Tank Stocking Guidelines

[rblackie2]

Good afternoon all!
So I finally did it and got an 8ft , 2ft x 2.5ft tank with 5.5ft sump setup and I feel like I'm in a sweet shop where stocking is concerned. I have 4 geos and 1 baby oscar at present and am looking to stock the rest. I appreciate it's seemingly controversial but I love oscars so the plan was (total);
4 x oscars (non wild types)
2 x rotkills
4 x severums
2 x electric blue ancaras
4 x silver dollars
4 x clown loaches

Total aquarium excluding sump 1100L / 300usgal
Total sump vol 350L / 92usgal

Will this be overstocked?

 

[duanes]

If your water is on the soft side, and pH neutral to slightly acidic,
You should be fine, as along as you keep up with frequent large water changes to hold nitrates to a below 10 ppm.

 

[ken31cay]

This should work fine with proper water parameters. I hope you enjoy the setup. Things I would do differently if this were my setup; double the amount of both silver dollars and clown loaches, and keep two Oscars instead of four.

I have seventeen 5"-6" silver dollars in my eight foot tank and sometimes I think they're the centerpiece of the tank.

 

[rblackie2]

100%, I'm currently running 25% on Tuesday and 50% on Friday for waterchanges (I tie it into my discus tank changes). Unfortunatley my water is ph 8.5 and relatively hard so I am running back and forth to get RO to mix it with. Thankfully the RO systems here tomorrow and the storage tank is here already so just 1 week worst case more of running back and forth left. Tbh the silver dollars I was a bit unsure of but felt they would give a bit more movement to the tank, ill have a mull on it, but the Oscars have so many color variations

 

[HUKIT]

That looks good but why the clowns? Don’t get wrong I love clown loaches but wouldn’t platydoras costatus, Goeldiella eques, or Liosomadoras oncinus. Tons of other options too. I’m not a biotope purist but I think something from the same continent would be cool.

 

[rblackie2]

Ah just a prefference, I love the playful outgoing if not bordering on outrageously stupid attitude with the clowns. Here's my smaller ones in my grow out tank, I turned it off to do some maintenance, good thing I noticed before turning them back on again. I did consider the stripped Raphael but from the reading I did they seem quite shy and more towards nocturnal activity but a stunning animal just not quite what I had in mind I guess

 

[Gourami Swami]

In a 300gal your list should be fine. Wouldn't add much else, but maybe up the silver dollars to 6

 

[tlindsey]

The clown loaches will be the slowest growing and may be risky once the Oscars outgrow them.

 

[rblackie2]

Ah not to worry on that front, I'll keep them seperate for a brave while until they have grown on a bit, I have a feeling I might be waiting a year (there a year old at the moment). I'm still chewing on the Oscars, I'm worried pushing more than 2 might create aggression issues, lots of story's online of course but most don't give you the setup they had the problems in / water parameters / feeding regime etc so it's difficult to see the wood for the trees.

 

[Cichlidfever]

Your stock IMO will work, I would remove two of the Oscars, and add two more electric blue ancaras, your selection is a good choices should be nice , I am not fond of the Clown Loaches, but just my taste, your selection when all finish I would love to see