190 litre corner tank stocking help…

[A Fishkeeper]

Hi,
I’ve just got a new tank. It’s a Juwel trigon 190 litre corner tank.

It will have a Eheim classic 250 external filter attached and a large piece of wood and plants.

I’m looking for help with stocking levels.

Here my list of desired/compatible fish:
1 x angel fish
?x cherry barbs
?x corys
?x giant ottocinclus
?x danios
?x black widow/skirt tetras

The angelfish is an essential but I’m flexible with other fish.

I want it to have fish in all areas and ideally varied behaviours, which is why I’m looking at that selection together. But calculating the numbers and if it’s too much variety to work, is making my head hurt.

Ideally I don’t want to have the minimum number for any of the “shoaling” fish to avoid a fish death and then numbers are off instantly but I don’t want to overstock the tank.

Your expertise and experience would be much appreciated. I’ve been keeping fish for 5 years so not new to this but want to start this tank off without any mistakes

 

[Colin_T]

What are the tank dimensions (length x width x height)?

What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website (Water Analysis Report) or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.

Angelfish, discus, most tetras, most barbs, Bettas, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm) and a pH below 7.0.

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), rainbowfish and goldfish occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm and a pH above 7.0.

If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids, or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.

 

[A Fishkeeper]

Corner tank with curved front.

 

[A Fishkeeper]

I’m in London so very hard water. The fish shop I buy from have theirs in normal London water. So any I buy will be used to my local water parameters.

 

[Essjay]

So any I buy will be used to my local water parameters.

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. The fish are in the shop tanks very briefly; they don't have time to become affected by hard water. It's once they are in your tank that the long term effects occur.

Fish come from water with a certain hardness and their bodies have evolved for that water. Soft water fish bodies hang on to any minerals in the water; put them in hard water and they still hang on to the minerals which leads to calcium deposits building up in organs such as the kidneys. The fish won't live as long as they should.

If you want to keep soft water fish you need to reduce the hardness in the tank water. This is done by mixing tap and pure water to get the right hardness. Reverse osmosis water is the usual source of pure water - there may be a branch of Spotless Water near you to source it at a reasonable price.

 

[Innesfan]

In addition to the above considerations, angelfish and black tetras are not a good mix. All the rhomboid shaped tetras can be nippy and angels are an easy target.