# stocking advice please :)



## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

yet another thread. sigh. 
so i'm still very unclear as to how i'm going to stock my tank and i would appreciate any help 

i have a 15 gallon tank (yes, i know it's small) which i set up just over a week ago (last thursday to be precise). at present it has 1 golden gourami and 3 panda corys in it.
i'm planning on getting some more corys. 1-3 more pandas and maybe 2-4 sterbas corys as well. the minimum number of corys i would have in the tank is 6, maximum would be 10. 
what i'd like to know is how many corys i can fit in the tank safely. i would also like to have a shoal of 6 glowlight tetras. any suggestions?
the tank has a piece of driftwood with a large java fern growing on it, lots of floating elodea, and a ceramic log. i'm planning on getting some java moss soon as well.

plus i have another (unrelated) question. i have another, small tank and although i've always assumed it was 5 gallons it looks bigger than pictures of 5 gallon tanks that i've seen, so i'd like to know what size it really is.
here are the measurements.
length: 46 cm
depth: 21 cm
height: 25 cm
sorry if you are thinking in inches :-?


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

it's roughly 6.2 gallons. maybe just try to stick to the rule 1 fish to 1 gallon and everyone's happy =)


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## onefish2fish (Jul 22, 2008)

kitten_penang said:


> it's roughly 6.2 gallons. maybe just try to stick to the rule 1 fish to 1 gallon and everyone's happy =)


 
this isnt a rule as its more like a guideline. for example, i couldnt place a 1 foot goldfish into a gallon tank. it would be 1 fish/1gallon ratio but just would NOT work.
i think its good to increase the number of corys as they like to have groups. i personally would do a total of 6 as to not have the floor to crowded.
i personally would also skip out on the glowlights as they are colorful BUT their DNA was modified with a coral or jellyfish or something which makes them a lab experiment. i dont support these kinds of things, but thats my opinion. if you want an alternative, 6 danios look the same, without the bright colors.


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

onefish2fish said:


> this isnt a rule as its more like a guideline. for example, i couldnt place a 1 foot goldfish into a gallon tank. it would be 1 fish/1gallon ratio but just would NOT work.
> i think its good to increase the number of corys as they like to have groups. i personally would do a total of 6 as to not have the floor to crowded.
> i personally would also skip out on the glowlights as they are colorful BUT their DNA was modified with a coral or jellyfish or something which makes them a lab experiment. i dont support these kinds of things, but thats my opinion. if you want an alternative, 6 danios look the same, without the bright colors.





lol sorry about the rule thing.i was thinking cory's and what other fish she had in my head .


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## onefish2fish (Jul 22, 2008)

kitten_penang said:


> lol sorry about the rule thing.i was thinking cory's and what other fish she had in my head .


no need to be sorry about anything, just dont want anyone reading along to think that that's alright.


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## Byron (Mar 7, 2009)

onefish2fish, I think you are thinking of glofish, not glowlight tetras, earlier on. Glowlight tetra is not modified it is a naturally-occurring fish in South America. They are mainly tank raised now, but have not been modified. Glofish is quite another matter, its "original" was the zebra danio and I agree, this practice should not be supported by buying the fish.

To the issue of corys, this is a 15g so you have 24 inches length (presumably). A group of 5-7 is probably the limit. Corys don't have territories to defend and all species get along, so a mix of panda and sterbai is fine. Just bear in mind that Corydoras panda is a cooler water species, so 77-78F is max. Sterbai are fine at the same but will also manage higher if there are warmer fish. The Glowlight Tetra is fine with these, and the gold gourami (which is actually a colour phase of the Blue Gourami, see our profile) is OK at this temp. The gourami though really should have more space, but as you already have it, OK on its own (no more gourami).

Byron.


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## onefish2fish (Jul 22, 2008)

yes my mistake i was thinking glofish sorry if there was any confusion there.


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## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

thanks 
i knew the gourami was a variety of the three-spot, and also that the pandas prefer cooler water.
i did calculate that i would be able to fit 24 inches of fish in the tank, as that guide has always worked for me, although i know never to rely on it completely.
i'll have a look at some sterba's corys and decide whether to get 3 more pandas or 1 more panda and a few sterbas.
and glad to hear the glowlights would be ok  i know there is some confusion between glo-fish and glowlight tetras hehe !

just one more idea. in the future (when my tank is much more mature) i would like to get some rams. i've kept them before and somehow they survived my terrible early fishkeeping skills. what i'd like to know is if it'd be ok to put rams in my tank. would there be problems with territory? and how many should i keep?
i've kept rams before in this same tank with a whole lot of other community fish and i had two males. they sparred a bit but they never hurt each other and it was kind of interesting to watch. they never attacked the other fish and usually after they'd finished fighting they'd retreat to opposite ends of the tank and not bother each other. thats just my personal experience, i guess you can never tell how a fish is going to behave which is why i'd like some advice on that.
also i would like some kind of small, sucking, algae-eating fish. i ruled out bristlenoses because i was told that there wouldn't be enough territory for them in my tank with the corys. what other fish would you reccomend?


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## Byron (Mar 7, 2009)

dorabaker said:


> thanks
> i knew the gourami was a variety of the three-spot, and also that the pandas prefer cooler water.
> i did calculate that i would be able to fit 24 inches of fish in the tank, as that guide has always worked for me, although i know never to rely on it completely.
> i'll have a look at some sterba's corys and decide whether to get 3 more pandas or 1 more panda and a few sterbas.
> ...


First on the last fish mentioned, do you have need for algae eaters? Remember every fish is adding ot eh bioload. If you like the fish for the fish's sake, that's one thing; but getting a fish--any fish--because it eats algae is quite different. A fish you like and want for its own sake that happens to eat algae is another matter.

Rams, assuming you mean the common or blue ram, could be kept as a mated pair in a 15g. Have a look at our profile of this fish, Mikrogeophagus ramirezi [click on the shaded name].

The inch of fish per gallon is not reliable. Different fish have different effects on the bioload, plus there is the issue of compatibility in all its forms.


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## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

well i love bristlenoses and any kind of plecos, and i like sucking catfish in general..ideally i would like a bristlenose, but i asked about this on here and was told there wouldn't be enough territory or something with all those corys.
yes i did mean blue rams. its so hard to find good rams anywhere though! they always look sickly. and i don't think i've ever seen a female ram. the stores have tanks full of male rams and no females. i don't know why!
my lfs has reasonable rams, or HAD reasonable rams back when i got my first pair. they are incredibly expensive there though.


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

you could try the hillstream loach they don't take up a lot f space an they eat algae too =)


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## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

i just looked at the species profile for them and it says they need a strong current and well oxygenated water...so that wouldn't really work for me, i have a very gentle current in my tank because the fish i'm keeping prefer that. thanks though


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

your welcome.i do hope you find something that fits you =)


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## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

how about otocinclus? i was just reading about them. i heard they are delicate though so maybe it's best to wait until my tank matures a bit.


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

yup the water quality is the best way to make sure the fish lives well in the tank =) i learned that the hard way. i lost 7 fancy guppies to a tank i thought was fully cycled =(


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## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

oh no! how awful. i don't have a nitrate/nitrite/ammonia test kit yet. i might be getting one tomorrow. the sooner i have it the happier i'll be, i'm kind of on edge at the moment not knowing what's going on with the cycle :S


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

good luck then =)


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## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

yay i got my test kit today! i got an API dip strip nitrate/nitrite test kit. i know dip strips are not the most accurate but they were cheap and will give me some idea. i wanted an ammonia test kit but they were so expensive i decided to go look for them somewhere else. my lfs is great though.

here are my readings:
15 gallon tank - 0 nitrate 0 nitrite
hospital tank (with angelfish in it) - 20 ppm nitrate 0 nitrite

i don't know whether the readings for the 15 gallon means its already cycled, or it hasn't cycled yet and theres a build of ammonia in there. i would have thought it would smell bad if there was ammonia though i really need that am test kit :S

p.s. i got some moss today. i was after java moss but they didn't have that, they had something very similar though which looked great (can't remember the exact name.) i've attached it to some rocks and driftwood in my tank and it makes it look so natural and chaotic...haha!


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

good for you =) what does the box say about your reading?


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## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

what do you mean, what does the box say?


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

doesn't it contain a pamphlet that explains reading?


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## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

um yes but all it says is dip it in the water , leave it horizontal for 60 seconds then compare with the colour chart on the bottle. thats what i did...


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

lol looks like you gotta go ask bryon or google it =)


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## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

google what? hehe :shock:


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

it seems nitrate is good plant food =) do you have plants in there??? lol


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## dorabaker (Jul 3, 2010)

yup, a big java fern, some floating elodea and just added today, some fontinalis moss....guess that could be why theres no nitrate hehe


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## kitten_penang (Mar 26, 2008)

^.^


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