5.5 gal stocking question?

Katibre

I have a 5.5 gal with 3 feeder guppies, snail and 1 rainbow fish (not sure which species mostly blue in color with a yellow head). Question: do you think I am overstocking or if I am careful with the water quality would I have an issue?
Also how often should I do water changes? I normally change a 1/3 of the water weekly sometimes biweekly.

madyotto

Size of your filter matters here
what hourly rating is it ?

for example my tank can be classed as over stocked if i used the recommended filter size for my 40 gal
but i have a quite over sized filter

the recommended for my tank is around 400 liters an hour
how ever i use a 600 liter an hour to compensate and all my readings (ammonia, nitrate, nitrite) = 0

do you use testing kits if so chemical or paper type ?

also fish size fully grown or growing ?

http://www.fishtanks.net/fishtank.php?fishtank=5080 <My tank setup and pic's

more info plz :)

GwenInNM

How could you keep a turquoise rainbow in a 5 gal? Yikes. That fish needs lots of swimming room and should be kept with at least 5 others of his kind. You need to look at re-homing that fish.

5 gallons are fun as nano-tanks, with the smallest of fish or as a shrimp only tank

Gwen

Tazman

Welcome to TFK and the forums.

Totally agree this fish (turquoise rainbow) is unsuitable for this tank. A betta or shrimps is about the only thing suitable for such a small tank.

Water parameters / filtration are not the issue here, it is simply the tank is too small to house anything but shrimps, snails or a single betta.

Katibre

To answer your questions:
First I have a whisper filter for a 10 gal
I have an ammonia and ph test kit
The guppies are feeder so they are not full grow I believe the rainbowfish is

madyotto

if it is a turquoise one and fully grown it would be a Max Size of = 4" (10 CM)

if not Some species stay below 3 cm in length even as adults, while other species can attain a length of up to 20 cm.

and they are a shole fish so on its own will over time do one of two things

get aggressive or not eat and be very stressed maybe killing it in the end as others have said not suitable at all

if it turns out to be one of the very small ones you SHOULD be ok getting 3-4 more

picture of a turquoise rainbow is here if it doesn't look like this maybe try to post a pic for further help
http://www.liveaquaria.com/images/ca...se-Rainbow.jpg

in terms of over crowding you should be ok because of the over powered filter
and even be ok to add 3-4 more fish at 3-4 cm max when fully grown that is providing the rainbow fish gets no bigger than 4-5 CM

this would also depend on a good territory (in very corner of the tank) and not over crowding there swimming space with ornaments and such

also in regards to your question on water cycle
in my opinion never do a water change unless the test kit indicates you need to
How ever i seriously suggest that you get a better more conclusive kit you SOOOO NEED to test the nitrate for two reasons one is to know if you are over feeding and other is in-case of a nitrate spike which may sometimes send you ph well into alkali side of things


hope this helps

Katibre

I forget how to post a picture I took one with my phone
Posted via Mobile Device

madyotto

if you use facebook add it to there
open the picture up so you get it in album view
and then right click on the pic and click copy link url or image url
the come back here and click on the reply box and right click and paste like so:
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...72503876_n.jpg

other wise you can copy to pc pics folder

then load this forum in the top nav bar click user cp and then click Pictures & Albums it the bar on the left

and as an after thought how much air do you give them and is it planted or not ?

Katibre

http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos...191_n.jpg?dl=1

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos...639_n.jpg?dl=1

madyotto

i would say it is the same so it could grow to 20 CM and doubt it done all its growing