Stocking my new 90L Tank

[Bust Rocker]

Hi everyone,
I've got a brand new 90L fluval tank,

I'm just nearing the last stages of cycling it and I was thinking about the stock I wanted for it.

I currently have a pleco, 1x adult male swordtail, and 2 young adult male guppies


Basically I was looking for some advice on stocking levels for it...
What I'd like is:

2x male guppies and 2x female
2x male swordtails and 2x female
My pleco
Some amano shrimps maybe about 4-5
A small bunch of tetras (or maybe something else if I find something I like!)
And maybe an aquarium frog or 2 depending what you think?

Will this be too much for a 90L?

 

[seangee]

What are your water parameters? Especially pH and hardness. The livebearers you mentioned prefer different water conditions to the tetras, so its best to find out what will work best in your water.

You don't say what pleco. Chances are it will get too big for your setup, you may want to consider an oto (Otocinclus) instead. See what you like and look it up at seriouslyfish.com to fins out what the requirements are.

 

[Bust Rocker]

My water parameters are currently

Gh: 180
Kh: 240
Ph: 7.5-8


Obviously ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are low and nearing the end of the cycle.

Not sure on pleco....? Maybe a young common? But I will look it up! Thankyou

I've got like these little hairy white spots on the glass, is this algae that will get eaten by shrimps/plecos or is that something I should scrub off when I do my water change?

 

[Essjay]

I would not get frogs. They should really be in a tank on their own. They are almost blind and find their food by smell, but by the time they locate where you put it any fish in the tank will already have eaten everything. I once kept two in with a betta and never again. It was impossible to place the food anywhere the betta couldn't reach it - he even got inside the upside down terracotta plant pot with small frog sized holes in it. It wasn't long before I set up my quarantine tank for the frogs.

 

[Bust Rocker]

Okay thankyou for the advise! Can't do that to the poor little guys!

 

[Byron]

I concur with essjay re the frogs.

Your water parameters are on the moderately hard side, so livebearers generally will fare better than soft water species such as most (but not all) tetras.

Confining my comments to the guppies and swordtails...swordtails are active swimmers, and should reach 4 to 5 inches though 6 is possible. This means at least a 30-inch tank; I don't know the dimensions of your 90 liter (23 gallon). Platy might be a better livebearer. And guppies are obviously OK.

This brings me to the male/female. With any livebearer, mixing male/female will mean dozens of fry regularly, and they will not all get eaten. Males only will avoid this. And, with both genders, more females than male is needed as male livebearers will drive the females very persistently, and this stresses them and will often kill them. One male to three females is the sort of ratio, but even so in a relatively small space (a 90 loiter is small to the fish) this is still going to be risky. And of course three females will soon overload the tank with fry.

Given the tank size and parameters, looking at other fish than livebearers might be best.