Feeding and stocking

[Rc78]

All, 

 

I have a 29 gallon tank with

9 WCMM - mix of regular and gold color

8 neon tetra

4 Ottos 

3 red sail fin cory

2 albino cory

1 female beta 

3 snails 

Am I overstocked? It’s medium planted.

Also, how do I know the feeding level is correct? Everywhere I go has different answers. 1 minute, 3, minute, 5 minutes….i’m too new to know what a skinny fish looks like. They all stick to their  appropriate water column, though the WCMM sometimes go down to the middle to school with the neons. I’m trying to ensure none get outcompeted. 

I added them in at weekly intervals over 6 weeks. With it running 3 weeks before that with just snails. 

Thanks. 

 

 

[Tony s]

On 10/15/2024 at 9:10 AM, Rc78 said:

Am I overstocked

No, looks like you have plenty of room still. There are a couple of ways to gauge stocking. One is the old inch of fish per gallon. That's very limited, but relatively accurate for small schooling fish. The bigger the fish, the more it fails. The other is to go to aqadvisor.com and plug in the numbers. It's also limited, but it also watches the water parameters and temp differences

[Tony s]

On 10/15/2024 at 9:10 AM, Rc78 said:

Also, how do I know the feeding level is correct

A lot of that depends on your observation. As long as you know everybody got something, you're good. If you feed twice a day, 1 minute is good. once a day, 3 minutes. I feed mine once a day. but i make sure all the all of them eat something

[Rc78]

Thanks! 

[MWilk]

Do you have enough algae growth for that many otocinclus? If the goal is to feed them, the cories are normally too fast to get the bottom feeder algae wafers. 

[Rc78]

The Otos have never shown interest in wafers. They are always on plants or the wood. They are all still alive after a month. 

[MWilk]

What kind of snails? 

[Tony s]

On 10/15/2024 at 1:55 PM, Rc78 said:

The Otos have never shown interest in wafers

Try zucchini rounds. Microwave in water to soften it. stick a clean fork in and just drop in the tank. Mine loved that. Sometimes they won't do wafers since most are wild caught.

snails will like that too

[Rc78]

1 mystery and 2 ramshorn

[MWilk]

On 10/15/2024 at 1:00 PM, Rc78 said:

1 mystery and 2 ramshorn

Yea, those shouldn’t affect the algae population much. Like Tony said, you might try feeding vegetables. I like green beans and zucchini.