I'm still tempted to get a catfish

[Moloch]

Other than the convicts which were a last minute addition (I was keeping 1 male with 3 females in a 20, planning on letting things go as they may & letting whatever pair formed do what they might with the other two...decided to prematurely remove two and put them in the 65) I think the stock would be fine for life unless I end up with unusually large specimens. The tiger barbs might end up going the way of the dodo once the bichirs & jack are large enough, but that remains to be seen.

The only problem I have with this stock in this tank for life is the smaller footprint for the bichirs. They should be OK, but they're the main reason I want to upgrade to a 5' tank.

If anything goes awry before I can get a larger tank it will probably be the jack getting too aggressive, but I think by that point the bichirs will be large enough to tell him to go **** himself (or herself, thats in debate right now...) the convicts are known to hold their own but they would be the first to go, and the barbs I'm not TERRIBLY worried about...

Now...no I'm not experienced with the full lifecycle of fish, but this is how I feel about things based on the research I've done in getting to this point. If I end up wrong then I end up wrong and I adapt.

 

[soulpatch]

That is kind of the nice thing about dither fish. As your other stock gets larger and hinges on over crowding your tank the smaller dithers tend to disappear....lol

The main reason I would move up is for the bichnirs as well. lots of waste will be on the bottom eventually with the other fish that they will be navigating through unless you do daily poop vacs like I do...

Good luck

 

[Moloch]

um moloch im NOT overstock by any means.... my stock has nothing to do with your thread, i have 2 oscars ( 1 oscar min of 75 gallons then 1 oscar for every 25 gallons after ) 1 sev 2 firemouths..... but has NOTHING to do with your stock, you are worse then i am when it has to do with stocking... so NO dont get any catfish!

It has to do with my thread because you're the pot calling the kettle black.

I'm well aware that I'm pushing my stock limits, and I do extra water changes & daily poop vacs to compensate. Your stock is pushing it as much as or more than mine even IF you were doing regular water changes & other maintenance. But you rarely get to do water changes and I don't think there's much else you're doing about cleaning the crap out.

Also, your signature says you have about twice as many fish as you're listing, what do you actually have? What happened to the pair of con's & their fry, the swordtails & the platys? The tetras?

So you have 2 oscars, 2 convicts, 2 firemouths and 1 severum? In about 70 gallons of water without regular maintenance? And you come into MY thread accusing ME of overstocking?

That is kind of the nice thing about dither fish. As your other stock gets larger and hinges on over crowding your tank the smaller dithers tend to disappear....lol

The main reason I would move up is for the bichnirs as well. lots of waste will be on the bottom eventually with the other fish that they will be navigating through unless you do daily poop vacs like I do...

Good luck

I actually do daily poop vacs THANKS to you That DIY air-vac I made based on your thread is working great. I'm actually working on a way to get rid of the bag so thats easier to deal with. Got a large piece of flex tube and a pvc end cap that fits over it. Just gotta borrow a drill with a small enough bit to drill holes that water will pass through but debris will not. I'm hoping that the waste will then settle in the end-cap and all I'll have to do is cary the t-connector to the sink, take off the end-cap and rinse. No more wet bag to deal with turning inside out and scraping the crap off.


Anyways the bichirs are also the only/main reason I'm worried about adding cats. The JD hangs out at the bottom as well, so I don't want to crowd it up any more down there. Right now the bichirs spend a lot of time up at my spray bar, but I think once they're too big to get up there and rest on it they'll be at the bottom for sure.


heh, actually if I do anything before getting a larger tank it would probably be to get rid of the convicts and get an african knife

 

[livebearerfreak]

im getting the tank filled all the way this weekend and do w/c every 2 weeks and clean the crud and debris every other day. got rid of the cons to the lfs already, yes i have some livebearer frys and 4 black skirts, plus my cichlids. this is a FIVE foot tank not no 60 gallon 3 foot tank...

 

[soulpatch]

WC every two weeks with 2 oscars in there is horrible. You should give them up as well wih maintenance like that IMHO. Does not matter that it is 5 vs. 3 ft when your stock rivals his even with the larger size.

 

[Dark Jester]

With only 1 JD, you aren't as likely to have the high agression you would with a breeding pair. The cons will likely start more fights than the JD once they start reproducing, they'll probably claim up to 2 square feet of space as their own.

My stock in my 55 is similar to yours, and I wouldn't really call it overstocked yet.

2x JD
2x Firemouth
3x Pictus
5x Peppered Cory
2x Rubberlip Pleco (Like you, I never see them)
2x Blue Gourami

All juvies still though, and I have full intentions of getting something much larger before they need it. I had a couple cons in mine as well but when they started breeding they took over half the tank. I moved them to their own 20L. Even my breeding pair of JD isn't really agressive toward the other fish. They haven't mastered breeding though, they have eaten their first 2 batches of eggs.

Dunno, if everyone is still small and you have intentions of getting something bigger in the next 6 months or so, a few pictus should do fine in there.

 

[Moloch]

Nah it'll be at least 10 months before I can even think about a much bigger tank, nothing else is really going to fit in the apartment. So assuming we move out when the lease is up I'll have probably put away enough money by then to immediately upgrade to whatever I feel like.

Also, the con's are both female, I don't have anything in the tank that will breed (the tiger barbs might try, but thats whatever) so I won't have any issues there.

 

[NCStateFisher]

Id dump the rubberlip and then see how things play out - just a possible option maybe if you put the 2 convicts back in the 20 long and ditched the pleco you would have enough room to put in a raphael... though like people say you never see em, which is why i dont have one haha

 

[Cichla dude]

im getting the tank filled all the way this weekend and do w/c every 2 weeks and clean the crud and debris every other day. got rid of the cons to the lfs already, yes i have some livebearer frys and 4 black skirts, plus my cichlids. this is a FIVE foot tank not no 60 gallon 3 foot tank...

LMAO! YOU DO KNOW THOSE OSCARS ARE GOING TO EAT THE LIVEBREEDERS.

 

[Moloch]

Yeah I have a breeding pair of convicts in the 20 gal.

The pleco is out the second I see it have a negative impact on the bichirs. Right now though I see it like once a week maybe, it stays inside my driftwood.

I'm just going to let things pan out for now. Once I upgrade tanks I'll probably do a school of pictus cats.