Which do you prefer?

Just trying to spark some conversation here. I know someone out there must have at least a gold fish!

Personally I prefer freshwater with smaller colony fishes. I have one set up with angels, kribensises, and a giant pleco and snail that I haven't needed to do anything with except feed it and a very occasional water change.

Our saltwater set up is pretty but it takes so much work and $$$! And I would have a native set up but bass and perch or whatever I could catch are rather messy.

Where's the button for "Everything"?

I've just got a 29 gallon right now, but my tank theme is:
South America vs. Africa Deathmatch!
Well, ok, no one's eating each other, it's just that I have no willpower to resist pretty fish. From Africa I've got 4 kinds of Synodontis and an elephant nose, and from S.A. I've got 2 cories and 2 emperor tetras. I eventually hope to upgrade so I can throw an Acanthicus adonis in there without too much mayhem.

Erin B.

I've just got a 29 gallon right now, but my tank theme is:
South America vs. Africa Deathmatch!

Ack!

Out of what you listed... half the fish in there should outgrow the tank...

Plus the water conditions required for ideal health aren't identical... I know that not everybody is an anal retentive psycotic like myself (I like system specific biotopes... One Rift Lake at one depth, one section of south american or asian river system, fish that are found in overlapping ranges in nature) but the water conditions required by the fish you want to keep should at least have some kind of overlap... With the mix you've got, it's a physical (chemical) impossibility for the conditions to be ideal for every fish in there... heck, there isn't even an area where the conditions aren't ideal but would be considered "pretty safe"

Please reconsider the mix? Please? I'll be your best friend if you do... (That means I can crash on your couch though, so think long and hard before agreeing to that part).

Well, if it would make you really happy, I could put all the Synodontis and Mr. Morymid in a 45 or a 60, and.... well, I guess I could feed the emperor tetras to my matamata and get a tentacled snake for the 29. But that plan would leave me without anywhere to put a kick-ass loricariid. Well, I could ditch the snake, get some more tetras, and throw an Acanthicus adonis in the 29. Then Africa and South America would no longer have to squabble over shrimp pellets. The Synodontis are the sole reason I still have a tank. I bought the other things in moments of weakness. Better fish in bad community tanks than herps, I guess.

(We actually decided to upgrade the tank a few weeks back)

(I've really only got 2 fish that would physically outgrow the 29, a multipunctatus and the elephant nose. But I realize the tank would be overloaded long before that)

(Someday I'll relate the depressing story of why we don't have a saltwater tank anymore)

(Everyone's doing fantastic right now, but that's not saying much, as it would be hard to kill some of these fish if you ran over them with a car)

Oh yeah, you can sleep on the couch, but my new pet rat Spike gets to play on it for an hour a day, so you'll have to deal with her. Also, no one is allowed to make fun of me for having a pet rat.

Erin B.

A little off topic but still kinda on. There is some debate over whether or not you can really overstock a tank. Obviously there comes a point where everyone is bumping into each other and physically it's uncomfortable. But the old one inch of adult fish per gallon is being debated. I have heard some say that as long as you have ideal filtration, airiation, and food supply (and obviously no one is trying to kill each other) that you can't overstock the tank.

I don't really agree with this. But it's an interesting argument. I definatly don't think it applies to marine tanks as they are so touchy. However, my freshwater tanks I've wondered about this. I'm not going to test the theory or anything but it's an intruiging thought.

Well... if you have PERFECT filtration you can't overstock a tank... but realistically I think fish just start dropping dead at a certain point.

Erin B.

It's an interesting point and one with a certain degree of validity to it.

The number of fish that can be kept in a certain sized environment is determined by the surface area (When the surface breaks, oxygen enters) and the bioload that the biological filtration can support. Those one inch per gallon of water rules are and always have been absurd... A ten inch oscar produces a lot more waste than ten one inch neons... It's about mass and metabolism, not simply length.

Given a method of filtration which greatly increases the surface area of the water (Wet dry trickle for instance) and the total amount of biological filtration (Wet dry trickle for instance), you can increase the mass of fish that can be supported by an enormous amount. Berlin sumps help quite a bit too for marine tanks...

There are still the physical limitations of the tank though. A ten gallon only has two hundred square inches of surface area and it's simply not practical to throw a filtration system on there which is larger than the tank is.

There's also the physical size of the fish... Take the synodontis for instance... There are a number of species, some of which can top a foot long and they're fairly heavy bodied. They need room to turn around and move... Some fish only grow to the size of their tanks... literally the size of their tanks (Meaning: A fifty five is forty eight inches by twelve inches by twenty inches, there are some species which will grow to be forty eight inches by twelve inches by...).

My current Synodontis are all small to medium sized as adults except my new baby multipunctatus. I've got a eupterus, a nigritis and 3 nigriventis other than him. I should have made that clear, if they were all larger species my tank would be WAY overstocked. Of course, I need a pleurops, an angelicus, and maybe an occelifer to complete the collection, so I'll REALLY have to upgrade.

Erin B.