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I've heard quite a bit about overstocking aquariums.... Yet, with every tank I've had - past and present - I've always gone way over the amount of recommended fish for the size of tank and have never encountered any difficulties... In fact, my fish have always thrived and appear to adapt readily to the volume of fish....
I will admit that I've always used more than the suggested filter system - supplying additional oxygen and helping with tank maintenance... And my normal routine is a once a week partial water change.....
So I suppose my real question is: What is the basis for the amount of fish versus the size of tank?
Knowing that many of you will express LOUD BOOING - Let me tell you about my current tank situation.....
I have one 10 gallon tank which is being used for a nursery... Accomodating approximately 30-40 platy fry at the present time. I have a whisper filter which came with the aquarium and a corner filter in this tank. The fry are growing daily - and to date, we've not had any evidence of "death"......
Then I also have a 55 gallon tank... An Emperor Filter System (Double Bio Wheels - using filter cartridges and crystals for double filtration) and two large corner filters are utilized in this particular tank..... Now here's where the booing will really grow LOUD... In this tank I have 9 Angel Fish (Medium to Large); 4 Glowfish; 3 Dalmation Mollies; 1 African Butterfly Fish; 2 Plecostomus; 4 Sunset Variatus; 2 Serpae Tetras; 3 Lyretail Gold Dust Mollies; 12 Fancy Guppies; 1 Cory Catfish; 2 Blue Platys; 4 Orange Platys; 2 Gold Tetras; 1 Blue Dwarf Gourami and one unknown fish (was my daughter's - I think it might be a barb of some kind)..... All fish are healthy and thriving!!!!
These fish have been a community for 2-3 months time... No deaths, no sickness, no nothing!!!!!
So is it really the size of the tank that causes problems? The filtration? Or what?
I do plan to get another 55 gallon tank in the near future... and will probably move all my angels to one tank... but still, I'd really like to know how the guidelines to fish capacity are determined.........
Thank you.
dreamweaver8891

To thine own self be true...

So is it really the size of the tank that causes problems? The filtration? Or what?

Another problem is territory, for territorial fish
i.e. your angels

and some of the fish like your tetras, glowfish, and cory cats are schooling fish and are better off in groups of 6

Oh, and im not sure if you might want to be worried about your butterflyfish eating any of your tiny tetras or glowfish

I think the biggest problem in your tank is the angels

It is hard to give one guideline for stocking a tank...because tanks aren't the best off stocked following a guideline, but possibly many, many guidelines

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-06-19 00:39][/span]

well eventually your fishes will die sooner than others because theres not enough space for em to grow on the outside but their organs are still growing. they will eventually "explode" on the inside and just die but ull see nothing wrong from the out side.

i had 7 gold fishes in my 10G for 3 years then they died.

You can stock a tank up to the top with fish if you so desire...

Proper filtration, plenty of oxygen and frequent partial water changes along with gravel cleaning will keep the tank going.

But you've overlooked one important area, namely disease.

When one of your fish become diseased and its determined contageous, under crowded conditions the whole tank will go down.

It's also well known that crowded fish lose much of their immunity to disease.

You'll probably discover that in a few months, way before another tank is purchased.

--garyroland.

There's a big difference between overstocking with large fish or smaller fish.
I'm just curious as to what your other tanks were overstocked with that you had success. Why not just keep one angelfish for your centerpiece fish?
And watch out if that one fish you don't know is indeed a barb, they can be fin nippers towards other fish.
If it works out for you that's great!!
Keep us posted on how the tank progresses...

The main problem with overstocking is inhumane. It reminds me of the slave trade in the 17-1800's.

Also, what do you mean by "medium to large sized" angelfish. They grow 8" long and 14" tall. If they were even close to that size then the other fish would not physically be able to move.


[span class="edited"][Edited by TheGoldenDojo 2004-06-23 01:32][/span]

[span class="edited"][Edited by jason_r_s 2004-06-24 06:41][/span]

I'd really like to thank garyroland for his information.... To date, my fish community is still thriving and give quite a spectacular display of color and activity.... You mentioned disease... I'm afraid I've had very little experience in this area.... The only bout of disease that I can recall ever having was ick - and that resulted from purchasing an infected fish from a local department store chain (the way I knew that particular fish was the source of infection was because I went to the same store for medication - and the tank from which my fish had come from was clearly labeled "Not For Sale" and all fish left were loaded with ick!)... Anyway, that was years ago.... I'm interested in the present, and I'm wondering how disease originates within an isolated community such as this.... We do a partial water change weekly ---- naturally vaccuming the tank as part of the procedure.... No additional fish have been added for some time now... I feed my fish flakes, bloodworms, and brine shrimp on an alternating schedule (my lfs advised that this would keep the fish hardier that a diet of one type of food only)... I am not very knowledgeable at all about disease - So are there certain types of disease that I should be watching for? What would the symptoms be? Is there any other thing that could be done to provide additional safeguards against disease? (By the way, I wasn't aware that Angels could grow to 8" and 14" ---- I'd been told 6" - So I'm going to do some research to figure things out.....)
Thank you for your assistance and patience.

To thine own self be true...

Just to let you know... I have done some reduction and re-arrangement of my fish tanks.... Though still overstocked, I have seriously reduced the amount of fish in my 55 gal.... Here's what I have in there now:

55 Gal: 3 Angelfish; 3 Dalmation Mollies; 2 Silver Mollies; 4 Sunset Variatus Platys; 2 Blue/White Platys (STUNNING!); 3 Orange Platys; 5 Fancy Guppies; 1 Butterfly Fish; 1 Catfish; 2 Plecostomus; 4 Female Bettas .... And an additional 2 female bettas will be added when they arrive...

My 20 Gal now consists of: Platy fry! Still numbering about 40-50 babies that are still growing daily!

And last but not least, my 10 gal tank has been divided and houses two beautiful male Crowntail Bettas....

Though I've never experienced any problems in the past with overstocking, I did take everyone's comments to heart - and felt it best to at least reduce my population... Since I'm not a fish flusher - I took my surplus fish to my lfs where I received compliments on the high quality of my fish - but still really took a beating on the store credit, as they only allowed 30% of what I'd bought the fish for... It was worth it though! My fish will benefit from the reduction and the fish taken to the lfs can find new homes to thrive in!

Thanks for all of your comments/information but most of all patience!



To thine own self be true...