is my current tank setup ok? and can i add more fish?

Z

Zongyi

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Jul 1, 2004
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Ontario, Canada
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Hello. i am a newby at fish keeping and ive been jumping from a few fish forums to search for information and opinion from different people. to describe myself a little, im a boy in teens and live in Canada. current fish supplyer is petsmart and some chinese store. anyways, lets get to the details:

i currently have a 20g tank that is 21 inches long. i dont really know how wide or tall it is, but a estimate is 18 by 12 inches for the W and H. i am keeping a freshwater tank (was going to do brackish, but changed mind). currently, i have stocked the tank with a few real plants and some fake driftwood and rocks, and currently using pea gravel. i have already cycled the tank and i have passed the "bacterial bloom" stage, and added some fish. currently keeping in 20g:
10 ghost shrimp
a male whiptail catfish
5 glass catfish

also have a 10g with neon tetras in it

going to keep:
5 hatchet fish
maybe 5 neon tetras (i have in another tank) or 5 diamond tetras

my concern is that the tank will not hold all the fish and i would probably exeed the tanks limits. do you think that i can add the hatchetfish and the tetras into the tank?

another question is that do Glass Fish (not glass catfish) need to be kept in brackish water like sorces say or would they do just as well in freshwater?

also, does anyone from Canada know of any place that i can order fish?

thanks for your time and advice. Zongyi :)
 
Welcome!

Judging by what you currently have, I'd say your 20 gallon tank is full. The whiptail catfish can get to 10", and the glass cats get to about 3-4". (ghost shrimp are relatively small and don't add much to bio load.)

Depending on how many neons you have in your 10 gallon tank, you may be able to add some fish to it... if I had a 10 gallon tank, I would keep 10 neons in there.

If you only have like 5 neons in that 10 gallon, you could either add more 5 neons, or maybe 3 diamond tetras or 3 hatchets (but you'd have to be diligent about your water changes).

Let me know exactly how many neons you have in there, maybe we can suggest some rearrangement of your fish!

~Tara
 
thank you for the hasty reply :) . i guess the 20g would be full for now. im thinking of getting a 30g (or 29g, or around there), but my parents say that i need to keep the current one long enough to prove my worth.

i have 8 neons in my 10g, and a few ghost shrimp in there (didn't count the shrimp, id say around 5 or so). i dont know if anything else could be added in there as it is quite full. i plan to return the neons to the store (which they may not want) or give them to one of my friends who keeps fish so i can add other fish to the tank. neons are quite dazzleing, but i may only want 5. Zongyi :)
 
Cool! Yes, your 20 is definately full (not overstocked, just right!!).

If you get rid of your neons in the 10 gallon, you could get 3 hatchets and 3 diamonds... and keep the shrimps.

Good luck!

:D
~Tara
 
Hi there. Just wanted to say that the 20g is pretty much full. Glass cats will get to be a thick 6" and I do believe that the catfish will eventually become too large for the tank.


Glass fish (not cats) aren't brackish water. I personally haven't seen any references to suggest they are, but yes, they will do just fine in freshwater. Those are the fish they use to make a lot of dyed fish, and those are all freshwater :)
 
hello, and thanks for the tips :) . i guess i will leave the 20g tank be for now, but i may be getting a 30-50g soon.

ok, one more question. i know my 20g is full, but do you think i could move 6 neons from my 10g to my 20g? i am able to sell 2 of my 8 neons to a friend and i am left with 6. only i probably need the space the 10g is takeing up to get a new tank. so could i move the 6 neons to the already full 20g or would i have to sell them all? thanks. Zongyi
 
If you are diligent about your water changes, I think you'd be OK with 6 neons in the 20 gallon. They really don't produce much waste, and stay relatively small (lengthwise and thickness wise)... So yeah, go for it... just be sure to do your water changes every week! :)

~Tara
 
It may be worth your while to return the whiptail, if you can. Since it will outgrow the tank anyway, but also because it will be a constantly increasing bioload, which means that you'll have a very difficult time reaching steady tank conditions with several (to be) large fish growing. Plus you've got all bottom feeders in the tank, so one tank level is crowded and the water column is generally empty.

However, this is just a suggestion that I believe will make your life easier. It will ease the tank maintenance and make it much easier to prove to your folks that you can handle a bigger tank. ;)
 
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