Just Wondered....

[Azaezl]

I have a planted 30G with 2 gold corys, 4 bronze corys, 1 panda(survivor of a holiday when I trusted someone to feed the fish, learnt my lesson!), 3 oto's & 6 bronze babies who are now 2 months old.

I know cories don't add much to the bioload so the 1" guidline is a bit flexible but was wondering by how much. You see at the mo the tank is ok, but in the long run it's overstocked with the bronze babies, I really don't wanna have to get rid of them because I don't think I could trust anyone enough to let them have them lol. So is it possible for me to keep them all togther as they all seem very happy in there, even the panda seems happy. The tank is a tiny bit overfiltered with 2 fluval 2's, I change roughly 20% of the water twice a week the nitrites and ammonia are always 0 and the nitrates are always 5 or under. So what does everyone think, would they all be ok? Ideally I'd like to up the oto & panda numbers so they feel more secure but not sure this is possible without getting rid of the bronze babies.


Thanks

 

[jollysue]

I don't see a problem with that load with a good maintenance schedule. You might want to increase the filtration and add an air wand if you don't have one. But that doesn't appear overstocked to me. Keep an eye on it. If trouble appears do what you have to.

 

[Azaezl]

Sue. Just wanna check, I do have 2 spare cycled filters that I'll stick in there and if I keep up with the 20% twice a week water changes do you think another 3 oto's and if I get the chance another 2 pandas(so he's not alone) would be ok?

 

[Bozza]

I rekon you could get away with adding 2 more oto's and 2 more panda. I agree with Sue. As long as you have a good level of filtration and weekly water changes it should be ok. How much in total, will all your filters add up to be in litres per hr?

 

[Azaezl]

Oh good, I'll get some more oto's in a few weeks and the pandas whenever they become available, I do bi-weekly water changes, so 40% gets changed a week. In total all the filters will add up to about 1040L/h but I can easily but I'm gonna save a little cash and hopefully get a good external in a month or so. Thanks for you help

 

[jollysue]

The pandas and otos will require you to watch the water quality, but they should do well in that tank. The bronze will continue to rear volunteers. I find that about one per spawn will make it. So you will need to address that issue eventually.

 

[Azaezl]

Yeah the bronze are laying eggs every few days, they always eat them though, I ended up with the 6 little ones because I wanted to know if the eggs were fertile so moved them to another tank, went on holiday came back and had 10 fry(I only removed 12 eggs). I had the 10 fry for ages and then about 3 weeks ago I noticed I only had 6 little ones swimming about, looked everywhere for the other 4 but couldn't find them. Even when I moved all the cories into one tank after the disaster in the panda tank I took apart the bronze tank and just could not find any sign of them no little bodies or anything, such a mystery. Anyway the 6 that are left seem really healthy and active, feeding well and are very 'playful' esp. with the golds, the golds I have are like the parents of the tank, they always seem to be with the little ones and the sole panda.

I'm very careful with the water in all my tanks but the cory tank in particular, I try to keep nitrates under 5 and obviousley nitrite n ammonia 0, it's got quite a few plants in so that helps as well but I shall be heavily planting it soon as it looks a bit bare, this is their tank(still needs a backgroud)

 

[Bozza]

Looks like a nice tank. I bet all your fish love being in there!!

 

[Azaezl]

Yeah they love it, the golds have become alot more active, 1 of them was very very shy and would only venture out when the lights were off or sometimes if it was feeding time(they were rescued from a tank with a huge geophagus in it who chased thema dn made them v.nervous), since being moved in to this tank he's out all the time doing the little dance they do with the other one which I'm pretty sure is female. They've been showing signs of breeding as well, nothing so far though although I have seen them in the t-position a few times. I'm just glad they all seem pretty happy and mingle together was a little worried the panda would get left alone because he's so different to them but they all seem to have accepted him as a bronze / gold lol.