I’m adding more fish to my tank but it will be a little overstocked. But I have 2 hang on the back filter a fluval 405 canister filter and I’m adding a 10 gallon sump would this be okay to overstock?
Adding new fish to my tank
- Thread starter Cameron McClure
- Start date
Welcome...
No one can really answer that based on your post. Please add the following:
1) size of the tank with dimensions
2) type and quantity of fish with their sizes that you currently have
3) type and quantity of fish with their sizes that you plan to add
4) current nitrate readings
5) current ammonia and nitrite readings
6) how often do you do water changes and how much water do you change
Items 1-4 are pretty much minimum to post, imo. 5-6 are nice to have for additional guidance.
Good luck!
No one can really answer that based on your post. Please add the following:
1) size of the tank with dimensions
2) type and quantity of fish with their sizes that you currently have
3) type and quantity of fish with their sizes that you plan to add
4) current nitrate readings
5) current ammonia and nitrite readings
6) how often do you do water changes and how much water do you change
Items 1-4 are pretty much minimum to post, imo. 5-6 are nice to have for additional guidance.
Good luck!
Hello; As said above more information is needed. Beyond that allow me to add a few cents of my take on filters and overstocking. I have noted a general belief that having lots of filtration takes care of an overstocked tank. Sort of like if I want to keep too many or too big fish for my size tank, I can fix it with more filters.
I can see how the extra filtration helps in one area, the biological filtration. By that I mean the places where the beneficial bacteria (bb) form a bio-film of colonies on surfaces. While the bb can be on most any solid surface of a tank there is some logic that regular water flow over a surface will bring the ammonia and nitrites to the bb.
I guess the extra filters can also trap detritus physically as well. This is a cosmetic thing in that the trapped detritus (food bits, fish poo and other stuff) is not visible in the tank. However it is still in the closed system of the tank and the filter media that traps stuff needs to be replaced on a regular schedule. Organics trapped in a filter decay.
I guess the point is extra filters can help but your main tool for keeping an overstocked tank in the waterchange (WC).
Agreed! Waterchanges and filter maintenance are key. If your nitrates are already over 30ppm on a regular basis youll need to step it up.
my rule of thumb is that if you happen to be overstocked in a particular tank, you will have to adjust your maintenance accordingly. your nitrate levels are key here. if you're consistently above 40ppm then you should increase frequency of water changes and augment filtration.
for example i recently had to add my flowerhorn and jd back into my 95 gal community while i rearrange tanks in my house. where i was doing just one 30% water change a week and filter maintenance once a month before, i am now doing twice a week water changes and biweekly filter maintenance to keep the nitrate levels acceptable.
seems like common sense. but this doesnt account for fish too large for your tank or aggression issues, which are separate issues than overstocking imo.
for example i recently had to add my flowerhorn and jd back into my 95 gal community while i rearrange tanks in my house. where i was doing just one 30% water change a week and filter maintenance once a month before, i am now doing twice a week water changes and biweekly filter maintenance to keep the nitrate levels acceptable.
seems like common sense. but this doesnt account for fish too large for your tank or aggression issues, which are separate issues than overstocking imo.