Is my tank overstocked?

[Fae]

Hi there,

I wanted to know if my tank is overstocked. Currently aqadvisor says its at 98% but I'm not sure whether to trust it. Its a little over 15 gallons, with 11 relatively small plants growing in soil covered by thick gravel. I have a corner filter which has a flow rate of 270l/h and has an air inlet and a bigger canister filter that has a flow rate of 480l/h. which has this spray rod that aggravates the surface. Temperature 22 C, pH 7.2. The tank was cycled for 2 months without fish, then another month and a bit with 5 endlers and a snail. Currently, my little ammonia tag consistently reads 0. 

The tank's occupants are:

5 male endlers

6 female fancy guppies

1 male fancy guppy

3 apple snails (one is about full grown?? (almost length of a guppy) and the other two are babies)

1 baby dwarf gold spot pleco (a bit smaller than the guppies, maybe an inch and a bit)

I do 30% water changes 2x a week currently. Am I overstocked? Also worth noting the guppy fry go to a LFS. Is this tank overstocked or is it okay?

[Tanked]

I would say that you are fine. 

You are already doing extra maintenance and your fish do not produce much of a bioload. The snails produce even less.  When the guppies start breeding, things will get a little crowded. 

[Fae]

On 4/27/2024 at 4:22 PM, Tanked said:

I would say that you are fine. 

You are already doing extra maintenance and your fish do not produce much of a bioload. The snails produce even less.  When the guppies start breeding, things will get a little crowded. 

Thanks, okay that's good to know. If I remove the guppy fry, will it still be a bit too crowded? How can I mitigate this - removing some adult males and females maybe?

[Tanked]

On 4/27/2024 at 10:25 AM, Fae said:

Thanks, okay that's good to know. If I remove the guppy fry, will it still be a bit too crowded? How can I mitigate this - removing some adult males and females maybe?

I don't see it as too crowded now. 

If your fish have plenty of open space to swim, and places to hide and chill out, you are good.  If you start seeing aggression, than there might be too many.  There used to be a common Inches of fish per gallon rule.  With proper care you can exceed those limits. 

[Shrimp Doggy Dogg]

The stocking is nowhere near concerning IMO.  As I understand it, that calculator is more of a getting started tool.  Your water change schedule is probably 4x the frequency of the average fishkeeper.

I can't be sure without seeing the tank in action, but it sounds like your flow might be on the high side for guppies.

I think you're far more likely to run into issues related to temp being on the low side than anything else.  But who knows?  Maybe your particular fish are fine with things the way they are.

[EricksonAquatics]

I think your stocking is great for the moment. It will take a minute for your guppy population to explode, but when it does it sounds like you have a good local store to send the fry to 🙂

Aquadvisor is a great tool but I personally find it to be pretty conservative (which is helpful) but it also doesn’t take into account plant load and how much of the work plants do lol. A lot of times I don’t think a tank is “maxed out” until it’s about 115%ish on there. Assuming the tank is pretty planted up.

[Fae]

On 4/27/2024 at 4:48 PM, Shrimp Doggy Dogg said:

The stocking is nowhere near concerning IMO.  As I understand it, that calculator is more of a getting started tool.  Your water change schedule is probably 4x the frequency of the average fishkeeper.

I can't be sure without seeing the tank in action, but it sounds like your flow might be on the high side for guppies.

I think you're far more likely to run into issues related to temp being on the low side than anything else.  But who knows?  Maybe your particular fish are fine with things the way they are.

Thanks for the info. I originally had them at 24 degrees but I dropped it to 22. I can make it higher if needs be. How do I tell if the flow is too high? There are some places with rougher current but they sometimes swim against the current there or just go to the various calm spots in the tank. they move around a lot but tend to be more or less in the middle (vertically) but sometimes go up to the higher current areas or down to eat on the lower section. 

Had some issues with the plants...but its getting better. 

Here's a GIF. I just messed with the lights so I think they're a bit frazzled but this is basically the tank.

[Shrimp Doggy Dogg]

On 4/27/2024 at 8:09 AM, Fae said:

How do I tell if the flow is too high? There are some places with rougher current but they sometimes swim against the current there or just go to the various calm spots in the tank. 

In my opinion, most fish have an instinct to swim against the current because they will have first dibs on anything that comes downstream.  Some fish, like rainbows, can stay in the current for long periods of time while others, like guppies will get tired very quickly.

It's sort of difficult to tell from the gif, but I'd guess what you have is working okay.  I don't normally see that much movement from my stem plants, but as long as the fish have areas to relax, it should be fine.