Stocking new 20 gallon and how to increase filtration

Matt.has.fish · Dec 31, 2019

Hi everyone, i have had a 20 gallon standard freshwater tank for a good while now being recently redisgned with new plants, rocks, etc. Currently all that is in there is a gold mystery snail and I now want to order more fish for the tank. I was thinking a pair of honey Gourami, either harlequin rasboras or neon tetras, panda cories(or other species), and 1-2 nerite snails. I checked it out on aqadvisor and it has 94% filtration and 71% stocking, so I was wondering if I really need more filtration as I have a lot of live plants and moss balls in the tank. Any opinions and advise would be greatly appreciated as I would like to order the new fish this week. Thanks

seangee · Dec 31, 2019

Can you post a pic of the tank. No calculator can take all factors into account and if you have a lot of actively growing plants you should be fine. Make sure you test regularly for ammonia and nitrites in the first few weeks and change 50-75% of the water every week.
I am assuming you undestand the nitrogen cycle. Just fwiw the same site says the tank in my signature has 36% filtration.

Byron · Dec 31, 2019

I concur with the above.

When you have live plants, the only "filtration" you need is water clarification. Clear water is one thing, clean water is quite another thing. The plants, and not overstocking or over feeding, along with regular substantial partial water changes, provide the "clean water." The filter is thus only there to circulate the water (gently for some fish, a bit more perhaps for others) through media like sponge/foam that removes microscopic particulate matter to keep the water crystal clear.

Matt.has.fish · Dec 31, 2019

Okay I think I understand what you guys mean, and here is what the tank currently looks like without the addition of some more rocks. What is your opinion on the stocking idea I had suggested aswell?

Byron · Dec 31, 2019

Matt.has.fish said:
Okay I think I understand what you guys mean, and here is what the tank currently looks like without the addition of some more rocks. What is your opinion on the stocking idea I had suggested aswell?

Definitely, look for some floating plants. Water Sprite is ideal, another is Frogbit, and another is Water Lettuce. Some stem plants (like Pennywort) do well if left floating.

The mentioned fish are OK, but numbers will play into this. Shoaling fish (tetras, rasboras, cories) must have a group of each, with sufficient numbers to keep the fish less stressed. Cories, 8-9; neon tetra, 9-12. Harlequin Rasbora, 8-9. The rasbora are getting a bit crowded here, especially with a pair of honey Gourami.

Matt.has.fish · Dec 31, 2019

Okay I think I understand what you guys mean, and here is what the tank currently looks like without the addition of some more rocks. What is your opinion on the stocking idea I had suggested aswell?

Byron said:
Definitely, look for some floating plants. Water Sprite is ideal, another is Frogbit, and another is Water Lettuce. Some stem plants (like Pennywort) do well if left floating.

The mentioned fish are OK, but numbers will play into this. Shoaling fish (tetras, rasboras, cories) must have a group of each, with sufficient numbers to keep the fish less stressed. Cories, 8-9; neon tetra, 9-12. Harlequin Rasbora, 8-9. The rasbora are getting a bit crowded here, especially with a pair of honey Gourami.

Okay do you have any other stockings ideas for fish that would do relatively well in this style tank?

Byron · Dec 31, 2019

Matt.has.fish said:
Okay I think I understand what you guys mean, and here is what the tank currently looks like without the addition of some more rocks. What is your opinion on the stocking idea I had suggested aswell?

Okay do you have any other stockings ideas for fish that would do relatively well in this style tank?

If you go with what you have, minus the rasboras I think, that is it. If you want to completely re-think the fish, not including these, that is different. Small tanks (a 20g is small to the fish inside it) tend to be good with very small fish, what are often termed nano fish. But many of these will be wild caught and adapt to vastly differing water parameters less well if at all, so knowing the parameters will help us. GH (general hardness) is the most important, then pH.

Retired Viking · Dec 31, 2019

Nice looking tank, I had a bad experience with gold mystery snails going after my plants so you may want to keep an eye on him. Nerite and Ramshorn sails are good for going after algae and cleaning and they don't eat plants. Neon tetras are very nice fish to have. I have 12 along with shoals of ember, red eye and glowlight tetra in my 55 gallon. They come from jungle streams and like to have plenty of plants some floating to give them shade and places to hide. Tetras are mostly smaller fish that would be good in a tank your size. You may want to add some Java moss to your tree also.

Matt.has.fish · Dec 31, 2019

That’s might be a good idea. So maybe like 10 neons, a nerite snail and some panda cories maybe. Get some java moss and floating plants aswell. What do you think?

Retired Viking · Dec 31, 2019

sounds good, I just came back from the LFS and picked up 5 small nerite snails for my tanks along with some more plants mostly for my 30 gallon tank I am cycling. Some floating plants like hornwort and water sprite are good.

JxsPxxle · Dec 31, 2019

Matt.has.fish said:
Hi everyone, i have had a 20 gallon standard freshwater tank for a good while now being recently redisgned with new plants, rocks, etc. Currently all that is in there is a gold mystery snail and I now want to order more fish for the tank. I was thinking a pair of honey Gourami, either harlequin rasboras or neon tetras, panda cories(or other species), and 1-2 nerite snails. I checked it out on aqadvisor and it has 94% filtration and 71% stocking, so I was wondering if I really need more filtration as I have a lot of live plants and moss balls in the tank. Any opinions and advise would be greatly appreciated as I would like to order the new fish this week. Thanks

As well as the current filter, you could always add another filter to your tank which would increase filtration. Having two sponge filters in your tank will not be a bad idea. Is your tank long or high? 20 Gallons should be sufficient for a small group of dwarf cordydoras, personally pandas corydoras are my favourite. Maybe you could do two 40% water changes a week to improve your water quality.

Matt.has.fish · Dec 31, 2019

JxsPxxle said:
As well as the current filter, you could always add another filter to your tank which would increase filtration. Having two sponge filters in your tank will not be a bad idea. Is your tank long or high? 20 Gallons should be sufficient for a small group of dwarf cordydoras, personally pandas corydoras are my favourite. Maybe you could do two 40% water changes a week to improve your water quality.

Ya I need to do another water change for this week since I haven’t done it since last week. It is a 20 gallon high tank. I really want to order the fish either today or tomorrow but I’m debating over two stockings. One being 2 honey Gouramis, 5 neon tetras, 4 panda cories and a tiger nerite snail. Or two being a big school of neon tetras and panda cories, along with the same nerite snail. What do you think

Byron · Dec 31, 2019

Matt.has.fish said:
Ya I need to do another water change for this week since I haven’t done it since last week. It is a 20 gallon high tank. I really want to order the fish either today or tomorrow but I’m debating over two stockings. One being 2 honey Gouramis, 5 neon tetras, 4 panda cories and a tiger nerite snail. Or two being a big school of neon tetras and panda cories, along with the same nerite snail. What do you think

Increase the number of neon tetras and panda cories, they really do need more to be at their best. You could still have the pair of Honey Gourami (and by the way, with two you want a male/female pair, as two males in this small a space will probably not get along) with say 8-9 neons and 7-8 panda cories. The snail is irrelevant as it does not add to the bioload (unless it dies of course :sad:

).

This is quite a good stocking...both the neons and the pandas prefer cooler rather than warmer temperatures and the Honey's will be OK at say 76F (24.5C). The Honey's inhabit the upper leveel, the neons mid-lower and the panda lower, so that is pretty good.

Matt.has.fish · Dec 31, 2019

Byron said:
Increase the number of neon tetras and panda cories, they really do need more to be at their best. You could still have the pair of Honey Gourami (and by the way, with two you want a male/female pair, as two males in this small a space will probably not get along) with say 8-9 neons and 7-8 panda cories. The snail is irrelevant as it does not add to the bioload (unless it dies of course ).

This is quite a good stocking...both the neons and the pandas prefer cooler rather than warmer temperatures and the Honey's will be OK at say 76F (24.5C). The Honey's inhabit the upper leveel, the neons mid-lower and the panda lower, so that is pretty good.

Alright I think I’m going to to go with 6 neon tetra, 2 honey Gourami, 1 nerite snail, and 4 panda Corydoras. Does this sound like it will work out considering my current tank setup?

Byron · Dec 31, 2019

Matt.has.fish said:
Alright I think I’m going to to go with 6 neon tetra, 2 honey Gourami, 1 nerite snail, and 4 panda Corydoras. Does this sound like it will work out considering my current tank setup?

You need more cories, and tetras frankly. The numbers I suggested are intended to ensure a healthy, happy group of fish because you have the space for these so they should be given the best conditions and that means more of them.

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Stocking new 20 gallon and how to increase filtration

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