dont known what to add to my tank???

[jonnybryan]

dont known what to add to my tank as it looks bit empty and feel like want some more colour.
fluval roma 200 Litre with 1500LH external filter and 2 large air pumps 200L a hour out of pumps.

tropical fish in tank date 24/12/2011

2 X peppered cory
2 X swordtail
2 X white mollies
3 X zebra danios
5 X sunset platy
2 X clown loach
1 X blue neon tetra
2 X albino bristlenose
3 X blue dwarf gourami
4 X golden barbs
3 X golden wonder killifish
3 X pristella tetra
1 X ghost knife fish
1 X L201 snowball plec
2 X common plec
2 X L001 plec

 

[macvsog23]

Your tank is way over stocked and may I say with the wrong fish you have shoaling fish ie tetras in very small amounts you have several fish ie the common that will out grow the tank and the fish are from totally different Bio Topes.
i would reduce the fish, up the tetras to a group of say 10 keeping one or two typs and keep a small group of L201s say 5
The barbs will become a problem at some point The live bearers are all from very warm very hard water the tetras are from fast flowing relatively cool water with a very low PH and the blue dwarf gourami need very warm still water.

 

[jonnybryan]

aprechiate the reply tank has been running for a year and worked fine and if any the plecs grow to larger i move them to my 400 or my breed tanks also if you go of the litre to a inch im not over stocked at the moment

many thanks

 

[bigbird]

i also agree with Bob, you have so many fish with so different water requirements. I would look at that. I would also increase all the tetras up to 10, as they prefer being in a shoal. So from 1 neon go to 10 and from 3 pristella to 10. Your tank might work well now, but possibly in the future you might have issues. We are only giving advice and good luck with the tank. cheers jk :thumbup:

 

[Hypanheaven]

hehe 1 neon tetra.....poor guy

 

[macvsog23]

hehe 1 neon tetra.....poor guy

The fish is going slowly mad he thinks he has been forced out of the shoal

 

[jonnybryan]

lol was 5 but i had a mates fish in my tank why he was away he got hungry lol and the neon wont kick it so hes here to stay

 

[jonnybryan]

 

[Lornek8]

aprechiate the reply tank has been running for a year and worked fine and if any the plecs grow to larger i move them to my 400 or my breed tanks also if you go of the litre to a inch im not over stocked at the moment

many thanks

In the US the common recommendation is one inch per gallon which is still quite crowded at times. This would mean the one inch per liter is almost four times the stocking rate. By that logic you could get forty inches of fish in a 10 gallon tank, nearly impossible with anything but tetras & even then it be pretty crowded. The problem with the recommendation is that it makes no allowance for fish size. Obviously 40 inches of Oscar can't fit into a 10 gallon tank, not even a 10 inch Oscar could comfortably.

Were allthe fish in the tank the entire time? One thing to remember is that fish grow and what once may have worked might not in the long run.

 

[macvsog23]

lol was 5 but i had a mates fish in my tank why he was away he got hungry lol and the neon wont kick it so hes here to stay

Sorry i cant hold back any longer .
Are you saying it is acceptable to let a fish KILL and LOL about it?
You would do this to a Dog? a human?

 

[D-MAC]

aprechiate the reply tank has been running for a year and worked fine and if any the plecs grow to larger i move them to my 400 or my breed tanks also if you go of the litre to a inch im not over stocked at the moment

many thanks

Sorry to say but you are overstocked at the moment and not just a bit overstocked either...All you will do is stunt the development of your fish...Its like stuffing you into a phone box, yes you will live! but is it fair? It also causes aggression as the dominant fish end up wanting all the food to themselves...A black ghost knife fish that can grow to 12" has carnage written all over it with so many sml fish in there. :cry:

 

[bre]

HI Jonnybryan.

First off, you have come here to ask advice and then question that advice. The advice that has been given to you here is from some of the most experienced fish keepers that you will have the opportunity of knowing.

One of the facts of a fishkeeping forum is that the majority of fish keepers who are active on the forums (excluding the classifieds) are all into keeping fish in the best possible parameters without going too far from their natural habitat. When you mix fish this is not always possible unless you specifically research every fish and know the parameters that suit each one best.

If you are fixed on adding to your tank regardless of advice given to increase the visual appeal of the tank, then I would suggest selling everything in your tank and restocking it with larger fish (not fish that grow to large) that have similar parameters. You will not be able to have as many fish but the visual appeal will be more.

 

[Hypanheaven]

Or get a bigger tank...... Cramming more fish into that tank will end in deaths for some and unhappy mess for others. Also some of the fish are schooling fish ie tetra and having one in there would be very daunting for the little fella, I personally dont have any fish that's on it's own, the lowest count of one single species is 3 and there 25cm each

 

[macvsog23]

Or possible stop asking for advice and then starting to get upset when people spent time trying to help?

 

[jessonthenet]

4 x pterygoplichthys in that tank is a bit extreme never mind the rest of your stock. Each one will need a territory and get up to 2ft each and the length of the tank is 3-4ft. How you going to manage that?

Keep the snowball and the bristlenose, increase your cories, get the neon (could call it Bob) some friends, get rid of the knife fish as suggested, get rid of the loaches and find 4 new homes for your pterygoplichthys or even 1 home if they have a tropical pond or lake.

 

[macvsog23]

I would just cook the lot and eat them

 

[jessonthenet]

thought they ate catfish in thailand or somewhere like that? Did see a program about a woman who did eat her pet fish as it outgrew her tank and had a barbecue with some friends and even said bloody prayers to honour it.

Can't see why not. Pretty normal.

Not sure about Bob the neon though. Neon kebab, neon on a stick.

 

[macvsog23]

In SEA they eat catfish on a stick great just stop at the road side and sell them along with Rat on a stick and other delights

 

[Stan]

It's quite common here with pacu and snakeheads, people grow them out in their "big" 3-4' tanks and then one day it's gourmet! I wouldn't imagine plecs to be good eating though...:lol:

 

[Lornek8]

It's quite common here with pacu and snakeheads, people grow them out in their "big" 3-4' tanks and then one day it's gourmet! I wouldn't imagine plecs to be good eating though...:lol:

They actually are eaten in their natural range. Seen many a pic at market & on the fire.