How Many Fish In A 30 Gallon Tank?

[dazza17]

roughly how many fish would i get into a 30 gallon tank
its a community tank
freshwater tank
and last thing fish breeds to put in and how many of each

 

[Corleone]

With a 30 gallon tank, most common tropical fish up to about 5 inches long will be suitable.

A general rule of thumb in a cycled tank is about 1 inch of adult size per gallon of water. It's a very rough guideline, 5 1 inch fish is less load than 1 5 inch fish. Make sure to review the fishless cycle thread, as an uncycled tank won't support so many fish, and having too many fish in that situation makes for backbreaking work controlling water stats.

Once the tank is established, several months after the cycle is finished, stocking becomes more art than science - water testing and tank maintenance have a bigger influence on eventual stocking levels than any calculations. 1.5 inches per gallon is usually possible, with strong filtration and maintenance, more than that sometimes.

 

[dazza17]

thanks very much mate you've give me a good idea
do u no any breeds that go together

 

[puppyjess123]

depends what you like. Give us a description of things like fast, colourful etc. Then we can list some ideas.

 

[Corleone]

Generally, a tropical community is pretty easy to set up. Check the fish profiles here and other sites (often just googling a fish's name is enough to get several sites), or ask here or in the more species specific forums.

Anyway, for a community, there's two rules for good results: No fish more than twice as long as your smallest fish (there are exceptions of big fish with small mouths, also small fish capable of swallowing fish nearly their own size), and no fish known to nip fins with slow moving or long finned fish.

For your tank, you could start out with a shoal of danios or hatchetfish at the top, a shoal of tetras (some bigger ones are known as fin nippers), small barbs (tiger barbs are one of the most notorious fin nippers, the rest are quite peaceful), or rainbowfish in the middle, and a shoal of corydora catfish or group of small loaches at the bottom (many commonly sold loaches grow quite large, particularly clown loaches, so research first as always).

On top of that, you could add a centerpiece and maybe a couple accent pieces - a gourami or angelfish, maybe a trio of livebearers like platys or a pair of dwarf cichlids like rams or apistogramma. If you want an algae eater, a bristlenose plec would be excellent.

 

[waterdrop]

Welcome to the forum dazza. You can get a lot of species planning in during your month of fishless cycling. What type of cycling were you planning to do?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[dazza17]

ye am just looking for exciting and colourful fish

 

[puppyjess123]

Zebra Danios and neon tetras are cool. Bright and active.

 

[Jallen]

I recommend having 6-12 Tiger barbs. However, if you decide do do that you won't be able to have any fish which have long fins or swin really slow (they do fine with most tetras, it's only things like bettas and angel fish they will kill).
They look great in groups though and they feed like mini piranhas.

 

[gavva]

i heard it was 1cm per gallon but am no pro

 

[Jallen]

You heard wrong. It's 1 inch per gallon.

 

[Corleone]

Some people who are familiar with metric use 1 cm per liter. Works out quite a bit different than inch/gallon, but both rules are very rough guidelines and are usually underestimates.

 

[dazza17]

thanks all...
what are the little black sharks with an orange tail
and would they get on with other fish?

 

[OldMan47]

They are usually called red tailed sharks and are not a good member of the community when you have small fish. They can get quite large and can be aggressive.