how much stock is overstocked?

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M

moneysink

Candiru
MFK Member
Jan 16, 2010
121
3
48
Surrey
I have a 210 gallon (72x24x30) that has been a SA/CA cichlid tank for a few years. I have changed up the combinations of fish many times trying to find a nice peaceful balance that still is interesting to look at.
I came to a realization this morning that my tank has turned into the united nations of fishtanks, and to my eye is overstocked, everything is working fine and there is no violence but I figuered I would get some more opinions.
stock consists of:
1 8" black ghost knife (only real troublemaker in the tank, nips the loaches and fights with the yellow lab)
1 10" aequidens diadema male ( runs the tank but is very chill)
1 10" vieja synspilum female
1 6" paratilapia polleni female
1 6" chocolate cichlid
1 5" yellow lab (labidochromis caeruleus)
1 6" albino malawi eye biter (Dimidiochromis compressiceps)
1 4" juvinile jack dempsey
1 2" juvinile firemouth
2 12" rope fish
1 12" ornate bichir
2 clown loaches (one is 3" the other is around 6 or 7")
1 5" pictus cat ( I know they are supposed to be kept in groups but this guy seems to be deranged, I added two smaller ones once and he attacked them constantly for a few days until i removed them)

so there you have it, whats the verdict? overstocked? I would like to remove the ghost knife because he has become kind of unruly over time and maybe replace him with another loach or two but I dont want to overdo it.:confused:
filtration on this gong show is:
2 rena XP 4
and 1 FX5
 
Not too bad for now but you have some fish that could be real terrors when bigger. The ornate can pretty big but never know how they will act with other fish. I dont think your tank is too bad
 
yeah, the ornate was a big concern with me when I first got him, at that time I had a group of needle nose gars that I would feed live food to. and I remember a comet goldfish actually parking itself on top of his head and he did nothing. im hoping he stays fat and lazy like that lol.
 
If your view is that it's overstocked, then it probably is. Your clown loaches are much more deserving to be kept in a school of 5 or more.
 
That's why I was wondering if i could get away with removing the BGK and adding a couple more loaches, figuered it would kill two birds with one stone. I normally have my tank kind of understocked, so this SEEMS overstocked to me. That's why I wanted to see what other folks thought, and what their setups were like.
 
But I guess a lot of it really depends on the individual fish involved, sometimes some fish should work but turn out to be monsters anyways lol.
 
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