How badly overstocked is my 55 gallon?

[philfreenode]

Taken exactly one week since my last water change. So, either I have some badass BB, or my test kit doesn't work.

I think you need to shake the crap out of bottle #2 of the nitrate test, slam it on the table like 10 times... it gives false low readings because the stuff in that bottle clumps together and gets out of solution... you must resuspend the stuff into solution... i think you are getting false low nitrate.. my water isn't even that clean coming out of the tap. you must vigorously shake bottle #2 for like a minute before testing.

 

[Carefree_Dude]

That was the problem. I did a retest, and that showed my nitrates to be somewhere between 80 and 160.

 

[ar0wan]

inorite

 

[DrownedFishonFire]

interesting combo. would love to see the tank though I've seen way worse. I'm guilty myself few times for overstocking while trying to move things around. Rite now I'm dead to my rights guilty. I think mines worse than yours though.


but suggest more frequent water changes 50% on sundays is feastible but too far in between for that much of a stock. If you want quality fish- do more water changes in between- I do water 30%-75% water changes myself every other day as my fish tanks are way overstocked at the moment but the fish love it when I do the water changes so its a nice compromise for the time being until I have everything all set up for them until the next move-around the percentage depends on how heavily i've been feeding them which is quite a lot.

 

[Carefree_Dude]

This is a slightly older picture. it is shortly after i removed some of the water to put into another tank to help cycle it faster. i've started moving some of my stock to the big tank, so all should be happy.