As many of you know I have a 90 gallon community aquarium. I am concerned about stock levels in it - I am not sure if I have more space for a few more adult plecos or not.
Here is a full size pic of the aquarium in question:
It is either an 85 US gallon or 90 US gallon.
The thing that is tripping me up is the runt/pygmy litter I have in here - I am pretty dang sure they won't get any bigger, but that means no online calculators can give me even the slightest hint about the true stock levels and also many people that know less about plecos are only guessing too. I need opinions from the experts - hence posting on this forum!
The entirety of stock as it stands now is this:
10 female bettas, most juvenile, various types (crowntail, plain, fancytail)
7 green corydoras and one albino corydoras, all full adult, 4 total female.
6 cherry barb, 3 of which are female, full grown
4 neon tetras, adult but staying small
16 cardinal tetras, all adult
2 adult pearl spotted (I believe) bristlenose plecos, mating pair
1 juvenile albino bristlenose pleco, should not have any growth impairment
~13 runt/pygmy pearl spotted (I believe) bristlenose plecos, they most definitely are not growing anymore, 1-2 inches in size all of them
4-6 ghost shrimp
2 black loach
0 pest snails (I believe I totally eradicated them as of the aquarium move two weeks ish ago)
I have a rather high flow tank for the most part, lots of air in a curtain, and a fluval 405 canister filter, I only have to clean it out once every 6 months and the aquarium keeps in pretty good shape. With just a few less fish but a whole huge mess of hundreds of pest snails, the aquarium looked like this after a year of no cleaning and only cleaning the canister filter every 4-6 months:
Here they are up close!
So.... considering the pygmy/runt plecos... what would you all say my stock level is? I am worried I may not be able to safely add another pair of bristlenose, but the aquarium state sure seems to be self sustaining almost with just a few less fish (I recently added the ghost shrimp, albino bn baby, and one betta and got rid of the pest snail population)...
Here is a full size pic of the aquarium in question:
It is either an 85 US gallon or 90 US gallon.
The thing that is tripping me up is the runt/pygmy litter I have in here - I am pretty dang sure they won't get any bigger, but that means no online calculators can give me even the slightest hint about the true stock levels and also many people that know less about plecos are only guessing too. I need opinions from the experts - hence posting on this forum!
The entirety of stock as it stands now is this:
10 female bettas, most juvenile, various types (crowntail, plain, fancytail)
7 green corydoras and one albino corydoras, all full adult, 4 total female.
6 cherry barb, 3 of which are female, full grown
4 neon tetras, adult but staying small
16 cardinal tetras, all adult
2 adult pearl spotted (I believe) bristlenose plecos, mating pair
1 juvenile albino bristlenose pleco, should not have any growth impairment
~13 runt/pygmy pearl spotted (I believe) bristlenose plecos, they most definitely are not growing anymore, 1-2 inches in size all of them
4-6 ghost shrimp
2 black loach
0 pest snails (I believe I totally eradicated them as of the aquarium move two weeks ish ago)
I have a rather high flow tank for the most part, lots of air in a curtain, and a fluval 405 canister filter, I only have to clean it out once every 6 months and the aquarium keeps in pretty good shape. With just a few less fish but a whole huge mess of hundreds of pest snails, the aquarium looked like this after a year of no cleaning and only cleaning the canister filter every 4-6 months:
Here they are up close!
So.... considering the pygmy/runt plecos... what would you all say my stock level is? I am worried I may not be able to safely add another pair of bristlenose, but the aquarium state sure seems to be self sustaining almost with just a few less fish (I recently added the ghost shrimp, albino bn baby, and one betta and got rid of the pest snail population)...
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