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When to add fish!

ElleDee said:
@John q Yes, I know Gregg and his display tank is the one that comes to mind when it comes to maximizing both plants and fish. He's very meticulous and, um, I wouldn't put myself at his level (and runs a very different system than me besides), so I would love a greater breadth of examples.
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I've always stocked at or close to the maximum recommendation for my tanks, depending on layout, as I love fish so much.

Not sure how much it counts but I have around 220 fish in my 1500 - they are all small though (all 30mm or less). It sounds a lot of fish, and feeding times are busy for sure, but the rest of the time when they're all going about their business, you'd never tell that many fish were present.
 
ElleDee said:
Yes, I know Gregg and his display tank is the one that comes to mind when it comes to maximizing both plants and fish. He's very meticulous
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If you want to keep a well stocked tank then being meticulous with the water quality is something that I'd say is a must, for me that revolves around regular large water changes and NOT overfeeding the fish.

I suspect the old mantra that you can't keep many fish in "healthy" planted tanks was the result of people not keeping up with water quality management, overfeeding, underdosing ferts on the assumption fish waste would cover it and generally being a bit sloppy with overall maintenance.

Btw: this is by no means a rally cry to overstock fish numbers.
 
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John q said:
If you want to keep a well stocked tank then being meticulous with the water quality is something that I'd say is a must, for me that revolves around regular large water changes and NOT overfeeding the fish.

I suspect the old mantra that you can't keep many fish in "healthy" planted tanks was the result of people not keeping up with water quality management, overfeeding, underdosing ferts on the assumption fish waste would cover it and generally being a bit sloppy with overall maintenance.

Btw: this is by no means a rally cry to overstock fish numbers.
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I agree. Stocking is a tricky topic. By the commonly quoted metrics both my tanks would be considered lightly to moderately stocked... but when I look at the fish, especially the more active ones, I can't help thinking they are a bit short on swimming space due to the plant density ... That never seems to be factored in when advice on stocking is given out. As an example, In one tank I keep a pair of large angle fish (had them for 4 years now... probably a year or two when I got them) and they essentially only have swimming space that amounts to a quarter of the tank which is 150L - not a great situation :( My point is that tank size vs. fish count / mass / total length or whatever metrics we go by, is not ideal for a planted aquarium - common sense is, however.

Cheers,
Michael
 
AlecF said:
I understand it's possible to keep a large tank stable, but when you start up a new tank which has such a vast quantity of water then the proportion of plants to water is much less than in a small tank, so I wondered if the 6 week rule might become 8 or 10 weeks. Or does the different ratio of plants to water not matter?
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I’m not at THAT level, as my tank is only 143g, but there are a lot of things you can do to speed that process up.

For example, my FX6 was processing 2ppm ammonia every day in a 75g container before I moved it to my tank. No plants, no substrate, just a plastic bin with water in it and a big filter doing the job it was designed to do. Moved it from there to the big, new tank, with very small immature plants and never saw any hint of ammonia or nitrite. Despite 70+ fish, including some 4” loaches, which I had moved from an overcrowded 75g.

I had it going for 6-8 weeks before that. Kept the pH at my target level and maintained some kH, which seems to be quite important for beneficial bacteria. The plant mass in my aquarium then was probably <10% of what it is now, FWIW, so I very much doubt that plants were doing much ammonia or nitrite consumption.

Now:
1c3965caccd86a49023bc7bb27eb0637.jpg


About a year ago:

af1dfa67f15b344b03f37754d02a2ac6.jpg




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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Le duke said:
I’m not at THAT level, as my tank is only 143g, but there are a lot of things you can do to speed that process up.

For example, my FX6 was processing 2ppm ammonia every day in a 75g container before I moved it to my tank. No plants, no substrate, just a plastic bin with water in it and a big filter doing the job it was designed to do. Moved it from there to the big, new tank, with very small immature plants and never saw any hint of ammonia or nitrite. Despite 70+ fish, including some 4” loaches, which I had moved from an overcrowded 75g.

I had it going for 6-8 weeks before that. Kept the pH at my target level and maintained some kH, which seems to be quite important for beneficial bacteria. The plant mass in my aquarium then was probably <10% of what it is now, FWIW, so I very much doubt that plants were doing much ammonia or nitrite consumption.

Now:
View attachment 215469

About a year ago:

View attachment 215470



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Awesome!

How do you find them metal pipes? Did you have to secure them to the pipes?
 
I think I may go down that route in my next aquarium.

Currently, my 25 USG aquarium is just too small, has euro-braces (which are a pain) and no ultra-white glass. I am going to repair these mistakes on my next purchase! It will be an odd size, but I am looking more toward the 75 USG size. Ideally, I would really love to have a more shallow aquarium but much, much longer - but my house simply does not support that anywhere.
 
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