We haven’t finished cycling yet, but we’re going to our lfs tomorrow to get more plants and want to get ones that the end-result fishies will like, so having a stocking list would be beneficial!
Our tank measures 36x18x12”, a little over 30 gal (advertised as a 30 gal breeder). I attached a pic for reference from the day we set it up, since then we have added two small plants and one large one, a bubbler/air stone system, and a sponge in the back to cover the open spot that the filter and heater come in the lid.
Our current plan is:
– 1 Pleco (unsure of type but leaning towards zebra)
– 5 Corydoras (unsure of type but leaning towards gold laser)
– 8 Tetras (unsure of type but leaning towards diamond)
– 1 Honey Gourami (we’ve heard they’re peaceful?)
– 1 Goldfish (leaning towards Ryukin but we will see what our lfs has when we are getting one, but likely a larger one like that)
– 1 large Mystery snail
– possibly 5 dwarf suckers or 10 shrimp (bee)?
– Ramshorn snails and pond snails (already in the tank, one visible adult Ramshorn and several babies of each type that are very small, came in on a plant from the fish store)
This list came up as a stock level of 75%.
We’ve used the stocking calculator but I’m not sure how accurate it is for planted tanks. We have a Aqueon Quietflow 30 PRO (45 gal) for a filter, but we do have a layer of dirt and a layer of sand, then a small gravel path and two large pieces of soaked mopani wood and lots of large and small rocks, and two small and one large plant (planning to fill the tank with tons more plants tomorrow, basically as many as we can that will make the fish happy when they do move in). We had originally wanted Dojo loaches, and then when we found out that our internet research on Reddit and elsewhere was incorrect and they need a much larger tank and lots of Dojo loach friends, we thought maybe kuhli loaches, but adding them to our list seems like too many fish for our tank and we want to make sure they all have enough space in each layer etc.
So we aren’t sure if what we have listed will work.
Should we do the dwarf suckers or shrimp for algae management on the taller plants that the Pleco may struggle to get to? I wasn’t sure if the fish on our list would just eat the shrimp.
Will our snails be safe from being eaten by anything on our stocking list as it is now?
Do we have too many fish planned? Any that seem like they would clash? If necessary, we could take out the shrimp/dwarf suckers if they aren’t needed. We are really hoping to keep most of the others though if possible but we want to do whatever is necessary to create a happy place for the fish to live.
Our local fish store was our best resource but they recently had given us some not so great advice and now I want to be sure I have information from every source I can get it from before I make any decisions. So I wanted to ask you all before we went in tomorrow in case you had any thoughts!
Posted by zebraanddog