60 gallon tank = 120 inches of fish

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dannymak902

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 9, 2011
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san francisco
i read online that 1 gallon of water = 0.5 inch of freshwater fish is that true????
i currently have a 60 gallon tank with two 1-inch oscars, a 3-inch bichir, a 5-inch rope fish, two small crayfish, 6 snails, three 2-inch glass cat, three 1-inch upside down catfish, one 2-inch chinese Hi-fin, one 1-inch long fin pleco, two 3-inch black ghost knife fish

can anyone tell me if this would work?? if not when should i start looking for a bigger tank???
 
noooope thats way wrong you need a way bigger tank an oscar can get to 13 inches plus an birchir can get more then 12 inches and thoses other fishes will get big and your filteration needs to be strong for all the waste
 
it is not the .5"/gallon it is an inch/gallon but even that is not reliable, especially when u start getting into medium -- large fish. think about it a 120" long fish is 10' but there is no way u could keep that big a fish in a 120gallon tank. some one explained how they thought the rule worked but i don't remember how they explained it. i'll look in a few spots and post a link here if i find it. he was saying it was a cubic inch/gallon or something like that.
 
i have a 150 gal filter for my little tank ;( will that be enough???? i might give one of the oscars away to my father next week i kno the tank is not enough for oscars
 
Unfortunately, there's a lot of information online that just isn't true, and any rules that use inches per gallon as a way of determining how many fish can fit into a tank are wrong. Separate species of fish are too different to lump into one rule.

The main problem with your tank at the moment is that the oscars will outgrow everything else pretty quickly and most likely end up eating them. The Chinese Hi-Fin will also outgrow the tank eventually, as will the black ghost knifefish. It's also usually recommended that you only keep one black ghost knifefish per tank. Depending on the species of bichir, it may also outgrow the tank. If you know what species it is, that would help to determine if it can fit or not. Also, if your pleco is a common pleco, it will definitely outgrow the tank. One other thing to keep in mind is that glass catfish are best kept in schools.

You do have a few options regarding stocking. You could get rid of everything except for the ropefish, upside down catfish, and the bichir, since those are the only fish that could really stay in there long-term. You may also be able to keep the glass cat, but odds are the bichir will end up eating it. Then, you could possibly add some other fish that can live with ropefish, bichir, and catfish.

Your other option is to upgrade to a much bigger tank and keep the oscars, one of the black ghost knifefish, and maybe the pleco or the bichir. The ropefish would probably end up getting eaten by the oscars, and so would the upside down catfish, unless you grew them out before adding them with the oscars in a larger tank. The glass cat would definitely be eaten by the oscars. I would get rid of the crayfish and snails either way, crayfish and fish don't usually live together well. I would also get rid of the Hi-fin, they just grow too large for most home aquaria. If you wanted to keep all of the larger fish, I'd recommend at least a 120g at first, but bigger would be much better.

Hopefully, this helps a little bit. Good luck with whatever you choose to do!
 
The general rule of thumb is 1" of fish per gallon of water. However thats not completely accurate. A fish has other dimensions than length, you also have width and height. Generally you should use a fishes volume to find out how many gallons it could comfortably live in. A 2"x2"x1" fish has a volume of 4" so it would need 4 gallons not 2.

That being said, oscars will get too big for your tank very quickly. The bichir needs a large footprint and depending on what kind of bichir it is you would probably need something closer to a 100g tank or much larger. Also, if you keep these fish together you might run into some problems with the crayfish. Either the crays will start picking on the bichirs and the ghost knife or eventually the crays will get eaten by the oscars. The plecos can live in the 60g for awhile but even they might get too big for the tank.

I would sell the oscars back to whatever store you got them from. You could probably keep the rest of the fish in the 60 for awhile until you decide to upgrade. I also recomend you get rid of the crayfish. Hope this helps. Good luck with all you future fish keeping endeavors.
 
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