hi guys, just wanted to introduce myself and get some advice please. my name is sian, i am 29 and have recently started keeping tropical fish. i have a 96 litre tank which has been running about 3 months now. in my tank i have 4 dalmation mollies (3 females and a male), the biggest female is pregnant. i also have 2 pepper cory's, 2 bronze cory's, 3 male lyretail guppies, 2 red honey gourami and 5 cherry barbs. i want to get some otocinclus, and just wanted to check how many i would need to get for them to live happily, and also how many fish i should be keeping in my tank. i know none of my fish will get huge, i have 18 fish currently. i am not planning to keep any babies that momma molly has, i have a breeding trap in the tank waiting for her, and they all seem really happy. i only noticed her pregnancy 3 days ago, and wondered at what stage does the pregnancy become noticeable so i can tell roughly how long she has left to go. thanks for any advice you can give guys xxx
new to keeping fish, advice please?
- Thread starter siang
- Start date
vr6fan;4491507; said:
There are a lot of us here that frequent both sites and keep both large and small fish.
Slang, your tank sounds pretty overstocked. Unless you have heavy filtration and a pretty frequent/large water change schedule I would not suggest adding anymore fish. And otocinclus are sensitive to nitrates or anything else causing poor water quality, so your setup would probably not be the best bet for them.
There's not really a strict rule as to how many fish you should keep per tank. Generally you should keep an amount that will not allow nitrates to rise above bout 40ppm with your maintenance/water change schedule. To know that information you will have to get a liquid test kit (most of us use API) and monitor your water for awhile to understand how much waste is being produced and how many water changes you are willing to do.
The amount you feed will also determine how fast nitrates rise in your system.
the bloke in the petshop said i could keep 25-30 fish in my tank, its 80cm long. it doesnt look overstocked, there is plenty of room for the fish to swim around and they have plenty of hiding places. i have a fluval 3+ filter and do a 25% water change once a week. i ffed the fish twice a day, a pinch of flake food, and a couple of catfish pellets, then frozen food once a week. will leave the otocinclus, but might get a golden apple snail or two. more in need of advice about the pregnant mollie right now, she has started hiding in my plants and picking at them.
siang;4496703; said:
Holy crap, when I first read that i thought you said something completely different and very wrong.
eatingleg4peanut;4496805; said:
Heh, I thought the same thing when I first read it.
I was like, You do what to your fish?! 