• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Celestial danio stocking advice

Crawdaddy

Member
Joined
13 Sep 2012
Messages
60
Location
London
Hi all,

I have a quick couple of questions regarding stocking my 67 litre planted tank. I have an idea to stock it with 15 Celestial Pearl Danios and then 10 cherry shrimp for the clean up crew.

The tank is a 24lx15hx12w. It will be heavily planted, though the majority will be dwarf hairgrass so there will be plenty of swimming room. I'll be using an over powered filter (fluval 305) so filtration will be up 8 or 9 times tank volume per hour. I'll be dosing co2 rather than injecting which should help keep algae at bay as well as promote plant growth.

My questions are:
1) Is this bioload okay for the size/filtration/planting levels of the tank?
2) Do shrimp require the same tank volume allowance as fish?
3) Is that enough shrimp for keeping the tank spic and span (alongside regular maintenace of course)?

Thanks in advance
CD
 
I stocked a similar tank with 15 D. margaritatus successfully, and I think that that is a pretty good number of them to have. I started with 10 and added 5 later on because 10 felt like too few. If it is the only species, I would even have considered up to 20 individuals. I did start off by fish-less cycling the tank before stocking in this case, although normally I just seed and stock slowly.

In terms of bioload, 15 small fish and 10 shrimp is fine (I had 25 small fish in mine, the D. margaritatus and 10 Yunnanilus sp. 'rosy').

In terms of shirmp keeping the tank clean… well, I've found that elbow grease is the best thing for that, as fish and critters do better off with proper feeding, but someone else should be able to give you better advice on this.
 
Thanks for the info Kat.

Apart from the shrimp I'm just going for 1 fish species I think. I'll start on 15 and maybe add another 5 if it "feels right". At the moment I'm torn between the mosquito rasboras and the CPDs. Do I go for the shoaling, upper level swimming of the MR, or the low level darting about and frankly beautiful colours of the CPD? Descisions desciosns! Luckily i've just started cycling so i've got a while to think about it.

How did you find the D. margaritatus? Would you recommend?

CD
 
To me, both species are equally beautiful and it is a tough decision. I wanted one of the Asian biotope stockings, so I chose D. margaritatus over Boraras spp. and other dwarf Danio because I wanted biotope stocking (minus the predators), so went for what was available.

I bought the D. margaritatus from a breeder who had his "for sale" tank in the living room. When I viewed them in the display tank before buying, they were active and around. Once I brought them home, it took a while for them to become used to us as we apparently they were not as used to people as I would expect fish to be. I had mostly males and a few females, and this seemed to work quite well as the males spent a lot of their time showing off to each other or trying to impress the females.
 
you might find the boraras to be as shy as the cpd. i have 40 chili 's and hardly see them in my 260. they spend most time in and around the plants and wood. darting in and out.
 
I had some boraras maculatus and they were just like mini zebra danio in temperament - they were not shy and were mostly out in the open.

I'd think a larger group would be fine in that size of aquarium, I'm debating 12-15 cardinal tetra in a similar sized aquarium, and I already have 4 cory, 3 oto's and a handful of shrimp.
 
nry said:
I'd think a larger group would be fine in that size of aquarium, I'm debating 12-15 cardinal tetra in a similar sized aquarium, and I already have 4 cory, 3 oto's and a handful of shrimp.
I recommend neons over cardinals: at 50 mm SL they will barely have enough space to turn around… but also I have never seen them reach their full adult size in a tank that small.

Why not add a few more Corys and Otos and go for 12-15 smaller tetras? Then all three species would be better off all round.
 
I don't think there's an issue with cardinals in a 60cm tank, a cube perhaps, but not a 60cm/24" one.
 
hotweldfire said:
However I'd go for the latter as I've found chilis struggle with fast flow whereas CPDs seem to quite like it.

Yeah that was a thought that crossed my mind. Also the heavily panted set-up with (hopefully) crystal clear water sounds like it's more suited to the CPDs natural environment. Plus if they're anything like the zebra danios that i've kept in the past, as another poster suggests, then they should be entertaining at least.

Right thanks guys, I think you've helped me decide (until tomorrow anyways) - 20 CPDs, 10 Sherry Shrimp

CD
 
Back
Top