garyd

Hello everyone, you have been real helpfull in the past. I have a 175 gal tank. it has been so easy but now my fish have grown. I have 5 clown knifes, three are about six inches, two are about 11 inches. my other ten fish are 6 cichleds (about 3-4 inches) Two gobies (2.5 inches) two Placastamuses (4 inches) and two Blue Lobsters about 5 inches. Is this two much and if not how do you know when you have two many fish? Do they act different.

One more question, when you vaccum the bottom of the Tank how thorough should you be, I feel like I need to remove my rocks and plants to do a good job but it seems too really clog my filters? How do you tell if your over feeding?

COBettaCouple

what kind of cichlids are those? i don't think you're overstocked but if you're aren't, it's close and a pretty full tank. Your water chemistry should help tell you when you've gone over the bioload. Often overstocking will lead to bad water conditions, sickness and fish deaths along with more aggressive behavior from the fish.

you could shut down the filters while vacuuming if they clog or clean them out when they do. I'd be real thorough in cleaning as you can get pockets of toxins stored up in spots when the substrata isn't cleaned fully.

with those fish, i'm not sure of the specific signs of over feeding since i don't have any of them, but generally if a lot of food is making it to the bottom, or if food for the bottom feeders sit a long time without being eaten, it may be time to cut back some on food.

Carillon

Hi there,

I can take a stab at the overstocking question for you if you like. In my opinion, it does sound as if you're a bit overcrowded, or at least certainly heading that way, though from the information given the calculations are a bit tricky. Here's my logic.

First of all, calculations should be based on the adult size of the fish, to ensure they have room to grow to their full potential. Since I don't know the species of goby, cichlid, or plecostamus that you're keeping, I've made a few conservative estimates. Let's say that the cichlids will be around 6 inches full grown, and the plecostamus around 6 as well (though some species can get MUCH larger). And again on the conservative side, we'll say the gobies are near adult size, and will only grow to about 3 inches apiece. Blue lobsters can grow to about 8 inches, from what I've read. And that just leaves the clown knifefish, which has estimates from 18" to 40". Let's go with a happy medium of 24", around two feet.

Five clown knifefish = 120"
Six miscellaneous cichlids = 36"
Two gobies = 6"
Two plecostamus = 12"
Two blue lobster = 16"

Total = About 190" of fish.

Going with the 1" of fish per gallon rule, that's a bit on the heavy side. Even if you assume your clown knifefish will stay small, you're still getting pretty close. And that's assuming that the species of cichlids, gobies and plecostamus you are keeping with them are also on the small side (and by the way, blue lobsters are notorious for being untrustworthy when it comes to smaller fish!). If your plecostamus are common plecostamus, they may grow up to two feet in length, instead of a measly six inches!

My advice would be to do a similar calculation on your own, based on the exact species of fish you have and their adult sizes. That will help you decide who to move, if it comes to that. As to how to know you're overstocked (other than this rule of thumb), you might look for water that just won't stay clean and gets dirty/bad faster than expected. If you have territorial fish, you might also see a lot of signs of aggression if they don't have enough room to establish their own territories.

Good luck! I'm sure others will chime in with more info and opinions as well.