Is my fish tank too small?

[MistromTorus]

I have a 300 litre fish tank thats 2.5 metres long 1 metre wide and 1 metre tall and I have 16 fish in it I’m just wondering if Ive overfilled my fish my specific species arnet massive monster fish but they aren’t small either here’s all my specs

2 King Tiger Plecos
1 Freshwater Tiger Moray Eel
1 Black Ghost Knifefish
1 Blue Severum
1 Orange Head Tapajos Geophagus
2 Silver Dollars
1 Striped Silver Dollar
1 Peters Elephant Nose Fish
1 Tandanus Catfish
2 Banded Archer Fish
2 Festivum Flag Cichlids

 

[Cal Amari]

Something about your volume is mistaken, if it's 2.5 meters long and 1 meter wide and 1 meter tall it would come out to
1,750 Liters or roughly 463Gal. Determining this is the first step.

I am not experienced with all of these fish, but space alone is not your only consideration, some of these are social fish and prefer groups of their own kind (silver dollars, possibly geophagus) and won't do well long term as a single of their kind.

Others such as the eel, knifefish, elephant nose, and archer fish may have specialized feeding needs and struggle to compete in such a mixed tank.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; 300 liters is around 75 gallons. Offhand I would say you are overstocked. I sense you already know this based on the post. More specifically I say it depends. Some of the "depends" have to do with how often and how much you do water changes (WC). Another aspect is do you have live plants either in the tank or external.

While some fish keepers want to think massive amounts of power filtration can take care of overstocked tanks, I tend to disagree. Lots of HOB's or sumps help in some respects. Better to have the extra power filtration than not but not really a panacea.

So, more information is needed. How much and how often do you change the water? Do you have plenty of filtration? Do you feed everyday? Is the food consumed within ten minutes?

 

[skjl47]

Something about your volume is mistaken, if it's 2.5 meters long and 1 meter wide and 1 meter tall it would come out to
1,750 Liters or roughly 463Gal. Determining this is the first step.

Hello; Good catch. That is near eight feet long & three feet wide & three feet tall. Changes things a great deal.

 

[Midwater]

I have a 300 litre fish tank thats 2.5 metres long 1 metre wide and 1 metre tall

Something about your volume is mistaken, if it's 2.5 meters long and 1 meter wide and 1 meter tall it would come out to
1,750 Liters or roughly 463Gal.

It is quite simple, 2.5 X 1 X 1 = 2.5 cubic metres, which is 2,500 litres.

 

[Cal Amari]

Haha, you are correct. See I'm a dumb American and don't think in metric(though that is a pretty simple one) so I punched it into the tank calculator, which defaulted to 70% full for some reason.

 

[danotaylor]

 

[jjohnwm]

What a sad commentary on how people process info nowadays.

It is quite simple, 2.5 X 1 X 1 = 2.5 cubic metres, which is 2,500 litres.

This ^ observation couldn't be more obvious...and yet...

...so I punched it into the tank calculator...

...this ^ is the first knee-jerk step that many of us, and I am including myself here, automatically take. Oooh...numbers! Thinking! Must ask the computer! Need buttons to ask and a screen to answer me!

Please understand, C Cal Amari , I am not taking a shot at you here. I did the exact same thing myself, and then was embarrassed when Midwater laid it out in one-syllable words.

Technology continues its inexorable march towards the ultimate goal of doing everything, including all of our thinking, for us. Devolution is well under way.


This has been a public-service rant. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

 

[Cal Amari]

No offense taken, if we weren't so stubbornly beholden to the past and imperial measurements I hope I would have made the connection, but 'm not positive I could have recited that 1 cubic meter = 1,000 liters. So what I really did was think hmm, 2.5 meters is roughly 7.5 foot by 3 foot by 3 foot, hmmm, thats a big tank and my 90 gallon is somewhere in the mid 300 liters... hmmm I'll just punch it in the answer maker...