Overstocked?

[Plan-B]

Would you consider this tank over stocked?

15-Gallon Extra Tall, 13.5” Long X 13.5” Wide X 20” Tall.
Walmart Aqua-Tech 20-40 Filter.
No real plants.

9 X Neon tetras
2 X Albino Cory (Corydoras aeneus)

The reason I ask is I would like to add 2-3 more corys to the mix but think I might be pushing the bio-load of the tank. This tank has been running with the current fish and bio-load for the past month with no ill effects.

 

[MXPX4318]

I don't think that bioload is the problem here, but surface area (oxygen transfer) might be... I dunno that much about it but if it was a regular 15g I'd say you have plenty of room, but being such a tall tank, I'm not so sure about that.

 

[yhbae]

As mentioned already, your tank's water surface area is terribly small - smaller than a 5.5g tank. Although all the fishes you picked so far are very bioload light, you really should think about potentially upgrading your tank to something that has more water surface area....

 

[Plan-B]

I run a Rena 200 air pump and air stone in this tank because of the small surface area. Also the filter causes alot of surface movement so I don't think aeration is a problem.

 

[yhbae]

I run a Rena 200 air pump and air stone in this tank because of the small surface area. Also the filter causes alot of surface movement so I don't think aeration is a problem.

Yes adding them would definitely help and you should continue to do so, but you have so much more flexibility in choosing species if you have a larger tank...

Why not look into a standard 10g tank? That should cost very little and you can use the same filter as what you have right now. You can even add the fishes you want to add in the original post safely...

 

[Cheese Specialist]

I think it is overstocked because of problems with the surface area as already mentioned. Add to that the little swimming room and I think you are overstocked because of the tank shape rather than volume.

Fish generaly like to swim horizontally rather thn vertically and so you are leaving the fish with very little space and smaller, shoaling fish typically like a lot of room to swim.

 

[BigSteve]

♂ Tall tanks like yours look pretty cool, but are not really
practical for keeping a decent number of fish, and active fish (I consider neons pretty active) won't be happy due to the lack of horizontal swimming space.

 

[Plan-B]

Before this post I thought the neons and corys were good stocking choices for this tank because of there small size. I wanted to go with panda corys initially cause there even smaller then the albino/bronze but could find none. I know the corys should be in a group of a least 5-6 but at this point I don’t think I can add to my school as I intended. I do have other tank options for these fish so maybe I should move them on out and rethink the 15.

How would you stock a 15 gallon extra tall tank?

Ph: 7.5
Kh/Gh: I don’t have a clue but maybe it’s time to get a test kit.
Nitrate: 5-10ppm
Fine gravel and no real plants.

Thanks for any and all ideas.
Plan.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

I am not sure to be honest. Bronze/albino cories get massive though, I have seen really big and fat ones of these.

You could have gone for a betta perhaps because they have a lot of finnage and would appreciate extra head room. For cories you could have had pygmy cories and have 3-4 of them, maybe.

It's difficult. I am sure there are fish perfect for it but I just can't think of them!