Is my 38 gallon tank overstocked?

[murgenas]

Hello, everyone. I could use a little bit of help about the overstocking issue. I researched various sites and tried to apply various rules (inch per gallon, also according to the surface area), however the comments on the particular composition of tank would be very much appreciated.

The parameters of tank: 120x40x30 (cm), 144 litres (38 US gallons).

Fish species and quantities:

White cloud mountain minnows 8
Ember tetras 8
Glowfishes 6
Corydoras (various sub-species) 4
Mollies 3
Platies 2
Three-spot gourami 1
Pearl gourami 1
Bushy-nose pleco (albino) 1
Siamese algae eater 1
Hillstream loach 1

I plan to add 2 more corydoras and maybe 2 mollies from recently bred fry (held separately in other 8 gallon tank, I hope). However, if it will be decided that tank is (or will be after addition) overstocked, I may establish another tank and rellocate some of current fish f.e. 1) coldwater, with 8 minnows and hilstream loach; 2) tetra based, that would mean relocating embers. Any advices would be appreciated.

 

[Thyra]

Welcome to the forum! And IMO I consider it way overstocked. How long have you had this set up?

 

[murgenas]

Welcome to the forum! And IMO I consider it way overstocked. How long have you had this set up?

Thanks for the welcome! I guess I could be more polite: so, hello, everyone, and thanks in advance for every opinion

To answer the question, not very long. I started as every beginner, with a small 8 gallon tank, when purchased another small one, and ended up with even bigger. I kept adding fish from my smaller tanks, and yesterday 8 embers were the last addition. The tank was started 1.5 month ago.

I read that if the surface area is big enough, the inch per gallon rule may be modified. As you see, the tank is not usual, with 120 length and 40 cm width. Though i thought that the overstocking may be an issue, did not anticipated "way" part of it. Especially when embers are such small fish

I could think about setting up a different tank only for the minnows and loach and relocate them, if that would solve the issue. However, do I really need it? I forgot to mention that I run an external filter, exact model is JBL e901 greenline.

 

[Thyra]

You might try AqAdvisor - Intelligent Freshwater Tropical Fish Aquarium Stocking Calculator and Aquarium Tank/Filter Advisor
Fill in the blanks and add the fish and see what he says about stocking - he is a little conservative but more accurate then the old "one inch per gallon" which doesn't really allow for the width and height of fish - or their growth.

Did you cycle your tank and do you understand the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and have a test kit so you can test your water? If I am not mistaken that SAE is one of the fish that can quickly get too big - hopefully someone who knows more about the algae eaters will chime in about that.

 

[murgenas]

You might try AqAdvisor - Intelligent Freshwater Tropical Fish Aquarium Stocking Calculator and Aquarium Tank/Filter Advisor
Fill in the blanks and add the fish and see what he says about stocking - he is a little conservative but more accurate then the old "one inch per gallon" which doesn't really allow for the width and height of fish - or their growth.

Did you cycle your tank and do you understand the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and have a test kit so you can test your water? If I am not mistaken that SAE is one of the fish that can quickly get too big - hopefully someone who knows more about the algae eaters will chime in about that.

Thank you. For the questions about the cycle, ammonia and test kits: yes, yes and partly yes (partly, because i did not test the water parameters yet).

 

[Rotaripsnoc]

You might try AqAdvisor - Intelligent Freshwater Tropical Fish Aquarium Stocking Calculator and Aquarium Tank/Filter Advisor

Sorry to detract from the OP, but what a great link, thanks Thyra !

 

[Thyra]

You are very welcome! As I stated he is rather conservative, but it does give you a ball park idea of what will work and it is especially a good idea for beginners to stock lightly. If they over stock they are more likely to get discouraged and leave the hobby.

 

[FishDad]

Might be ok, looks like your pushing the limit though.

Personally I would start with a few fish and build slowly, its more of a hobby that way.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

It looks like you should be okay, even with the planned additions as long as everyone looks comfortable and your water parameters look good. You've got a pretty good spread over the different layers of the tank and different "niches."

The ones I would keep an eye on are the two gouramis, sometimes they can be less than peaceful with each other as they mature.

 

[murgenas]

The pearl gourami is still a kid, about 3 cm long I plan to relocate him, embers and maybe both platies (btw, they are both female and quite friendly to each other) into one of my 8 gallons, with long-term aim to establish another 15-20 gallon tank for them (and maybe adding other fish from current setup).

Yeah, I know I succumbed to the "beginner=lots of fish" rule. Well, at least I have some other tanks to relocate the fish and a decent external filter Some of my fish (embers, glowfish) are with me for at least 2 months right now, so it was not like all fish at one time. And some others ended up in my tank because I tend to "rescue" some deformed or mistakenly imported fish from the shops that may not be sold because of such issues: that is how I got my pearl gourami (somehow ended up in a tank with quite big barbs, and when i pointed out that to the salesmen their solution was to give him away for free), one of the platies (very interesting deformation) and SAE (somehow they thought that was a "deformed pinguin tetra", well I asked to give it to me and it appeared a very healthy and active SAE).

 

[murgenas]

The link is really great, thank you very much.

As i noticed in other thread, I plan to relocate pearl gourami, embers and maybe both platies into one of my 8 gallons, with long-term aim to establish another 15-20 gallon tank for them (and maybe adding some other fish from my current tank).

Yeah, I know I succumbed to the "beginner=lots of fish" rule. Some fish ended up in my tank because I tend to "rescue" some deformed or mistakenly imported fish from the shops that may not be sold because of such issues: that is how I got my pearl gourami (somehow ended up in a tank with quite big barbs, and when i pointed out that to the salesmen their solution was to give him me away for free), one of the platies (very interesting deformation) and SAE (somehow they thought that was a "deformed pinguin tetra", well I asked to give it to me and it appeared a very healthy and active SAE).

 

[Lotus]

I've merged your two threads so you can see all the answers in one place.

 

[murgenas]

I've merged your two threads so you can see all the answers in one place.

Thanks. I made the other one because the first has been not confirmed for like 12 hours: I guess I'm from completely different time zone, that makes a difference (moderators sleep then i create threads

About the topic, it is a little confusing, because expert opinions are between way overstock and ok Well, all fishes are still alive. I plan to relocate 8 embers, 2 platies and pearl gourami to another 8 gallon. Hope to make another 15-25 gallon tank in a couple of months. This hobby is really, really adictive

By the way, is it possible that the calculator in the http://www.aqadvisor.com/ can give different stocking percent depending on the order how fish and quantities were entered? I'm pretty sure first time it was like 101 percent, and now as I'm checking my fish it is 84 percent.

 

[OrangeCones]

The tool at aqadvisor.com will give you the same numbers no matter what order you put the fish in. It's a simple calculation and the tool has no way to know which order you put the fish in.

Is it possible you clicked the 'juvenile' button and that changed it to a lower percentage?

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Or if you put in a different "shape" 38g, it may come up with different answers (like a tall 37g tank will not really hold as much bioload as the lower longer 38g).

I personally wouldn't put a pearl gourami in an 8g tank. That's just too small. The embers and platies would be fine in there.

 

[Thyra]

I haven't "played" with aquadvisor for quite a while, but when Fishman was around I use to put his ideas for stocking in and I found that no matter how much filtration I put in a tank it did not increase the stocking.