YAY! Another stocking thread!

[Sitting Duck]

Hum, hello!

I'm planning to buy myself a brand new 25 gallons tank soon (currently have an overstocked 10 gallons). I'd like you to check on my stocking plans. The one inch per gallon rule is fine, but I'm used to the metric system and I suck at conversions. I also don't know any salesperson I could trust at any of the local petshops. They're all shady and crooked I say!

Anyway, here are my plans:

Plants
Ceratopteris Cornuta, some floating on the surface, some planted.
Broad leaf sagittaria (sagittaria platyphylla), planted.
Borneo fern (trichomanes javanicum), planted.
An algae ball.

Fish
4 bronze cories (corydoras aeneus)
6 black neon tetras (hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi)
6 glowlight tetras (hemigrammus erythrozonus)
4 Mosquitofish (heterandria formosa)
2 Otos (otocinclus affinis)

Other
A couple ghost shrimps
1 wood shrimp
1 gold mystery snail (Pomacea bridgesii)

Questions:

1) Would the tank (25 gallons) be overstocked with all that in it?

2) Would the mosquitofish be safe with the tetras and shrimps?

3) Would the otos eat the algae ball I have in the tank?

4) Anything else you feel I should be warned about my stocking plans?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[FroggyFox]

1) Yes, I think thats pushing it for a 25. If I were you I'd pick two of the schools and stick to that.

2) I could be wrong, but are you sure mosquito fish aren't brackish? Also that they're pretty big jumpers, so you need to be extra careful to have all of the holes in the lid blocked if you decide to keep them. I guess I've always heard of them more of a species tank than a community fish.

3) Probably not...ottos are mostly into brown algae.

4) not that I can think of right now. Whats in your overstocked 10 that you're moving over?

 

[Sitting Duck]

1) Yes, I think thats pushing it for a 25. If I were you I'd pick two of the schools and stick to that.

I'll follow your advice. I'll probably pick the black neons and bronze cories.

2) I could be wrong, but are you sure mosquito fish aren't brackish? Also that they're pretty big jumpers, so you need to be extra careful to have all of the holes in the lid blocked if you decide to keep them. I guess I've always heard of them more of a species tank than a community fish.

The mosquitofish is covered in my books about freshwater species. The profiles I saw online confirm that, as well as the salesperson from the local petshop (but he doesn't count!).

I'm considering keeping a few couples in a species tank with lots of plants now. My 10G would be fine I think. I'll follow your advice about making sure all the holes in the lid are blocked if I go forward with this plan.

3) Probably not...ottos are mostly into brown algae.

Good. These algae balls are nitrate busters. Since I've added one to my tank, each time I checked for nitrates they were down to below 5 PPM. I'd hate to endanger them by adding otos in the tanks.

4) not that I can think of right now. Whats in your overstocked 10 that you're moving over?

What's in my overstocked 10?

Hmmm...

I invoke the fifth amendment!



Thanks for your reply!

 

[CAPSLOCK]

I think froggy meant 2 of the 3 mid water schools (black neons, glowlights, or mosquitofish) in addition to the bottom dwellers (cories and otos).

 

[FroggyFox]

You're right Capslock, thats what I was originally thinking...although if you did just pick one upper level fish in addition to the cories you could get a larger school of them.

I didn't want to ream you for whats in the 10, was more asking for purposes of is there anything that you're going to move from the 10 into the bigger tank so that the 10 is less overstocked. For instance if you had a gourami in there or something that you wanted to move, then you should adjust your plan accordingly.