Help With Stocking Please

[jenbo]

i have a 190 litre tank

all details of tank in my sig.. below

fish i have are

2 zebra loach
2 ram (new)
2 yellow Gourami (new)
1 clown pleco
1 common pleco
7 guppys
7 corys
5 shrimps
1 western rainbow
8 tetra

what id like to know is am i over stocked or not

if not id like some ideas on other fish wirh plenty of colour that would go well with what i have

many thanks
jenbo

 

[fluttermoth]

Yes, sorry jenbo, you are overstocked.
I did a quick calculation and your tank could hold 40 inches of fish and you've got 48" without the common plec, which you really want to look at re-homing if you can as it's going to get too big for your tank

Your tank looks really nice though.

 

[jenbo]

thank you so much for the advice fluttermoth

i tried to catch the common pleco awhile back to take him back to lfs and couldnt get him ,its too late now.
so am investing in new tank just need to save alittle more then i can move him..

will give 3 shrimp to my mate to even the stock out now i know im overstocked.
thanks again hun

 

[fluttermoth]

You're very welcome.
If you can move the plec, you should get away with the rest of your stock, as long as you have enough filtration and do plenty of large water changes

 

[ian]

The shrimp aren't gonna make a dent to your bio-load in that thank. The common plec will be the problem. With that gone your stock looks ok to me, the tetras and guppies don't hold much of a load.

 

[waterdrop]

The way to catch difficult fish is to take the major bogwood and decorations out of your tank (put bogwood in a bucket of tank water that you've just drawn off if it has plants attached to it) and use TWO nets, one very large and one that is smaller. The big net you just hold mostly still at one end of the tank and the smaller one does the gentle chasing to work the fish into the bigger net.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fluttermoth]

The way to catch difficult fish is to take the major bogwood and decorations out of your tank (put bogwood in a bucket of tank water that you've just drawn off if it has plants attached to it) and use TWO nets, one very large and one that is smaller. The big net you just hold mostly still at one end of the tank and the smaller one does the gentle chasing to work the fish into the bigger net.

~~waterdrop~~

That's good advice, WD
Common plecs are quite spiky though; I prefer not to use a net if I can help it. Try a piece of pipe or an old filter casing or something like that instead of the large net. Having catfish stuck in nets is traumatic for every one...