If i increase my filtration can i increase my fish

[Cossack1977]

ive got a 75 gallon tank with a trickle filter.

if i increased my filtration could i increase my fish load.

i am looking at putting a canister into the filtration loop

tank-pump-canister-trickle filter-tank

would this work?

 

[Tropjunky]

Well intheory yes but then what happens if u get a power cut and IMO the overstocked thank thingy is based on wast, light, amount of decor and space. if u put more fish in there then ur gonna have less space so becareful.
I think that your filter arrangement would work 4 a while but may not be that good an idea unless the output of the filters are the same. I would get one big filter.


tank - big filter - smaller tank - canister(or trickle - tank
-----------------------|-----------------------------------------
--------------------tank----------------------------------------

That way u get less stress in ur filter.

 

[Cossack1977]

got my tank running on 2 ups that should keep anything from happening on a power outage.

i will keep the existing trickle filter as a seperate filtrations system.

filter 1:
excisting trickle filter

filter 2:
tank-external canister filter for mechanical filtration-fluidised bed filter(biological filtration)-uv sterilizer(micro organisms)-tank

this way i should be able to dramaticaly increase my fish load.

more bottom feeders
6 corys
6 kuhli loaches

as well as another 4 rosy barbs

what does every one think?

would this work?

 

[mrV]

more bottom feeders
6 corys
6 kuhli loaches

as well as another 4 rosy barbs

what does every one think?

would this work?

That's not much, but because I don't know what you already have, I cannot say, is it ok or not. What fishes and how many do you already have?

this way i should be able to dramaticaly increase my fish load.

Wrong even in theoritically. Although you add filters more and more, your tank isn't any larger than it was before adding more filters. Fish/plants/food etc. produce other compounds than only ammonium-compound that are oxidize quickly yo nitrates so how can you filter all those irritant compounds away? Filters don't bind those compounds - they go through it back to the tank. Only some filters reduce nitrate level, but who owns it? (And it reduces only nitrates, not other compounds...)

So, if you want to keep your fishes healthy, don't overstock and do water changes enough!

Go to the nearest lake with some 75 gallons barrel. Drop it down and pull it back. How many fish are inside? None! So aquariums are already "overstocked".

 

[Cossack1977]

so what your saying even with better filtration and more regular water changes you cant increase the relevant fishload of a tank

 

[mrV]

Yes, because it doesn't make the tank any larger. There is no more room for territories etc, although you put dozens of filters more. It's not only water, it's the whole thing, you know...

What kind of fishes you have right now and how many?

 

[Tropjunky]

As i said eirlyer i wouldn't put more than 1and a half inchs of fish per Gl in there 'cos of the space. fish like us do need personal space as well.

 

[Cossack1977]

there is still plenty of swimming room.
80% of the fish i have are mid to top dwellers. im looking at putting more bottom dwellers in.

 

[nightlife20]

ur still not sayin how many fish u actualy have tho, or what fish they are.

 

[Cossack1977]

6 angles
4 gouramis
4 rosy barbs
3 bristlenose
1 rainbowshark

 

[Becca]

When I'm stocking my tank, I don't go by "1-Inch Adult Size / Gallon" rule. If I did that, I could rule out keeping any fish I might choose to do - Oscars, A nice swarm of Neon Tetras, etc.

What I do take into account are three things:

1. Will the fish have swim space? (This means if there are other fish in the tank, will they still be able to hang out in the areas they'd be interested? Bottom feeders on the bottom, mid and top dwellers hanging out in their respective areas.)

2. Will the fish have an area that they can hide, or if they're territorial, call their own? (This might be something as simple as adding a couple more plants, or more intesive, such as redoing the aquascape, or reconsidering the population, if it's a fish I want bad enough.)

3. Will I have enough filtration to adequately support the current and additional bioload?

If I can answer all three of those questions with a yes, then I'll consider adding more fish and it's simply just moving on to find species that are compatible with my current setup.

 

[Cossack1977]

here are a few photos of my tank.

there are heaps of hiding places and alot of swimming room

 

[CFC]

The problem is that no matter how much filtration you add water can still only hold a certain ammount of disolved oxygen and so can only support a set ammount of life, i'm sure MrV or one of the other chemistry/biology genius's can tell you what the exact figures are but one of the major causes of fish death is oxygen starvation from being in over crowded tanks. Also even though you can filter out ammonia and nitrite by adding extra filtration the end result is extreemly high levels of nitrate which can only be removed by water changes, are you really prepared to do water changes on a daily basis?

With a strict maintainance schedule, adequate filtration and sufficient water movement you can push a mature tank to holding around 2" of fish per US gallon of water, but remember this is not a cast iron rule and has to be adjusted to cater for aggression and need for territories.

 

[Becca]

Just to clarify...when I say "proper filtration to support the current and additional bioload" - I mean, will my tank, filter, etc be able to handle it without requiring me to change my care for the tank (E.G. replacing weekly water changes with daily...)

 

[Cossack1977]

at the moment i do a 20% water change every 4 days.


is this enough

i listed my fish before.

could i put a few more fish in looking at my maintenace routine.