Tom

I found this on a website earlier today http://www.peteducation.com/article....articleid=2391, and I was just wondering if it was true or not.
_________________________________________________ Total Length of All Fish (inches)
_________________________________________________T ank Volume Fresh Tropical Fresh Coldwater Marine Tropical
_________________________________________________1 0 gallon 10 5 Unsuitable
_________________________________________________2 0 gallon (high) 20 10 Unsuitable
_________________________________________________2 0 gallon (wide) 25 12 Unsuitable
_________________________________________________2 7 gallon (wide) 36 15 9
_________________________________________________3 5 gallon (wide) 48 20 12
_________________________________________________5 5 gallon (wide) 72 30 18
_________________________________________________
Tom

chickadee

Well, I definitely disagree with the Fresh Coldwater Fish Information. You cannot keep 5 inches of goldfish in a 10 gallon tank...or 10 in a 20 gallon, etc. I do not think that you can make a fast rule about these things as, just as Butterfly said in another post it really depends more on the biological load of the fish. A pleco or catfish or scavenger of any size will put out more waste than many more freshwater fish of the same size. Bettas are pretty clean fish, but when I add Otos to the tank even though they are much smaller, the tank gets much heavier waste production than if I would be able to put 2 or 3 more Bettas in the tank.

I do not know if this is making a lot of sense, but the waste produced by the particular species of fish has to be taken into consideration and it will definitely cut down on the one inch per gallon "rule" if you have heavy waste producers. Probably if one were to have a tank of one species and that species was a fairly clean species of fish, you may get by using this chart for the Freshwater Tropical but under NO circumstances would I use the Freshwater Coldwater information and I know nothing about Marine tanks so I will not comment on the information about them.

Rose

Tom

Thanks, I'll wait to see what other people have to say about this as well..
Tom

Butterfly

There is more than length to consider when stocking a tank, Body mass and waste production have to be considered also. 10 one inch long neon tetras produce much less waste than one ten inch clown Loach or pleco. So you could probably put 10 neons in a ten gallon tank but not a ten inch CL or Pleco. does that make sense?
Carol

Tom

Ya, I was just putting it there so newbies could see what the experts had to say about this topic. Thanks.
Tom

atmmachine816

O just a little for the marine, you can make a marine tank as small as possible but then the stocking options become limited and it gets very hard, so for marine it's usually the biggest you can afford be your starting tank and the smaller tanks for the expierenced people. The smaller tanks is more precision work then the larger tank.

Guzalot

Butterfly

yep and my oldest daughter has a 12 gal reef tank but she has to stay on top of it every day. so it just depends on how much work and money you wat to put into things.
Carol