fish tank questions

barberella

hi i have a fortylitre tank with 4 guppys 4 tiger barbs 4 platys 2 leop corys 2 black cats and a pleco it has a m700 10 watt carbon filter and 50 watt heater the water tests approx 0.1 mg/1 easy test nitrate i also have a air pump just wondering if i have too many fish for my tank size i hope not can anyone help thanks

karlin

It will be way too many even if it isn't too many right now (eg if they are all still really small). In general the rule of thumb is about one inch of fish to US gallon of tank but it is better to calculate by surface area. Most plecs will get pretty big so that plec could end up taking half your 'inches' (and will outgrow that tank anyway before reaching full size).

For a 40 litre tank you are looking at about 20 total inches of fish. Here's a calculator for figruing this out based on your tank size. It suggests 24 inches of fish max for a 45 litre tank:

http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/tanks-uk.htm

You need to be considering the final size of your fish when you get them.

Generally 40 litres is a pretty small tank and has very little room for manouevre if anything goes wrong with water quality etc. A larger tank is a lot more forgiving as there's more water volume to be affected.

If you are overstocking your tank you generally need to be running two filters, like on internal and one external cannister to maintain water quality.

Also be sure to test more than just nitrates. Ammonia and nitrites are important to watch to especially ammonia which is more lethal than the other two.

barberella

thanks for the reply i would love to have abigger tank but at the moment we just dont have the space could you recommend a test kit for us that will do all the tests ,do the plecs hide a lot cos our one does he comes out in the morning a lot but is quiet a lot in the day .thanks again for the help much appreciated .

karlin

Plecs are pretty shy -- a lot of the bottom dwellers tend to be more active at night or when the tank lights are off. Be sure you are feeding him food that is designed to sink to the bottom as otherwise they are left with pretty slim pickings. Plecs like algae wafers for example.

You can get a master test kit that does pH, ammonia, nitites and nitrates at any good fish shop. They are around euro25 I think. You can also buy each individually. I have the Interpet master kit.

Remember to do regular water changes -- about 10-20% weekly, but treat the water for chlorine/chloramines first. You can get a little bottle of stuff that does this. Lasts forever on a small tank as you only need a tiny amount but this is important as chlorine/chloramine can be lethal for fish.

There are some previous fishkeeping threads with some good links to general fishkeeping info on the web.

BTW some fish shops will let you trade in a fish when it gets really large though they often don't want plecs as it is hard to place a 10 inch fish!! Bes ure to find out how large each fish will get when you buy them as your total inshes of fish in the tank should be calculated on adult length, really.

Arcadian

You won't see many common plecs in shops these days as they grow so big so quickly. I don't know what my ones are but got them in Petstop 2 years ago and they're still under 4 inches. I was a bit disappointed to be honest as i wanted a large common plec:rolleyes:

whiteshadow

have your barbs eaten your guppies yet?

hardtrainer

No, you're grand.
As has been said already, that's a small tank, so there's not going to be much tolerance if the water quality drops at all.
Here's a tip though, keep an eye on the barbs, watch the way they swim. If at any point you notice that their heads dip a little (i.e. they all seem to be pointed downwards just a little) thats an early warning sign for the levels of nitrites in the water. The quick fix is to remove 25% of the water and replace with fresh water. It's always handy to keep a supply of rain water or tap water that has been allowed to sit at room temp for 24hours (about 10 litres is all you'd need to have ready) so you can do quick changes. It's a quick fix I know and doesn't solve the problem that you're filtration system is being stretched, but it'll save you from losing fish.

pwalsh

does sound to me like a great selection of fish though