Too Many Questions !

[cheekydevil]

Got a Aqua one 850

Currently holding ;

1 Golden tiger barb
2 Glowlight tetra
1 Dwarf Gourami (blue with red strips)
1 Neon Blue Gourami (i think!! it looks like it as a punk haircut if you know what i mean)
3 Neon tetra (I think, had a mixture of neons and cardinals but most died from a recent whitespot outbreak)
5 Tiger barbs
2 Clown loach
5 Cherry barbs
2 Hoplo catfish
2 woodshrimp

Hence it currently holds 24 species, which have all been getting along fine for months. Water tests are are fine ( think anyway, all are colourless, pH is a bright "lime" green)

I know i need to buy about 2 more tiger barbs to stop them from chasing the Gouramis, also i need more Tetras. I also need more female Cherry barbs because i only have one.

Questions are:

1) Am i overstocked??

2) My bf wants to buy a Albino Rainbow shark to put in this tank, which i am a bit unsure about. It looks like there is loads of room in the tank at present because the clown loach are really really small, but i doubt that there will be room once they start growing. Plus will the Shark fit into this community, which i doubt

3) Is there a big difference between the two Gouramis ??

4) How many more female Cherry Barbs should i buy ??

5) If by then i am not overstocked can anyone recommend a colourful fish which will spend its time at the top / middle of the tank which will go with the other fish stated above.

And final....

6) Can anyone recommend any live plants for this tank which are easy to care for ??


Thanks for your time

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the tanks about 40 gallons, you can have 1" of fish per gallon, worked out on the adult size of the fish, you currently have

1 Golden tiger barb - 2"
2 Glowlight tetra - 2"
1 Dwarf Gourami (blue with red strips) - 2"
1 Neon Blue Gourami (i think!! it looks like it as a punk haircut if you know what i mean) - 2"
3 Neon tetra (I think, had a mixture of neons and cardinals but most died from a recent whitespot outbreak) - 3"
5 Tiger barbs - 10"
2 Clown loach - 20"
5 Cherry barbs - 10"
2 Hoplo catfish - 14"
2 woodshrimp - 2"

so you've got 67" of fish, way overstocked.

the tank looks empty as the fish haven't reached full size but you must allow room for them to do so. however the tank is not big enough for clown loaches so I would advise that you re-home them which will leave you with a slightly overstocked but reasonable tank.

Even after the clown loaches come out you can't put more fish in without taking out some others, there are some problems with the numbers that you need to even out though

tiger barbs should be in a group of 10 to dissapate aggression, any less and they'll fight horribly and are liable to pick on other fish

the tetras should be in species groups of 6+ or they will not feel secure and won't be happy

the hoplo catfish do best in trio's

so to answer your questions

1 - yes

2 - no, don't get a shark, no room and they can be aggressive

3 - not sure really!

4 - what m/f ratio do you have for cherry barbs at the moment?

5 - no, i think you need to work out which fish you want to keep the most and which you should get rid of and then even out the numbers so they'll be happy.

6 - check out the pinned topic in the planted tank forum for easy plants

 

[rdd1952]

I'm somewhat confused as to the size of the tank. The only site I could find listed the dimensions as 82 x 44 x 58 which comes out to 209 liters or 55 gallon but the very next line on that site said 155 liters which is 41 gallon. In any case, you're overstocked.

1) Yes
2) No. They are territorial and could definitely be a problem with the clown loaches and catfish.
3) Don't know. They're both dwarfs I think but don't know what species the blue with stripe is.
4) I wouldn't get anynew fish until you remove some and as mentioned, even out the numbers.
5) See 4
6) Most l stem plants like amazon swords, anacharis, hygophilia, etc are very easy. Vallis grass is also a good choice.

Personally, I think ou should rehome/return all the tiger barbs and possibly the clown loaches. The clowns will grow to about 6" pretty quickly and then growth ill slow but they will definitely outgrow the tank eventually. The tigers are just bad fish. They are extremely aggressive and will harass even larger fish. They most definitely will be a problem for the slow moving gouramis. And you need to up the numbers on the tetras as they prefer groups.

You could remove the tigers and clowns and add about 5 more each of the glolights and the neons. That would get your stocking back in line and eliminate some of the aggression issues of the tiger barbs.

 

[cheekydevil]

I'm somewhat confused as to the size of the tank. The only site I could find listed the dimensions as 82 x 44 x 58 which comes out to 209 liters or 55 gallon but the very next line on that site said 155 liters which is 41 gallon.

The tank is 84 W x 58 H x 44 D cm
165 litres

I am totally useless at maths, hence i dont know how to work out how the gallons.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

divide litres by 3.7 to get us gallons, yours is 44.59 gallons to be precise!

 

[rdd1952]

I'm somewhat confused as to the size of the tank. The only site I could find listed the dimensions as 82 x 44 x 58 which comes out to 209 liters or 55 gallon but the very next line on that site said 155 liters which is 41 gallon.

The tank is 84 W x 58 H x 44 D cm
165 litres

I am totally useless at maths, hence i dont know how to work out how the gallons.

Unless my math (and online conversions) is wrong, 84 x 58 x 44 is 214,368 CC which is 214 liters or 56.6 US gallons.

 

[cheekydevil]

i personnally dont know, just copied the figures out of the manual, doubled check and i did write them in correctly - unless there was a printing error in the manual .

 

[rdd1952]

Then I wouldn't trust anything the manual says if they can't get simple math correct.

 

[Jozlyn]

LoL, get a tape measure or ruler out and measure it, that way you'll know for sure what size it is!