Overpopulation and Feeding

[ssabatier]

Hi Again

I have a new (3 week old) 2 foot fish tank with the following fish in it:
2 x Silver Dollar
2 x Gourami
2 x Balloon Ram
1 x Angel Fish
2 x Eel
1 x Albino Cory
4 x Scissortail
4 x Halequin
2 x Leopard Algae Eater
1 x Molly
1 x Neon Tetra
6 x Guppy (different types)
1 x Upside down fish (I don't know the name but it lives at the surface of the water and looks like it's upside down :bigsmile:)

1. Is my tank overpopulated?
2. How much and how often should I feed them? (TetraMin)

The reason why I ask if it is overpopulated is because, as of today, the water has started to go slightly brown (it is out of direct sunlight) and I have been feeding them 3 pinches of food, twice a day because they look really hungry.

Thanks very much
Steve

[Slummies]

is this a real thread?

[Slummies]

if this is for real then man.. u got one heck of a problem..

let me just touch on the first thing that caught my eye. the Silver Dollars. they are supposed to be in a 76L tank.. each! your tank im guessing is around 60L? also a good rule of thumb, depending on species obviously, 2.5cm of fish per 4L..

i would get rid of most of your fish mate. sorry but you way over populated.

what filtration you got there. iv got 3 guesses why you tank is cloudy. 1st: you never cycled your tank? 2: your good bacteria has crashed cos of adding to many fish, 3: well, its not a guess, your tank is overpopulated!

maybe someone can help you out more..

upside down fish? maybe a butterfly fish?

[solex69]

Overpopulated it sounds. Move some fish to another tank. Feeding once per day will be fine; once per 2 weeks, don't feed for one day.

Info on your filtration pls? Also, what plants do you have in the tank? Please take a picture of your tank and post it here

Cheers
Dale

[Rory]

That's a lot of fish dude... That tank would be "full" if it was twice the size...

[ssabatier]

Thanks guys. It seems I have a bit of a problem. I'm not sure what the filter is but it's pretty powerful. I think the box said it will cycle 300 litres an hour. I could be mistaken though.

[Rory]

300lph is like the tiniest pump ever... Maybe it said it could handle a 300l tank?

[Asgar]

How about returning your fish to the LFS for a credit. Or get a larger tank. Do post pics of your tank.Your 'upside down fish' might be an upside down catfish (if it has barbels).

[Henk Hugo]

or a serious swimbladder issue

[city bowl]

Hi Steve where did you buy these fish from and did you get them all at the same time?
Have you lost any so far?

[Asgar]

Bring on the Pics

[solex69]

pics pics pics pics pics pics pics pics pics pics pics pics pics pics

lol

[ssabatier]

Okay, I battled to take these pics - they didn't come out really well at all. I took one of the whole tank, one of the upside down fish, one of the filter and one of a Gourami:

[city bowl]

Hi Steve where did you buy these fish from and did you get them all at the same time?
Have you lost any so far?
The upsidedown fish is actually a hatchetfish ...it's not upsidedown.

[solex69]

What concerns me a bit is that there are so many fish and no aquatic plants. Recipe for disaster mate. From the looks of it, there are some fake plants in there...unless I'm busy going blind.
Try and get some real aquatic plants in there...your tank should become at least a bit more healthier

Yeah, how many fish did you lose thus far?

Cheers
Dale

[ssabatier]

Hi Guys

I got the fish from 3 different stores: Panorama Pet Shop in Parow (got the tank, equipment and two Mollies here); Tropicum at the N1 City Value Mart; and most of the fish from Tropical Pet Store or Aquarium World or something (can't remember the name exactly) in Tableview.

I got them over the space of one week, ie, I bought the tank with the two Mollies on the Saturday, then a whole bunch of them on the Sunday (the lady at Panorama said that if the Mollies didn't die on the first day, the tank would be good to go). The following weekend I bought the rest.

I don't have any real plants in the tank so I'll try and get hold of a few of those this weekend.

I had two little sharks with orange tails which died. One of the Albino Cory's died. All of my Neons except the one I still have died. One of my Angel Fish died. One of the first Mollies passed away. One of the hatchetfish (thanks for the name city_bowl) died as well.

Other than that, I haven't had a death for about two weeks. They all seem to be pretty happy but I'm still not sure how much to feed them. The bottle says as much as they can eat in 3 minutes but that's like a handful at this point. The tank is also still a brown sort of color but it did get a bit better when I cleaned the filter and changed 25% of the water last weekend.

Thanks for all your help though dudes, this forum is seriously a pleasure.

Cheers
Steve

[solex69]

Get the fake plants out of there and get some real plants in there. Please give me a shout and I'll help you out with some plants, I have loads you can get from me for free providing you collect from me.

You should be doing water changes at least once per week considering the state your tank is currently in.

PM me if you're interested in collecting some plants from me.

Cheers
Dale

[ssabatier]

Hi Dale

Thanks very much for the offer and I'll definitely get in touch with you. I did a 50% water change this weekend and things are looking a lot better but I agree with you that I should have real plants in the tank.

I've also noticed that turning off the filter while feeding the fish makes a big difference and I've been using a lot less food over the past two days which has made the tank a lot clearer.

Chat to you soon
Steve

[Scubaninja]

sounds like a guppy tank i once had. those fellas breed like crazy. The only thing to do would be to remove some of the fish, the only time you could really stock up a tank(with ample space) is if you were filtering really really well, over the size of your tank by a few times. sorry.

[snakes]

Consider Getting a bigger tank if its in your budget or pass some fish to me :)
Well besides over stock you have too many fish over a one week span
And the Water Change
are u using dechlorninated water or water straight from Tap