No amount of water changes or Filtration will give a fish more room for exercise or stimulation. The tank is only big enough for a full grown oscar imo.
Can I, or is it possible for me to add a geo to my tank?
- Thread starter Zack cloutier
- Start date
Your fish are small right now. As they grow it will be really hard to maintain water quality. If your on top of your wc's you could probably get away with the 2 cichlids or one and the pleco...maybe all 3 but it will definitely not be fun
When you say ideal are you testing with a liquid test kit ?
Don't look at it as if the tank were a box you can stuff in with toys. This tank is the fish's entire world although it is just a spot in your room on a bigger scale. In nature fish have the choice to move freely large distances.
It is not just about space, overcrowded tanks with incompatible fish will lead to diseases and early fish deaths, which is when one gets a wake up call and understands what overstocking is.
Lifespan of your fish if taken care of the "right" way
Oscar -10 to 12 years
Chocolate Cichlid - 12 years
Tire track eel - 8 to 18 years
Gibbs Pleco - 25 to 30 years
Marble motoro ray -15 to 20 years.
If these fish are kept in a 125G for "life", I don't give majority of them 3 years life span. They'll start dropping one by one. That's the price to pay for overstocking. It's your choice but adding more fish should be totally avoided. Technically speaking, if you give these fish the proper care they deserve, you'd be a busy fish keeper for the next quarter of a century...
Yes api master test kit. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, nitrate is at20-30, ph stays at 7.4 all fish seem happy and healthy
Thats good, water quality is in check. I think what most of us are getting at is even if everyone plays nice and there is no territorial aggression water quality is going to be really hard to maintain. I think
Drstrangelove
once posted a great example of how bioload increases with the growth of the fish. Your fish man free to do as you choose.
Zack cloutier
From personal experience things are cute when these guys are small but eventually 3 or 4 wc's per week start to become a chore.
I have 9 fish in here ranging from 6 to 18 inches 300 gal with a 100 gal sump. To he keep water quality at a level im comfortable with i need to do fin level wc's every week. Along with draining half the sump. I could probably get away with draining less but what the heck.
Probably takes 3 hrs total
Life would be much easier if i only had 2 or 3 fish but unfortunately some species do much better in groups
Thank you all for the input! Just wanted to say I appreciate the information and knowledge passed on from not only this post but the site in general.
