Bottom dweller or overstocking?

kaythenewbie

I have a 20 gal long with:
a Dwarf Gourami, 5 glowlight tetras, 4 black phantom tetras, 3 otocinclus vestius, and 2 african dwarf frogs.
My tank is moderately planted and has been running for almost 3 months now. I do weekly water changes of about 30%.
However, my substrate always looks messy. I think it's the frogs. I feed them by hand but they still miss half the food I give them. (Also my tetra think it's fun to shred the otos' veggies and algae wafers which adds to the mess). I wanted to get a bottom dweller to help clean up the mess a bit. But I don't want to overstock.

I really would like to get cories, but they need to be in a group. So I opted for ghost shimp instead who vanished overnight (and there was a very full gourami in the morning). What do you think? Would cories work in my tank?

According to the aquarium calculator I am currently at 56% stocking, and 104% filtration (but that doesn't factor in my plants).

1077

[quote=kaythenewbie;506642]I have a 20 gal long with:
a Dwarf Gourami, 5 glowlight tetras, 4 black phantom tetras, 3 otocinclus vestius, and 2 african dwarf frogs.
My tank is moderately planted and has been running for almost 3 months now. I do weekly water changes of about 30%.
However, my substrate always looks messy. I think it's the frogs. I feed them by hand but they still miss half the food I give them. (Also my tetra think it's fun to shred the otos' veggies and algae wafers which adds to the mess). I wanted to get a bottom dweller to help clean up the mess a bit. But I don't want to overstock.

I really would like to get cories, but they need to be in a group. So I opted for ghost shimp instead who vanished overnight (and there was a very full gourami in the morning). What do you think? Would cories work in my tank?

According to the aquarium calculator I am currently at 56% stocking, and 104% filtration (but that doesn't factor in my plants).[/quote



Are you vaccuming the gravel with each water change? If so and bottom remains dirty,,then you could reduce the amount and frequency of food offered.
Might try placing algae wafers or veggies for oto's in the tank an hour or two after dark to help prevent tetras from zeroing in on it .
Placing cory's in the tank will mean more waste, and could make feeding the Dwarf frogs more difficult for the cory's will quickly discover where the frogs are being fed and they too will be waiting.

kaythenewbie

Yes, I always gravel vac when I water change. As for the algae wafers, I've tried that, and I've tried hiding them in every odd place imaginable, but the tetra and frogs always find them and spread them. I looked into it and found that they are held together with a brine shrimp baste so that's probably why my tetra like them so much. The frogs are the worst, they can smell and find them anywhere. So I switched feeding the otos zucchini entirely (I have tons of natural algae in the tank, I could probably stop feeding them, but I want them to get used to prepared foods just in case) which worked for a while but now my tetra think it's fun to shred the veggies as well. Grrrr...

I hand feed the frogs directly, so I'm not too concerned about them getting enough to eat. They miss half their food because it'll fall out of my tweezers or get knocked out and missed my a lunging frog. I only feed the other fish a small pinch of food every night. It's very little for 10 fish, but maybe I'll try feeding less. Thanks!