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Re: How many fish are too much?
Jennifer Prince wrote:
>Just curious about how many fish create the 'perfect' balance in an
>aquarium. At what point should someone look to getting another planted
>aquarium to handle the desire for a new fish? I have a 45 gallon heavily
>planted tank with 5 white skirt tetras, 4 swordtail platties, and 6 young
>neon rainbowfish. Is this too much?
Certainly doesn't sound like too many fish to me. Of course, 4 platties can turn into 4000
in about six weeks or so, and that would be too many. :)
Seriously, though, I am of the opinion that you can have a whole lot of fish in a thriving
tank. If you have plenty of light and some CO2, the plants just can't get enough fish waste!
In my 70 gallon tank, I have:
23(?) neon tetras (Hard to count this many when they're moving!)
12 cherry barbs (6 homegrown! :) )
6 assorted zebra-ish danios (2 in the breeding tank now)
6 clown loaches
4 SAEs
4 dwarf african frogs
3 kuhli loaches
2 black neon tetras (1 homegrown! :) )
1 congo tetra (her mate died last year :( )
1 white cloud (the last of the first 5 fish I put in the tank :( )
1 ancistrus
That's 59 fish and 4 frogs. It makes for quite an active and colorful display, if a little
bit "busy." Some of them (SAEs, clown loaches, ancistrus) are not small fish. But
despite all these fish and all the food I pour in there for them, I still end up adding
KNO3 to keep my nitrate levels up. YMMV.
David Ozenne
Fremont, CA
who has a big bag of java fern and riccia on his desk that he's going to donate to
the LFS. actual shipping cost or trade anyone?