Fish Stocking Levels For My 90 Litre Aquarium

[fishman3]

Guys i know this is a common question on these boards but it is really bugging me now.....

using the 1inch of fish per gallon method appears to be the rule of thumb for most people and using this method my tank would hold approximately 24 inches of fish (or 61cm for those who work in metric!). However i recently found a website www.thinkfish.co.uk and they have an aquarium builder feature which works out the biomass of the proposed fish and the efficiency of your filtration system gives better multipliers for the number of cm of fish allowed. for example my tank measurements are 62 (L) x 39 (W) x 52 (H) with an external filter (hood trickle filtration) and by their calculations this should give me 213.75cm of fish in the tank. Now the sizes i put in are overall sizes so even taking them to a more pragmatic 55 (L) x 35 (W) x 40 (H) still gives me a total of 130.9cm of fish.

Their calculation method is of course a guide but the site claims to take the more "upto date" method of calculating fish stock as opposed to the tried and trusted 1inch of fish per gallon method.

As you can see this means that from 61cm using the old method they claim (as a guide) that i can go conservatively upto 130cm of fish for my set up.

I was looking for an opinion on this from the experts so as I dont get tempted to put (as they suggest) potentially 40-50 fish in my tank (slender small fish such as rasboras, danios, tetras etc) and keep it to around 24.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Phil

 

[Truck]

dont use thinkfish!!! its highly inaccurate.

 

[fishman3]

dont use thinkfish!!! its highly inaccurate.

in what way is it inaccurate truckasauras123?

just asking cause i would love a detailed explanation if you have the time?

 

[Truck]

for one if you stocked your tank to that extreme you would have tonnes of nitrates, i wouldnt stock that much in a 250 litre, tank, and a trickle filter in the hood, i would class as an internal as far as stocking goes.

and with loads of nitrates you would be doing water changes every two days with that stocking

 

[fishman3]

for one if you stocked your tank to that extreme you would have tonnes of nitrates, i wouldnt stock that much in a 250 litre, tank, and a trickle filter in the hood, i would class as an internal as far as stocking goes.

and with loads of nitrates you would be doing water changes every two days with that stocking

thanks truckasauras, so from your response i guess my limit is 24 inches of fish?

 

[Truck]

if it was me i would go with 20 inches of fish to start with and then work your way up to 30 inches over a period of six months.

 

[fishman3]

if it was me i would go with 20 inches of fish to start with and then work your way up to 30 inches over a period of six months.

thanks truckasauras you've been a big help!

it is always tempting to overstock especially with the conflicting information that is available!!!

Phil

 

[Truck]

yes it is with a new tank stock lightly and as it matures work up to 1.5" per gallon. thats generally considered a good guide

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, excellent advice from truck. The thinkfish thing is not good to use. Stocking more lightly initially and working up perhaps to some point a little over the inch per gallon (if you feel you have excellent overfiltration) over a significantly long period of time is is very good advice. I agree with everything he's saying. If you have not directly experienced these things you should definately not be starting out up over the the inch guideline.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bitteraspects]

this is a common misconception with "the rule". it actually refers to 1 square inch per gal. that will definitely keep you in the green as far as water parameters

 

[Truck]

1 square inch?? thats a new one on me, the recommended level is 1 inch of fish length per US gallon