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What are some of the smaller variety of cories?

I am thinking of 6 of each. Would it be overstocked?

If it is, I am either getting rid of the danios or the cories. How should I stock in those cases?

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to FP

Tiger barbs and Zebra danios are a great choice for a tank that size. They're both fast moving, semi-aggressive species. As for the cories, there are many pygmy cories that would do well. Melanistus cats, green aneus, albinos, julii, etc etc would work well That will not be overstocked, but you must gradually build up the inhabitants so not to overload the tank too quickly and inadvertantly kill off your new buddies. I suggest the zebra danios first, tigers second and finally the cories. Do you know about the nitrogen cycle that dictates when you can add new fish?

Thanks, I've been lurking this forum for a couple of months now.

I am very glad that's not overstocked Where would the boarder line for overstocked be?

How do you figure out if it is overstocked or not? When I use the one inch per gallon rule, it seems to be overstocked.

Yes, I know about the nitrogen cycle. I've done the fishless cycle for the pass month.

Any tank will be overstocked when the nitrates are consistently above 20 ppm (even with regular water changes) or the fish are so crowded that they cannot behave normally, which ever comes first.

Because of this, if you really wanted to, you could have a 55 gallon tank with like 70 Neon Tetras, as long there are enough live plants to suck up the nitrates they produce.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I like you, research before you kill things

Overstocking is a bit of a debated issue, there are some guidelines, but no set 'rules' for it. Some do the inch of fish per gallon, the nitrite/behavior angle like nnataliee mentioned, and some use the surface area to inch of fish guideline. It will all depend on your parcicular situation and variables as to what's overstocked. If you go by the inch of fish per gallon rule, you could put a full grown oscar in a 20 gallon tank. We all know you wouldn't do that. Common sense plays a big part, and all situations will be different and require ample use of afforementioned sense.

Ah, the vexed question of 'proper stocking'.

The index that tends to be used in the world of fish farming (which has a lot of money thrown at it because, among other things, salmon are profitable food fishes to sell) is body mass. However, this is an inconvenient index to use in the aquarium, because most popular fishes have small body masses, and to measure those accurately would require a set of laboaratory standard scales - an expensive piece of equipment most aquarists don't have access to!

However, since the mean density of a fish is the same as that of water - it wouldn't be neutrally bouyant if this wasn't the case, and would either sink to the bottom or float to the top) you can get a good idea how much mass a fish packs by the volume it occupies. Which immediately brings us to the example Fallout cited above. 12 one-inch Neon Tetras occupy a LOT less volume than one 12-inch Oscar, and therefore the Oscar packs a lot more body mass. More body mass means more waste produced per fish in order to sustain its life processes, and even if we ignore for a moment the fact that the Oscar is an intelligent, highly evolved fish with sophisticated behaviours and strong territorial instincts, the mass difference alone means that it will need a bigger aquarium for healthy maintenance than 12 Neon Tetras. Of course, in the case of the Oscar, other factors conspire to increase the minimum tank size required for healthy maintenance - the fact that it is, compared to some other fishes of a similar size and body mass, a messy eater, and one that generates a fair amount of waste, and of course those Cichlid behaviours and instincts. Which goes to show that even using body mass as a basis for determining likely minimum aquarium size, despite having been studied extensively by scientists working on fish farms, is only a first approximation when dealing with a setup that is other than a monoculture such as a salmon farm.

Then of course, the quality and sophistication of your filtration setup will have an effect too. An aquarium with only a modest filtration setup will have a lower stocking limit than one with a top-quality setup. Even then, limits are imposted by such factors as the surface area of the aquarium (which dictates the efficiency of gas exchange, and therefore dictates how much oxygen can be introduced into the system to keep the fishes respiring) and the presence or absence of live plants (which also contribute toward the lowering of nitrate levels, though to keep nitrates low in a heavily stocked tank would need a LOT of live plants).

However, I'm going to depart from Fallout's analysis here, and suggest you introduce the Corys first. Why?

This thread provides the answer.

Putting the bottom feeders in first means that you don't end up with uneaten food at the bottom rotting away, providing a health hazard for your fishes. Bottom feeders ferret out the food, wherever it comes to rest, and eat it before it can become troublesome. So, when you introduce your top and middle feeders, any food that they miss ends up feeding your Corys.

Of course, you still have to feed your Corys while they're teh sole occupants of the aquarium, and it's a good idea to provide them with some prime food as a treat on a regular basis fed directly to them, instead of expecting them to mop up everyone else's left overs continually. Corys tend to like being treated as honoured guests at the banqueting table just as much as any Discus does! But, with bottom feeders in from the start, you'll have fewer problems with diesases resulting from rotting food, and maintenance of the aquarium will be a good deal easier.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002