I have a standard 55 Gallon rectangular tank that has been running for about 6 months, so far i have one red turquouise discus, one synodontis angelicus, 8 tetras of some kind or another, 2 kulli loaches, and a royal golden pleco. eventually when i put everything in i want, i will have 4 discus, 1 royal golden pleco, 1 synodontis angelicus catfish, 1 black ghost knife fish, 2 kulli loaches and 8 tetras (i think black phantom, it seems to ring a bell). Ive heard that the pleco should be in a larger aquarium, but the guy i get my fish from says it is fine (hes reliable hes helped me set the thing up from the begining and has been a small pet shop owner for atleast 20 years). I dont anticipate any aggresion problems between these spieces. I have an ro filter and i can pretty much specify the water any way i want to find a nice average to suit all fish. I have 2 penguin 280 filters on it with 2 standard carbon filter pads each which get left in for 2 months but get rotated around so only one is replaced every 2 weeks. I do a ten gallon water change every weekend. I have a small pump in the aquarium to to help circulate the water. There are no real plants just fake decorations and plants, but plenty of places to hide. the substrate is half gravel half sand. My question is this, is my final fish list overstocking? and if i am can i cheat it by doing larger or more frequent water changes? ive done the math and its close. I want the fish to be healthy and grow a certain amount. If there is anyone who has any advice based on real life observations i would love to hear their imput thankyou.
overstocking?
- Thread starter kcsharp10
- Start date
discus get rather large, and so will the ghost knife? everything else seems okay minus the 3 discus/ghost knife. You might be just at capacity for bioload, but as far as swimming room I think your fish would be rubbing against each other a lot, or crowding the same space. I don't know what their habits and swim patterns are though, someone else will input.
more than likely not. I can't go in a tank with cichlids (it will get murdered), but it can go in with other semi aggressive that are the same size (tinfoils, clown loaches, other med-big semi aggros). It cannot go in the tank with fish that will fit in its mouth (it will eat almost all smaller fish (tetras, neons, swordtails, etc). Even when its not full grown, it still has a rather large mouth, which can fit most small community fish. o_0
well just keep in mind, at the local fish store they're usually between 3-6 inches. Most places online say they peak at 8 inches in household tanks. This is probably because they are improperly housed, and their growths are stunted , along with their lifespan. A healthy black ghost should be in 75G tank with good filteration. These fish should grow 1-2 feet long at max potential, and should hit 8inches+++ within a year
I think your tank, although it sounds really active and interesting, will not work. Discus require very stringently clean and warm water. Your pleco will be a large waste producer and will not like water that warm. Take a look at this website: Aqualand Pets Plus (One of my favorite fish sites!) for some of these fishes' living requirements. Watch out, even the most experienced pet store owner will sell you things just to make the money.
totally agree, or the fact that they have been doing it for so long would make them inapt to the new generation of fishkeeping. Older generation fishkeepers follow an older mantra, where maybe in their time they had different views on what suitable tank sizes/stocking/filtration/feeding is appropriate~
