MTS strikes -- how many endlers in my 10 gallon bachelor tank?

[laritheloud]

So it's official, I have MTS, I'm converting my 'OG' quarantine into a full-time running tank and have a spare 10 gallon that I'll only use for hospital purposes (I SWEAR, FOR REAL THIS TIME). That said, how many male endlers can I comfortably keep in a 10 gallon planted tank with one giant ramshorn snail? It has mostly floating plants and a couple epiphytes.

[Ben_RF]

A lot of it depends on the following, but there are some other relevant questions that are worth asking too.

1.  How often and how much do you plan to change your water

2. How heavily planted will it be?  And what type of plants?

 

For my mother, I have a 10g tank that I help her to manage with male guppies.  It is a low tech tank with a carpet of dwarf sag, some anubias among the rock, and pogostemon octopus  going the length of the back area.  So far I have been able to succesfully maintain levels with doing a 30% water change once a month.  The stocking is 19 male guppies and 1 mystery snail.

I imagine since you will be doing a lot of regulating of hte nitrite through floaters, you could do similar stocking. 

[Ben_RF]

This useful video by @Irene may be useful.  Really the big thing is your limitation is based on how much work you are willing to do to keep water levels healthy.  

 

 

[laritheloud]

On 7/22/2021 at 9:03 PM, Ben_RF said:

A lot of it depends on the following, but there are some other relevant questions that are worth asking too.

1.  How often and how much do you plan to change your water

2. How heavily planted will it be?  And what type of plants?

 

For my mother, I have a 10g tank that I help her to manage with male guppies.  It is a low tech tank with a carpet of dwarf sag, some anubias among the rock, and pogostemon octopus  going the length of the back area.  So far I have been able to succesfully maintain levels with doing a 30% water change once a month.  The stocking is 19 male guppies and 1 mystery snail.

I imagine since you will be doing a lot of regulating of hte nitrite through floaters, you could do similar stocking. 

I have water lettuce, floating water sprite and anacharis as the bulk of my plant life. I water change once a week out of habit, but I only have 3 male endlers in the tank right now along with the snail — nitrates are near zero even when I fertilize. Tank has been cycled for months.

[Ben_RF]

Also endlers and guppies kind of reach critical mass at certain point.  So you might want to consider to do male and female endlers.  When they get to many, you will find they will basically limit their own numbers (like eatting their own fry).  PLUS it could save you some money by getting a few (a trio perhaps?) that you really like and just wait for them to populate your own tank.

[Jungle Fan]

If they are just males I would figure maximum 8 to 10, however if you should happen to get a female all bets are off because they turn fertile at about two months, and can have anywhere from 20-30 babies each time. I'd probably go with 7-8 males to leave wiggle room for growth. Max size for endlers is 1.4".

[Ben_RF]

So all of the plants are absolutely beast in sucking up ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates.  Your plants may be limited by how little the biolode is.  It is a good chance you could stock high with these types of plants. 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

In my experience, Endler's tend to have a surprisingly low bioload for the number of individuals.  I have a 20 gal with 80+ in there and they are doing very well.  I have two caveats here.  The first is that I have no fast growing plants or floaters in the tank, so plant uptake of N is likely quite low.  Secondly, I do an approximately 4% daily water change on the tank (it's about to got to an AWC system which will make that even easier).  That might sound like a lot, but it is really similar to doing about a 25% WC every week, it just evens it all out.  I don't get measurable ammonia or nitrites, and it's a very rare test to get anywhere near 5 nitrate.  On top of that, Endler's are pretty hardy.  I use males for fish-in cycling all the time and I've never seen them stressed, much less ever lost one in the process.  I won't give you a hard number you can stock, just an idea that you probably don't need to be too restrictive in this case.  I think it all comes down to fish mass.  How many male Endler's would it take to weigh the same as even a single betta?  You can probably stick quite a few male Endler's in your tank and be just fine. 

[lefty o]

id start with 8 or 10, and see how it goes. can always add more later.

[GameCzar]

Im going with 6 guppies, so with endler's you could probably do at least 8 as others have suggested.   But you know you wanna breed em. 😉

[Guppysnail]

On 7/22/2021 at 9:08 PM, Ben_RF said:

PLUS it could save you some money by getting a few (a trio perhaps?) that you really like and just wait for them to populate your own tank.

I agree here. This is what I did. It is rewarding and the stock is a healthier I feel. Also males are driven to compete for territory and to breed breed breed.  While I do have sorority and fraternity tanks I only keep those male guppies that stay smaller may have slight misfired tail or slight spinal bend (not severe hardly noticeable) that I would not want someone to buy and pass those traits on. At a certain point I give the strongest ones away as there is always fin nipping when no females present which could lead to infections etc.  plus I feel as if I would be taking away from them having a happy life to not allow them to do what instincts drive them to do…mate. But just my experiences I am by no means an expert.