Stocking Sizes for a Fluval 240?

Dawes

Just curious as to the opinions on extent of stocking sizes for a Fluval 240.

Aquarium Volume: approx. 240 Litres.
Aquarium Measurements: 120 x 40 x 55 cm.
Filter Model: Fluval 306 External Filter.

Thank you.

Nilet699

First off, what would your water parameters be? Ph kh and gh would be very helpful to help suggest!
Second..... what do you Want in your tank?
With the 240 you have quite a lot of options as its approx a 70 gallon tank. Presume your British? We have to convert it all into inches and US gallons or they are get confused haha.

I want one of these.....or poss the 320...

Dawes

PH: 7.5.

My Water in the area that I live in is Hard.

I'm not sure what I'd like in it, I want something bigger than say, 6 Inches, but not as big as an Oscar for example. As a 240 wouldn't be able to house a Oscar comfortably.

I was hoping for suggestions and possibly stocking ideas really.

Nilet699

Hard in peoples mind and descriptions vary. You have the exacts?

I'd put in a large group of tetras personally, maybe congo's would be nice, but they are larger - you could add a larger group of smaller ones which would maybe be nicer.
Boesemani rainbows are a gorgeous fish and would be fine in a 4ft tank. They hit approx 5".
Loaches like botia Kubota reach around 5" and are gorgeous... I have some of these and love them there's quite a wide selection of loaches you could add.... just not clowns!!!

Erm....

Then you could also think about less peaceful fish.... large school of tiger and green barbs etc

Dawes

I don't have the specifics for Hardness as I have set up my Tank for some years now and I only really test for Nitrate/rite/Ammonia now.

Im currently in the midst of upgrading from a 125, so.

I was thinking about making a Cichlid Tank, for a bunch of smaller species of Cichlid.
Not sure on that however.

I've done a Live Bearer Tank, Community Tank, Tetra Tank so I wanted something a little different.

Either a Cichlid Tank, Aggresive Tank, or anything else I/you could possibly think of, hah.

Geomancer

Hard water limits your choices, if it is truly hard water.

The measurement we need is the GH (General Hardness) which you can usually get from your water supply utility. It is not something you normally need to test yourself. Check their website for a water quality report. If that doesn't work, you can try calling them. Otherwise, take some water to a pet store and have them test it. GH is not a test kit you want to buy, not unless you are planning on modifying it because normally the GH of your tank will never change on its own.

True hard water is perfect for African Lake Cichlids. It is also good for live bearers (Swordtail, Molly, Platy, etc). There are a few others, like some rainbow fish and catfish. I would avoid soft water fish, like tetras and south american cichlids.

But you really need to know that GH number. My GH is less than 2 dGH yet I've heard people call our water hard... as said, words mean different things to different people, but numbers never lie ;)

Dawes

Analysis Typical value UK/EU Limit Units

Hardness Clark 6.00 No Standard Applies Degrees Clark
Hardness French 8.00 No Standard Applies French Degrees
Hardness German 4.00 No Standard Applies German Degrees
Nitrate 11.06 50 mgNO3/l
pH 7.64 6.5 - 9.5 pH Value

^ Copy/Pasted that from my water supply Webpage.
However, this covers quite a broad area, and I know we suffer quite alot from Lime scale where I live.

I tried to colour co-ordinate as the Forums did not let me adjust correctly.

Red = Unit.
Blue = My Unit amount/Area.
Green = Unit Scale/limit.

Geomancer

Converting to the units used here on this website, your water is 4.79 dGH (Degrees of General Hardness). The conversion factor for your own information is 1 dGH = 1.252 Clark degrees.

That can be considered soft water in terms of fish keeping. If you still want African Cichlids you will want to use a calcareous substrate to make your water hard and keep the pH up. I can't believe your pH can vary 3 whole points .... that's a 1000x difference!

Making soft water hard is very easy (just use the right substrate as I mentioned) so your options are pretty open. Just don't mix hard and soft water fish.

Geomancer

Also, since your tap water contains Nitrates, I recommend planting your tank if you do not go with African Cichlids, the plants can really help in keeping those Nitrates down.

I excluded African Cichlids because they tend to be too active and are known to tear up most plants.

Dawes

Thanks for the information.

I've had a good think, and I'm either going for a Semi-Aggresive Barb Tank, with a Rainbow Shark or Red Tail, a Small breed Pleco, and maybe something else to dilute the Barb school with, Was thinking about getting some Corys too.
(Still struggling as to what to get to dilute the Tiger Barbs though).
Or A Cichlid Tank.

- Would a Clown Loach grow too large for a 4ft Tank do you think? I've never kept them, but I'm somewhat presuming that it will grow too large if I get a couple of them.