Ember tetras stocking 90x45x45 cm

[tadabis]

Hello,

As title says I want to ask how much Ember tetras I can stock in to my 90x45x45 cm iwagumi scaped aquarium with 8 ottos and 10 amanos? 50 would be to much?

 

[MrHidley]

As long as your filtration is good and filter well cycled, 50 will be fine i think.

 

[EdwinK]

Do not add all at once. 2 or 3 smaller groups within 2 weeks.

 

[tadabis]

As long as your filtration is good and filter well cycled, 50 will be fine i think.

I think Eheim 2178 should be enough for that amount of fish...

 

[zozo]

They are very sensitive little fish, easily intimidated and like cover by dense planting very much.. I have a few (started out with 15) of them in a little 60x30x30 tank for 18 months now.. I saw them develop from a sparsely scaped nature style tank into a a densly planted jungle. ANd still in the jungle they are sensitive and very easily intimidated and like to hide and dive into the vegitation.. They are also very sensitive to flow if it is to strong and not evenly dispersed by the setup of hardscape they might all group up in a corner where the flow suits them best..

Taking all these aspects into account than imho this is not a suitable sp. for a wide open high flow, bright light, high tech iwagumi style tank. I assume with Iwagumi a few rocks with mainly small carpet plants and maybe some contrasting stems in the back.. And seeing how easily they are spooked an educated guess tells me they will not feel very safe even when cramped up with a large school of 50 without any sufficient cover. The more you have the less cover there will be for them.. You probaly end up with a rather large school constantly nervous little fish not knowing where to go.

Tho i noticed some improvement in their behaivor after introducing a small school of black neon tertras these are a tad bigger and much more outgoing, bolder and more agressive.. Because they are so closely related they school together and the Embers also became more outgoing and mimiced the black tetras behaivor.. The black tetras agressiveness pulled them over the line to also be more agressive and compete and triggered competition. But still when i clean the tank all embers are into hiding in the plants and the black tetras hang around my fingers to pick up anything i swirl up from the substrate.

Over stocking a wide open iwagumi style setup, needs already a lot of flow to compete with the polution the overstocking creates.. This will not favor the embers behaivor and natural instincs. These are not realy suitable fish for such a relatively open, bright, high flow setup. I also got a 90x35x35 tank, a tad smaller then yours, but if i imagine 40 ember tetras in there, it would be pretty over stocked. Technicaly this could be filtered, if the fish like embers would like such an inveronment remains to be seen.. Personaly i doubt that a bit. I would go for a sp. naturaly living in a higher flow clear stream.. If you would place iwagumi in the nature style, i clear higher flow stream would be the best comparisson.. Why put a fish in there that lives in moderate flow and rather near dense marginal vegitation. (?)..

 

[tadabis]

Thank you zozo for your post. So what you suggest for my iwagumi? I want a small schooling fishes and I dont want to have a mix, I want to have only one type.

 

[zozo]

Thank you zozo for your post. So what you suggest for my iwagumi? I want a small schooling fishes and I dont want to have a mix, I want to have only one type.

Yet i never did an iwagumi myself, it's still on my wishlist as to do one day.. So i also yet didn't do any research for realy suitable fish. I'm thinking about it. But it is something i would decide on along the way seeing how the hardscape setup turns out. And how the plants suite the scape, so in my personal way of doing i would only add fish when the tank is about matured enough to tell where it will go from there. And from there i will decide if i would put any fish in it at all.

If you add all up together in what your wishes are you can quite narrow down your options.. For example if you want a large school of 30 + little fish in an gross180 litre tank, net maybe 140 litre, i guess your choices would be limited in a sp. not growing larger then maybe 4 cm and what in this choice will be localy available to you.

Iwagumi is just a style of hardscape setup and for the rest it's the plant choices making all the difference if it needs to be high flow, high light and high tech. In general you read at least 10 x turn over and rather high light when you want to grow a nice dense small carpet plant and a nice colorfull background with rather difficult plants where floating vegitation is out of the question. With iwagunis build like this aren't realy suitable for the majority of small aquarium fish around. But if you make your correct choices in this it might still be an iwagumi style with less flow and less light and easy plants and even maybe floaters. So there are to many variables to be taken into account that (at least for me) is difficult to make a suggestion what fish would fit best.. Even a picture wouldn't do, it is something you need to see and feel in real time sitting in front of and knowing the tank, how it runs.. And do research on fish and make common sense choices with what invironment you got the fish to offer.

So bottom line i can't suggest anything at this point and to be realy honest in my personal opinion the majority of the iwagumis i have seen around have the wrong fish in it, in the way they are setup.. But that's a to difficult subject of discussion i realy would like to avoid.

 

[sciencefiction]

Is the water naturally hard or soft? (not asking about ph)

Dwarf rainbow fish like blue-eyed forktail rainbows or threadfin rainbows(and a range of other beautiful dwarf rainbows) if you can get them can do well in an open tank.They need hard water but there are other dwarf rainbows that come from soft water enviroment.
I used to have a bunch of blue-eyed forktail rainbows. They swim near the surface in open areas and high light won't bother them, not shy, very active, very beautiful and put up a show with their constant display to each other. In my tank I never saw them going near the bottom or eating from the bottom so they'll do well with shrimp in my opinion though I had none in this particular tank. They are sometimes advertised as semi-aggressive but not sure why as they are peaceful with other fish but tend to chase each other a lot without any damage done.

 

[rebel]

You could have plenty of endlers...they don't care for lights at all. It's always lights, camera and action with them.