Fish stocking 200l tank

[Fisharefriends123]

Hi everyone, I’m new here. Had my tank about 4 months now and have recently added some new fish. I’m just looking for some advice as to whether I have too many fish because I’m not completely aware of how big they are going to get (no hate please).
I have a 200l tank and the following fish:
5 tiger barbs
6 guppies
2 red garra
2 corydora
2 yo-yo loach
4 red nose rummies
2 dalmatian mollies
3 angel
2 gourami
= 28

any help or advice you can give will be much appreciated, I’ll attach a photo ?

thanks!!

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the forum Thats a really nice looking tank you should keep an eye out for our tank of the month competition when it comes to your tank size!

There are a couple of issues with the fish you have but I think you might suspect that.

The first is compatibility. Tiger Barbs are known to be nippy fish so could nip the big fins of your Angels and Guppies, Angels can get quite an agressive fish to each other and other territorial fish like your Gourami. Angels and Gourami often dont work out long term as they both stay in the upper third of the tank and are both inteligent fish so often maintain a pecking order, sometimes it does settle down but in most cases it doesnt work out. You may need to choose between which species you want to keep. Angels are also very hard on each other if they do not choose to pair off together, though in a tank this size you could be ok. The other aspect with Angels is they need a tank with good height - ideally 18 inches between the water line and the sand. They get about 6 inches long but also 6 inches tall so you need to give them space to move up and down the tank more so than other fish that are more rectangular.

You have a mix of fish that live in hard or soft water - eg garra, mollies, guppies need harder water and rummy nose, angels and corydora need softer water. Keeping fish in the right sort of water really increases their life span and decreases their risk of getting ill so its worth bearing in mind. Do you know your water hardness? If you dont have a test kit this info is usually available on your water companies website. The best situation is to sometimes have neutral water as it gives you the broadest range of options for the fish that will do well in your tank.

The last thing to think about is numbers, you have a lot of fish that are best kept in schools. Tiger Barbs, Corydoras and Rummy Nose are all schooling fish and you are best off keeping them in groups of at least 6 but 8-10 is a better minimum. Your Gara and Yoyo Loaches are gregarious so while not schooling do appreciate being in decent numbers, 5 or so would do for both.

Wills

 

[Slaphppy7]

Welcome to the forum.
Excellent advice from Wills above; are you able to return or rehome some of the fish?

 

[mbsqw1d]

Also a couple of issues temperature wise; particularly the red garra that are temperate fish, so you're looking at 20c being their max, whereas barbs max out at around 24c and angels prefer it warmer, around 26-28 ideally

 

[Fisharefriends123]

Hi welcome to the forum Thats a really nice looking tank you should keep an eye out for our tank of the month competition when it comes to your tank size!

There are a couple of issues with the fish you have but I think you might suspect that.

The first is compatibility. Tiger Barbs are known to be nippy fish so could nip the big fins of your Angels and Guppies, Angels can get quite an agressive fish to each other and other territorial fish like your Gourami. Angels and Gourami often dont work out long term as they both stay in the upper third of the tank and are both inteligent fish so often maintain a pecking order, sometimes it does settle down but in most cases it doesnt work out. You may need to choose between which species you want to keep. Angels are also very hard on each other if they do not choose to pair off together, though in a tank this size you could be ok. The other aspect with Angels is they need a tank with good height - ideally 18 inches between the water line and the sand. They get about 6 inches long but also 6 inches tall so you need to give them space to move up and down the tank more so than other fish that are more rectangular.

You have a mix of fish that live in hard or soft water - eg garra, mollies, guppies need harder water and rummy nose, angels and corydora need softer water. Keeping fish in the right sort of water really increases their life span and decreases their risk of getting ill so its worth bearing in mind. Do you know your water hardness? If you dont have a test kit this info is usually available on your water companies website. The best situation is to sometimes have neutral water as it gives you the broadest range of options for the fish that will do well in your tank.

The last thing to think about is numbers, you have a lot of fish that are best kept in schools. Tiger Barbs, Corydoras and Rummy Nose are all schooling fish and you are best off keeping them in groups of at least 6 but 8-10 is a better minimum. Your Gara and Yoyo Loaches are gregarious so while not schooling do appreciate being in decent numbers, 5 or so would do for both.

Wills

Wow, thank you so much for the detail in your reply, it’s really helpful!

So, my tiger barbs and guppies were part of the first lot of fish I got and they actually seem to be quite friendly towards each other. The only territorial issue i have is between the two garra, the bigger one can sometimes chase the other one.

I did start out with 6 tiger barb and 6 red nose rummies but lost one tiger barb and 2 red nose rummies on the same day. I don’t think the tank was cycled fully and they couldn’t acclimatise. I wasn’t sure whether I should increase their numbers back up but it is definitely something I will look to do.

My water at home is hard. I wasn’t sure if there is anything I can do to reduce this hardness the information I find online isn’t very helpful to be honest.
All of my fish seem to be very active and happy so I think I’ll just keep a close eye on them to see if there are any problems with compatibility and then make a decision.

Also thanks for saying it looks good ? I didn’t realise how much of a difficult task it would be to find a set-up that I liked! It’s still a work in progress in my eyes ?

 

[Fisharefriends123]

Also a couple of issues temperature wise; particularly the red garra that are temperate fish, so you're looking at 20c being their max, whereas barbs max out at around 24c and angels prefer it warmer, around 26-28 ideally

Oh really! Thanks for letting me know. Currently my temperature is 24. Clearly my local fish shop hasn’t been the most helpful, they seem to think all of this was fine. Obviously I’ve slowly added more fish over a few months but have always told them what I have. I’m always keeping an eye on my tank and they seem to be doing alright, how would I know if there was temperature problems for certain fish?

 

[Fisharefriends123]

Welcome to the forum.
Excellent advice from Wills above; are you able to return or rehome some of the fish?

Would it be really irresponsible to keep them all if they seem to be doing ok?

 

[Slaphppy7]

Would it be really irresponsible to keep them all if they seem to be doing ok?

Not necessarily irresponsible, but you may have issues in the future

 

[Fisharefriends123]

Not necessarily irresponsible, but you may have issues in the future

Ok good ? I’ve grown quite attached to them all so it would be a difficult decision to make! I’ll certainly keep it in mind if there are any problems in the future though

 

[mbsqw1d]

Just a case of them not living to their full potential. The fish that aren't being kept in their preferred conditions (hardness, numbers or temperature) will be stressed to some extent. Stressed fish have elevated levels of cortisol which hinders the immune system. It might be in the future that one of these fish pick up a common disease and are unable to shake it off because of the compromised immune system.
So yeah, everything can look great now, but problems may arise that otherwise wouldnt do if the fish were kept within their range.

 

[Wills]

Wow, thank you so much for the detail in your reply, it’s really helpful!

So, my tiger barbs and guppies were part of the first lot of fish I got and they actually seem to be quite friendly towards each other. The only territorial issue i have is between the two garra, the bigger one can sometimes chase the other one.

I did start out with 6 tiger barb and 6 red nose rummies but lost one tiger barb and 2 red nose rummies on the same day. I don’t think the tank was cycled fully and they couldn’t acclimatise. I wasn’t sure whether I should increase their numbers back up but it is definitely something I will look to do.

My water at home is hard. I wasn’t sure if there is anything I can do to reduce this hardness the information I find online isn’t very helpful to be honest.
All of my fish seem to be very active and happy so I think I’ll just keep a close eye on them to see if there are any problems with compatibility and then make a decision.

Also thanks for saying it looks good ? I didn’t realise how much of a difficult task it would be to find a set-up that I liked! It’s still a work in progress in my eyes ?

No probs it looks great I realy like the black sand and your plants look healthy too

@mbsqw1d has summed it up above perfectly. You can see from your tank you are doing a great job maintaining it and the fish and plants look really healthy here its more about the long term we are concerned about. Its something you cant really monitor day to day its a case of gaining the knowledge and working in certain paramaters to make sure you get long term success. Some of the fish in your tank are capeable of reaching double digits (some of them well into it) so its worth bearing in mind that not keeping them in optimal conditions can reduce this to just a few years.

In terms of altering your water hardness, the best option is RO water. You can get this from your LFS or a machine for your home, it just needs connecting to a water source and you can collect it in a container or bucket ready for your water change. You can get the units for as low as £30 or you can get them that connect to your kitchen tap if that makes it easier but they are quite a bit more expensive.

Wills

 

[Fisharefriends123]

I get it now. It’s a slow burner that will cause problems in the long run. I’ve been so concerned about the parameters and cleanliness of the tank that I’ve perhaps missed the importance of why some of these fish shouldn’t be kept together. In my mind I was thinking as long as they look healthy and active then it was ok. Especially as the fish shop sold them all to me after knowing what I already had. Hmmmm, what would you guys do in my position? Would you keep all of the fish or re-home some?

 

[Wills]

I get it now. It’s a slow burner that will cause problems in the long run. I’ve been so concerned about the parameters and cleanliness of the tank that I’ve perhaps missed the importance of why some of these fish shouldn’t be kept together. In my mind I was thinking as long as they look healthy and active then it was ok. Especially as the fish shop sold them all to me after knowing what I already had. Hmmmm, what would you guys do in my position? Would you keep all of the fish or re-home some?

So you roughly have 83 inches of fish in the tank (when they are adult sizes) and you have 52 gallons - on a very very vague rule inch per gallon is a good guide (but with lots of caveats). You also need to get some of the fish in bigger groups and you have soft water fish in hard water. It would be really good if you knew how hard your water is? Do you have a ppm of gh reading for your tank at all? Are you open to the RO route at all? I have really hard water and I'm about to make the move over to RO in the next few weeks.

If you stuck with hard water (assuming 12-14gh) I'd go for

2 Gourami
6 Guppies (assuming these guys will multiply)
2 Dalmatian Mollies (assuming these guys will multiply also)
5 Yo-Yo Loach (Or depending on which species you have, 10 Cories)
5 Red Garra (a bigger group will stop one picking on the other)

If you are not too keen on the Red Garra you could look at an other schooling fish, Black Ruby Barbs, Cherry Barbs etc. Quite a few options depending on what you want from your tank.

If you wanted to soften your tank and use RO water it would open up some other options.

Wills