can I add 3 more powder blue dwarf gouramis... please? Am I going to end up jinxing a good thing?

P.S. I have a lot more plants now than are depicted in the out dated picture in my gallery.

 

[justDIY]

its a tough call

plants are good at absorbing and utilizing fish waste, reducing the tanks reliance on other forms of biofiltration and chemical filtration.

but a balance needs to be maintained.

feeding the plants more, without giving them additional variables will result in the same toxic water as you would have without plants, or massive algae problems, or both!

increasing the brightness of the lights will help plants burn their food faster, but you will also have to increase the amount of CO2 available. This opens the door for a wide range of trouble, because more light, higher nutriants and increased co2 = faster "running" tank ... and the faster you go the more damage is done if a crash should occur.

low-tech plant tank usually have a very light fish load, since even the fastest growing plants only need the nutriants provided by a small handfull of fish ... more nutriants than that = algae problems or toxic water.

it sounds like you have a large mix of species in your tank - instead of pushing the 1" per gallon rule way past the line, how about trading in some of the assorted speices and getting more of the species you enjoy the most?

 

[Biggen]

You have to remember, the "1 inch per gallon" fish rule has more to it then just giving safe guidelines for ammonia and nitrite. It is also taking into account the "ethical" and/or "moral" health of the fish. While it may be safe, chemically, to pack that many fish into one space, is it healthy for the fish in other ways to do so?

Fish can develop disease because of the constant stress and harassment that other fish are causing them. Its not just ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, etc... that cause this.

If it were me, I would not add any more fish. Think about it for a minute... What if one of your fish develops ich because it is stressed from the sheer number of fish you have in that tank. You could lose your whole lot if ich develops onto the other fish.

 

[BKtomodachi]

WHoa!! slow down on how many fish you have there. I would trade some to get others which you want more. I am from nebraska origionally, too!!

 

[JeffNebraska]

Curses. I was afraid you guys would say that.

I guess I'll just keep the status quo for the time being. Maybe if no one dies for the next few months, it's only been one month since my last casualty, I can think about it again.

If any one else out there is over the 1-inch per gallon rule and loving it, please reply before I end up settling for a meager 28 fish.

 

[JeffNebraska]

Btw glmclell, I did have some green water (free floating algae) problems about 2 months ago, but I bought a diatom filter to clear it while I was figuring out how many hours of light would give me the right balance. The diatom filter worked great, I only had to use it twice, and I settled on 9 hours of light. At that amount, my plants are totally out-competing the algae, making my diatom filter unecessary.

I may step up to ten hours again, as my plants continue to flourish and expand.

 

[Allivymar]

Heh, meager 28 fish. I've 4 (soon to be 5) angels, 3 clown loaches and an 8 inch plec in my 55g and I've about topped out my bioload LOL course, the only plants are a coupla amazons.

 

[wabyrd]

I'm way over the 1 inch rule with mollies, platies and guppies. It's become overstocked due to breeding. Real problem. Anyhow, although the tank looks great. the fish are doing relatively fine, and the plants are thriving, it's quite a pain to keep up with the nitrAtes because they still climb up pretty rapidly. It takes quite a while to do a water change on a 50 gal.

 

[justDIY]

those livebearers giving you stocking problems as well?!

lol, I will soon have such a problem too, as the latest brood I rescued a few months back are now maturing into small juviniles and will soon outgrow their nursery.

I'm hoping to take a bag with me to the pet store and offer them for free - since it would be much easier then culling them

once I setup my 120 gallon, my rule will be no livebearers in it, except 2-3 week old fry as food... the live bearers can take over my 29 gallon and produce food for the school of angelfish I plan to get