Stocking question

[Kansan Neon]

I was just wondering if this tank is over stocked:
10 US Gallon tank with hood and a Whisper filter, all in a beginner's set kind of thing.
1 Neon Tetra
3 Rasbora Hets
1 White Cloud
5 Glo-Lite Tetras
3 cories, 2 Peppered and 1 Bronze
1 fairly sized Common Pleco (used to have 2, one commited suicide today , topic on that coming in the catfish forum), and I do know that Common Plecs can get pretty big. Is this tank over stocked?

 

[mlee0332]

you are overstocked, but if you get the next size up filter, you should be okay. Also you need to think about oxygen. OR you could get a 29g and more neons and white clouds (they are schooling fish and need atlest 5 in a group to be happy) I don;t really know much about the rest of the fish though...

 

[rdd1952]

You are over stocked. All of the fish stay pretty small with the exception of the pleco which will get way too big - 18" or more. The rasboras will be about the same size as tetras. Even at that, you have at least 24+ inches of adult fish in a 10 gallon, not counting the pleco. As mlee14 said, all of the fish you have are schooling fish and would be happier in larger groups, including the corys. Sometimes different species will school together but not always. I would upgrade to a larger tank (29 gallon) if that is possible. Upgrading to a better filter may help but that's still a lot of fish for 10 gallon. Keep a close check on the ammonia and nitrite.One thing for sure though. You definitely need to get rid of the pleco. Even though he is maybe still small, they are still big waste producers.

 

[Kansan Neon]

Just in case the thing about the Cories confuses you: 2 are Peppereds and 1 is Bronze
About the oxygen? Sorry, I forgot to mention that I have 4 plant bulbs in my tank, and 2 have leaves right now, and our filter chucks air bubbles into the tank. Does that help the oxygen?
For the White Cloud and Neon, we accidentally got the Cloud when we were getting Glo-Lites I think, and the Neon has been through a lot, like when we wre boneheaded enough to put 2 female barbs in, I think we had 2 female Tigers, yellow whiteish, and a spot near the back fin. The dude at our local Wal-Mart said they were probably females because of their markings, and that Wal-Mart takes fairly good care of the fish (meaning it's not perfect, last time I went there was 1 fantail goldfish with a swim bladder problem, and the same for a Het, but the fantail was in a tank with a bright sign on it that told the employee not to sell them, they have ich. Other then that things are good, when theres dead fish its not in mass numbers), and they have people who actually know something about fish. Anyway, these female barbs weren't happy in this piddly little 10 gallon, and they went hostile. I saw them nipping at the little ghost shrimp. Later a peice of its tail was hanging out of one of them's mouth. Then there went the first Neon, nipped to death, then they brutally injured my adorable little Peppered cory to the point where he was stuck to the filter, gasping for life. I hadn't read the acceptable/non acceptable fish disposal, in this case excution and mercy for the barbs and the cory, so down to the sewer they went.
The next saga was that another shrimp we bought got ticked off at 2 unlucky Neons, and he had Neon eye for lunch.
We now have only one surviving Neon, which I have named "Soldier", with fin damage from the barbs. Don't worry, he's pretty happy with the others now. I forgot to mention that we had 2 shrimp after the barb scare, the smaller one, Casper has gone AWOL while Gus, the bigger one, is happy. I have a suspicion of who ate Casper.
I hope this info helps!

 

[Kansan Neon]

Sorry about the double post, but don't worry about my Pleco. I'm planning to get oto's after the plec.

 

[sylvia]

Just to emphasize this - you don't NEED an algee eater in your tank. This is a very common misconception. Your tank is over-stocked - I expect you'll be rehoming the plec? Don't replace him/her. Stick to the fish you have. Adding more fish actualy increases the algae - as does over-feeding and slacking on regular maintainance so make sure you aren't . Otos are fragile anyway so they won't do well in an over-stocked tank. BTW, tiger barbs - whether male or female - look pretty much the same with black vertical bands on an orange/yellow background. There's also an albino orange-pink color morph without any balck markings and a green morph. The fish you had were probably something else. Plants do give off oxygen when they photosynthesize during the day - however, at night, they only respirate (due to lack of light) and this is basically the same process as that in fish or people so they give off carbon dioxie. Plants are not a reliable way of increasing ocygen - though they do use up nutrients/ammonia/nitrAte etc and they do help keep algae down by competing with it for nutrients and also for light to an extent. If you start scraping off algae rather than relying on a fish, you'll find your growing plants will keep the algae down for you afterwards and a weekly scrape just before your water change will keep the tank spotless. Bubbles coming from the filter do increase the amount of oxygen that can get into your tank by increasing the surface area. Very little, if any, oxygen gets into the water directly from the bubbles but the extra surface aggitation is key (to increasing surface area and therefore oxygen).

 

[Kansan Neon]

Hmm, ok, nice idea about the pleco , but at the Wally World, the 29g's are 1 crisp Benjamin (Translation, 100$) and my parents are kind of squeamish about money, as our first to trips to Sam's to open our new store in town cost a total of between 1,000 $ and 10,000$, and we are still recovering. This is pretty stupid, but are razor blades the ones in shaving razors? ) The pleco is about the length of my middle finger (don't know the name, is it the forefinger? sorry if what I called it was offensive), about how longer will it take to get bigger than the tank? I understand scraping the spot algae on our walls, but we got the pleco's for all algae, including brown algae. Will oto's eat every kind of algae except the spot algae? I read there is not much you can do except scrape it, even if an oto is in the house. Now that you said it, maybe since the pleco takes up so much space, the tank is over crowded. And oto's are pretty small, right?
I'm surprised that no one commented on the Wal-Mart yet.
I'm sorry if I look like I'm treating the fish atrociously, but it could be worse. Remember that Meijer's?

 

[rdd1952]

You should be able to get a 29 gallon tank, the filter, heater, etc cheaper buying them seperate rather than as a kit. You will probably have to buy the tank locally but you can order everything else online and save quite a bit of money. Bigalsonline.com or petsolutions.com are both very good sources. I have bought from both of them and I'm sure I will again.

I just checked at Big Als and you can get a Tetra Whisper 40 Filter for $21.99, Big Al's 200W heater for $6.99, Penn Plax Stick-onThermometer for $1.99 and shipping is $6.95. Total of $37.92. You could possibly find a combo that was even less expensive. All you would have to buy locally is the 29 gallon tank which I wouldn't think would run over about $25.00. I haven't priced that size but I know Petsmart sells a 10 gallon for $9.99 since I am looking at one for a quarantine tank.

 

[Kansan Neon]

Wow... and Wal-Mart was supposed to have low prices!