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Yupppp. My apartment restrictions have not discouraged me from aquarium keeping. I wanted another 3 gallon to sit next to the one I have currently. I got 4 easy planters and some spider wood from Aquarium Co-Op and pieced it together in 5 minutes. Now to get me some plants. Stay tuned.

Funnily enough, we just released a blog article called How Many Fish Can I Put in a Fish Tank? with some general guidelines on stocking levels. Enjoy! 🙂 (Image taken from the blog post)

I don't want to be slum lord trying to calculate just how many more tenants I can squeeze into a tiny apartment before the breaking point of filth and disease take their toll. Here is what I do. I stock the tank as if there were no filter and no airstone (almost as if the aquarium was a big betta bowl). You are guaranteed not to overstock that way. Why use this method? You have happier healthier fish in cleaner water. As you can read on this forum, sick fish are no fun.

When did you know you were a NERM? I bought this ottoman from ikea for the express purpose of sitting in front of my aquariums in this room 🤣 the space is too small for a good chair

I see your ottoman and raise you a queen size bed... From where I am sitting, looking right Looking left ......nerm

Some women have children. I have discus. 😉 Though I'd start a journal for my planted discus tank. It's been running a few years now, and these fish are my babies. The tank sits next to my desk, and I work full time from home. We all spend a lot of time together. Photo from Spring 2020 (and the best photo I've gotten of this tank!) Here's the tank in Dec 2019, a few weeks after planting The layout for the tank was inspired by an ADA tank I saw in a youtube video, this tank: (this photo is a screenshot from a youtube video of the ADA gallery in Japan. It is not my tank) Stocking in the tank is currently 10 discus, 5 Sterbai Cories, 4 oto cats, 10 Amano Shrimp, and some random guppies who snuck in on a net as fry and grew up in the tank. I had 12 discus, but decided to re-home two who were pairing off and picking fights a few months ago. I hear some people say discus are skittish. That is not my experience. They are nosy, always up in my business when I'm trying to do maintenance. I end up pushing them away so I can see what I'm doing.. lol! Thanks for reading! I'll keep updating as the tank evolves.

Just wanted to thank Cory for telling the story about Hank. I cried with you. But now we know about the kind of people you and wife are. And will enjoy Aquarium CoOp that much more. Just started my first tank. Betta, 3 Corydoras and a Mystery snail. Your advice has helped alot. Thanks again

I might not pick and pack everyday, but I do get down and work. As a side note, I would like to lay claim to the Guinness World Record for the most Gladiator racks set-up, torn down, and reconfigured. I also think I hold the record for the most Fluval 3.0s unboxed.

I've been considering flex-sealing all the walls and floor our 1st floor guest bedroom. If I cut a hole in the ceiling above it, I should be able to feed through it while standing on the second floor and jump in to do maintenance. Should be about 5,000 gallons, filled. Gonna stock it with 15 arapaimas. 😉 In all seriousness, I set up a little 2 gal tank for buce and a few shrimp last month and I'm loving it. I think I might set up a few more mini tanks soon.

A journal for the tank I re-do most often! I've re-scapped this 75 gal tall tank several times in the last 2 years. The height makes it difficult to work on, so my most recent scape was done with the goal not having to stick my arm in the tank so often. This tank is a unique size, 36" wide, 30" tall and 16" deep. It was a lucky craigslist find, with the wooden stand and cap. Most recent re-scape: Timeline October 2018 - Discus & Driftwood May 2019 - A sad amazon sword and some driftwood (we had just moved, so tank was emptied out. Discus moved to a 120 gal in the new house) August 2019 - Plant overload! Looked wild, but was way too much work to maintain. February 2020- planted jungle val in the background and tiger lotus in the foreground. The tiger lotus got HUGE, and I let it go for a bit. May 2020- Overgrown! July 2020- The val became too much to keep up with, so it all came out a few weeks after this photo August 2020- Totally cleaned out the tank, re-did the substrate (dirted with sand cap) Sept 2020- This has been set up for about 4 weeks, and needs a few months to grow in. For this, I purposely went with slow growing and easy to maintain plants. I want to add more buce around the rockwork. My eventual goal is to wean it off co2 and add altums (which are currently growing out in a bare bottom tank) Oct 2020 Thanks for looking!

Cory becomes the noisy neighbor 😆 albeit temporary

These juvenile Super Reds are the best for taking photos of, because they actually sit still!

I have a new tank doing fishless cycling. I filled it on Sept 12, and have had this water sprite in there for about 3 weeks. It started out about 12" tall and maybe 5" wide. I had it floating until I bought some red root and they were getting stuck together, and it was growing too big. So I planted it in the back. It is now almost 20" tall and over 8" wide in three weeks!! I'm not a visual artist nor anything other than pure newbie on aquatic plants and aquarium design, but here's what I have. Some plants took a big hit during shipment (many arrived dead), and I've already removed several that didn't bounce back. Some still recovering. I think I need to do some trimming. Air stone is temporary to help the bacteria until I can get a control valve bc it's too forceful. (FYI the fake plants sitting on the decoration are going to be used for my quarantine tank when I get my fish). I cannot wait for fish!! I feel like a kid waiting for my birthday to come.

Came home to a co-op order and set up the new planters 🥰 I did the double root tab method with the vallisnaria~ Dang it, sideways pics!

I must respectfully disagree with ange. The pressure at any point on the aquarium glass is only a function of height not shape. That's why a levee can hold back a river, lake or even the ocean. the 'width' of water does not matter, only the height. Density stays the same in this case, Gravity stays the same, the only thing which changes which effects the pressure is the height. Any tank with the same height regardless of shape, rectangular, hex, bow, round, the pressure at the bottom or at any point at the same height will be the same. Sorry the engineer in me had to go to the equations. This does not mean that, given the odd shape and low frequency of building them, that bow fronts may be more difficult to make or manufacturers will have less experience making the tank. These factors can individually or combine to affect quality. Tanks which are made literally by the hundreds/thousands allow mfrs to 'dial in' their processes which increases quality. Which ever way you go, I hope you enjoy your new tank.

Update: Contrary to all my stress and most of the proffered advice, I decided to do nothing. I watched closely, and saw that there were no torn fins or injuries occurring. In the meantime my plants continued to grow. My tank is now so packed with plants that there are times when I can't find ANY rams. I see the rummy nose school, and maybe an otocinclus, but that is about it. The khuli loaches are invisible and the rams put in brief appearances, but can also disappear. Not bad for 29g. The little female has recovered her color and her moxy. She frequently challenges the other female for dominance, and only retreats if the male backs up his girlfriend, and then only momentarily. Nobody is being hurt, and everybody is fat and sassy. A sudden darting "attack" is foiled by dodging amongst the leaves, and the pursuer loses interest in less than 3 fish body lengths. The rams are gorgeous and I am very glad I stuck it out--I am also glad I had ready options in case things suddenly went south. Thanks all for the emotional support!

Got a new background installed! And put my coop stickers on something finally.

I bought some mystery snails from Lav on ourfishcollective. Can't wait for them to get here next week! The CPDs from Aqua Huna are about a week into quarantine and I did lose one the first day, but the rest of them are looking pretty good. Very active and a couple of them have some nice colors, even though they are still juveniles. The 55 gallon is getting closer to cycling. The nitrites are started to come down now and the nitrates are rising. Hoping I can move the CPDs within the next two weeks, so I can order the rainbows before it gets to cold. Placed another order on the Co-Op today too. I think this is my 7th order since I started back up 3 months ago 🙂 I also decided to move a huge bookcase out of my home office, since it's become my fish room now. It's filled with hardcover comics and I figured it's probably not a good idea to have a couple thousand dollars worth of books in a fishroom... The good thing about that is, I'll have another 5 feet of space to put a stand in. I haven't decided if it'll be a bigger tank there or a rack of smaller tanks, but it'll be one or the other.

That's a shame. Yup I drive a truck my name is Johnny and the wife and I have 4 tanks. Funnily enough also have four kids ( all grown up. 🤔) and four grand children. And a couple of dogs. This Planneddemic is doing my head in. And I hope you are all well and good in your wonderful country.

This is my cat zazzles, and my tank from home. He loves sitting by the tank. My crested geckos also like to jump on the tanks but I don’t have any photos on my phone at the moment.

@subramn here you go

I added them to my mbuna tank as well. Think I will add a few to my shelly tanks too.

If I lived in the area I'd volunteer to paint one...people in my area can "adopt" fire hydrants and paint them to liven things up...

@Ben_RF I share your love of dwarf frogs! I have a group of 3 happily living in my 20 gallon right now 😄 If no fish work out then they’ll be my back up plan.

Not fish, but why not consider 3 African dwarf frogs 🙂 They are beyond cute, easy to take care of, and they are such goof balls. They will do great in a planted tank. The water depth in a 5 gallon typically is just right for these little fellows. Because of common infections, I would highly suggest however that you do the med trio the Co Op recommends for fish. Bacterial, parastical, and fungal infections are not uncommon. For these little critters, you want to get a head start on any potential issues before they become a problem. I have personally used the med trio for my own and friends frogs over the years. ----------------------------- Now for fish recommendations, why not consider 3 - 5 male guppies? I have a setup at my mothers running with 5 male guppies with no problems. The tank balances out great with the plants.

In my experience aqadvisor is unreliable. I'm really glad that @Irene published her most recent blog as I feel beginner-friendly stocking resources are severely lacking. I know I had to learn through trial and error and have gone through the "how do I stock this" conundrum when learning how to use the space in my 50 hex (so tall! but so little space for most schooling fish)

No fishing: Endangered Desert Pupfish finds a home at Canoa Ranch

I would not do It if its brackish

Something like this is what I had in mind

overstocking is a touchy subject since it is so hard to define. i define it by the water quality, if you have to fight to keep the water quality up then it is overstocked. i have one tank that many would consider overstocked but at this point, maintenance is pretty easy with 2x 50% water changes a week, the moment i start seeing that that is not enough i know the fish have outgrown the tank and need to be moved. overstocking is all about how much work you are willing to put in. if you want a low maintenance, water change once a month, kind of tank then anything that would require you to do a water change more than once a month would be considered overstocked. if you have an auto water change system and you can continually provide clean water then overstocking is practically impossible, you can keep a 12” goldfish alive in a 5g tank that way. the morals and ethics of keeping fish in improper and too small tanks is a whole other discussion. figure out how much work you want to do to keep the fish healthy and dont fall into the trap of “i will definitely keep up water changes every 2 days” because we all know life happens and that plan will likely fall apart in 6 months.

Answers: 1. Discus do school or shoal together, I was recommending the four based on you saying you wanted to keep them in a 40 gal tank. 2. From my experience I would say one discus per 10 gallons, which also led me to the four fish in a 40 gallon tank. More gallons per fish is obviously better. When I kept them before and had a pair and was breeding them, I kept a pair in a 20 high tank. If I had a choice for tank size and there is room for a four foot long tank, I will choose a 75, because I like the extra width and more gallons. 3. yes, a 50% water change can be a lot on a large tank. That is where you have to decide whether it will be worth it for you. As @Jessica.stated above, she noticed, as I did as well, that their health can start to go downhill if the water conditions are not kept up. If you are currently doing water changes using a siphon and buckets, you may want to invest in a Python system, or even set up an auto water change system. As I stated above, I found that the domestic strains of discus seemed to be a lot more touchy when it came to water conditions. The wild discus would be fine if I missed doing a water change, or the filter didn't get cleaned for a couple weeks, whereas the domestics would start to show signs of stress. I'm guessing that it has something to do with being so domesticated and line bred for years that the natural hardiness has been lost to some extent.

Stendker, a major german breeder, has this handbook online. It offers some great basic info (specific to their discus, but also good for discus in general) You'll find they recommend the min school size is 10 discsu- DISKUSZUCHT STENDKER GMBH & CO. KG - Diskusfische - Diskusfutter - Diskus- und Aquaristik-Informationen DISKUSZUCHT-STENDKER.DE Discus can be challenging. If water quality isn't good, they will go downhill fast. Even more so if they're stressed because they're not in a school. It'll be challenging to keep water quality good in a 40 breeder. If you buy smaller discus, you're going to want to feed them heavily with high protein foods to grow them out. If you're set on keeping discus in a 40 breeder, I would do it bare bottom and do lots of water changes (like, every day or every 2/3 days), plan to upgrade the tank in 6-8 months, and no tankmates. This is my tank. It's 120 gals. It has 12 discus (10 now, I rehomed 2 so the bioload would lighten up), gets 2-3 50% water changes per week. It's been running for about 2 years now. I do the water changes at that level because if I don't, the discus will get sick. Work got especially busy for me a few months ago and I didn't stay on top of it. Discus pimples, aka little white bacterial infections in their fins, all cropped up from high nitrate levels. Water changes fixed it. I definitely don't water change because I love it, but it is what is needed for this fish to stay healthy in my experience. I notice mine get fussy if nitrates get about 20/25 ppm. dosing ferts is a delicate balance with keeping plants and discus happy. Your question depends on your goals. You might get away with 3 discus in a 40 breeder with rams and rummynose, but the discus probably will never reach their growth potential, and it's likely you'll have health issues down the line. If you want to invest in discus, I'd do it in a 75 gal and keep only discus, at least for a few months while you get to know their care and behavior. You can always add tankmates down the line.

I would buy at a minimum a group of four discus, unless I was buying a breeding pair. They do a lot better when kept in groups, if they are by themselves, they will be shy and reclusive. When I've bought them, I have gotten a group of at least six, if not more. I have kept discus for quite a while, I don't have any currently, and have kept both wild and domestic discus. I have found over the years that the domestic colorful discus seem to be a lot more "needy" as far as care. If you keep up the water changes, you can do daily, but I have never done the huge water changes that you hear everyone on discus forums saying you need to, and have never had any issues with raising them. I would do 50% two or three times a week, along with having a good filter, either a HOB or canister.

You could probably add the 10 gallon or less stocking suggestion videos. I've linked to those a few times before.

ok so this is my opinion, i breed all kinds of rams and have been doing experiments with tempature. i like to keep them much warmer like at 86-88 degrees farhenhiet. but i have done some experiments with them and found they can go down to 76 with no problem, i have even done fry that were 2 weeks old at that temp and found no problems with it. now they will act alot slower than normal but other than that no problem. hope this helps!!!

When I first got fish, I was told by the LFS guy not to use warm water from the tap, as household hot water pipes were made of copper and that would poison fish. As a result, every water change I did, I warmed a big aluminum spaghetti pot of cold water on the stove, which was a real pain for me as a 10 year old, because the whole thing had to be coordinated with mom, who wasn't crazy about fish to begin with. Then I had to carry that pot upstairs without spilling any. Soooo, basically I almost never did a water change and my fish suffered. Later in life I noticed that ALL the pipes in the house were copper. 😐

I can't believe the things I got away with as a youth with well water. I would sometimes do 100% water changes on my tanks with plastic plants, rinse my filters with hot water, plus all sorts of stuff with under gravel filters. If there had have been any chlorine or chloramine in my water, I probably wouldn't be in the hobby today. This was pre-web, and I didn't have any books or magazines. I can't remember any tips from those days of Madonna and GnR, but I was good at DIY carbon replacement for undergravel filters. 😉

Replace your hob filter cartridge every 2-4 weeks...

The one inch per gallon rule.

This was one of those "uh-oh" things: we tried to grow a pineapple, but it died. So, my hubby pitched it to the back corner of the yard. A year later...Ta-Da!!! Our cute little pineapple was growing. We enjoyed watching the progress of it, and the EATING of it a few weeks ago. You will never taste a sweeter pineapple than the ones that grow in your own back yard! 🙂

I moved a bit of anachris from one tank to my other and the leaf structure has totally changed. Can anyone shed some light on this?