My Tank

[doggy lover]

here is a couple of pics of my tank,

[doggy lover]

and another

[doggy lover]

one last one of the tank

[doggy lover]

one of my angel fish

[doggy lover]

here is one of my sick gourmie (spelling is prob wrong) he is fine other than the lump on his head, it looks a little worse today.

[doggy lover]

here is a close up, does anyone have an idea what is wrong with him, I don't think its hole in head?

[Sneaky]

Hi there,
cool looking tank!
What fish you have in there?
It looks like a cool undersea boneyard love it!

The gourami looks as though it has a wound, not hole in the head.
A treatment with a broad spectrum antibiotic, like maracyn or maracyn2,
and some Melafix should clear him right up.

[doggy lover]

I have the 2 gourmies, 3 angel a shark, 9 danio, a loach and 3 corie cats. Does this sound over stocked someone told me is was the guy at the pet store said that the tank could hold more? Who to believe?

[Sneaky]

Hi there,
yeah thats way overstocked, looks to me like you have
about ....70 or so inches of fish in a 30g tank.
When you stock a tank, you want to aim for about
1 inch of adult fish (size at maturity), per gallon.
3 Angelfish at adulthood will be 8 inches each,
or 24 inches just for them.
The shark will get to be 6 inches, bringing you up to
30 inches right there.
Danios are 2 inches each, so you have 18 inches in danios.
What kind of corys are they? Some corys stay 2 inches or less,
others like albino, bronze, and peppered, grow to 3.5 inches!
Corys should also be kept in groups of 6. So if theyre 2 inches,
thats another 6 inches.
What kinda loach? Some get very very big. Also, loaches are
also schooling fish, they prefer to be kept in groups of 3 or more.
The gouramis are each 3 inches.
So:
Angels - 24 inches
Danios - 18 inches
Shark - 6 inches
Corys - 6 inches
Loach? - 8 inches?
Gouramis- 6 inches
Thats 68 inches there.

Angelfish can grow to be 8 inches from snout to base of tail,
and up to 14 inches or more tall.
They need a tank 18 inches or taller.

You have great stocking for a 55 gallon tank, or a 75g tank with
room for a few more. But you could easily stock another 30g tank
just from yours.
A good example of stocking a 30g would be:
1 Angelfish
9 Danios
5 Corys
That would be 36 inches of fish, and still overstocked, but with
weekly water changes and lots of live plants could be doable.

In my 25g tall (20 inches tall), I have
1 Angelfish
9 Corys
1 Stone Lapping Barb
1 Otto
Thats 31 inches of fish, but the tank is well planted,
recieves a weekly 35% water change, and has enough filtration
for a 100g tank on it.

Bottom line - never listen to pet store people. They will tell you
anything you want to hear, because they only want to make a buck.
If you overstock your tank so badly, inevitably all your fish or most
of your fish will die, and then you will come back to spend more money.
Thats the bottom line of pet store sales.
They certainly are not in it for the well being of the fish.
The thing is, when you overstock a tank you risk several things,
first is a full tank crash. Ammonia overloads the biological filtration,
which is incapable of handling such a huge bioload. The ammonia
spikes and wipes out all or most of your fish in one foul swoop.
Stunting - stunting has directly been linked to high levels of
nitrAtes in water. IN a tank with you bioload, I imagine Nitrates must be
off the chart. Stunting fish causes their bodies to stop growing,
while their organs continue to grow and cramp up inside the body cavity,
eventually either exploding, or causing cancers.
Sickness - in an overstocked tank, sickness can spread rapidly and
wipe out your entire population.
Theres not enough clean water to go around, and the fish suffer and
die slow painful deaths.

I would suggest to you to remove all 3 angelfish, and
the shark, immediately.
That would take 30 inches out of your tank,
bringing it down to 38 inches, which would still be heavily overstocked,
but would be much more handleable.

[Lucky Rescue]

Bottom line - never listen to pet store people.

NEVER! EVER! In my 20+ years of fishkeeping I found one (1) person who actually knew about fish and cared about them enough to question me when I went to buy some.

Most of them are people who will sell you 2 inch Oscars to put into a 10 gal tank.

[doggy lover]

Thanks for the info guys I'll have to digest it all, and figure out what to do. I have 2\15gallon tanks I'll have to get started and my sister has a 30 I'll have to figure out whats to go once I get them all going. I'm never listening to a person in a petshop again, next time I'll check here first. Thanks again Sneakypete for all the info.

[jesse's mommy]

If you are looking for a bigger tank at a reasonable price, check out flea markets and garage sales. My dad got me my 55 gallon tank for nothing from a house he was remodeling. The guy just said go ahead and take it, but it leaks. So my dad and I had a little "project" afternoon and we stripped all the old sealant and re-sealed the entire thing. It was surprisingly very easy to do and I haven't had a leak yet and it's been about ten years now.