Do I have room for more nano fish or am I fully stocked?

[Mark Lederman]

Just looking for opinions on how maxed out I am.    I have a 36 Gallon Bowfront, medium planted at the following stocking levels:

11 Neon Tetras

5 Zebra Danios

6 Glofish tetras

1 Powder Blue Gourami

7 Otos

6 Cory Sterbai

Fish look great.  Swimming around nicely.  Not a traffic jam situation in the open water.   Peaceful community.   Water changes are 2x per week at 30% (It takes about 4 days for Nitrates to approach 40 ppm).  I am checking daily and have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites. 

Do I have room for more or am I so fully stocked that I have crossed the line and am flirting with potential problems?    I'm not considering adding any medium size fish.  Just wanted to see if I could add in some nano fish: i.e. 2 more neons and/or 2 more otos.  The otos and neons have such a small bio load.   

I know the 1 inch per gallon rule is just a guideline.  So I don't want to get into that.  I just want to know if most folks would say I am way way way maxed out.   Thanks.  

[Kirsten]

I don't think you're maxed out, though, like you said, I wouldn't put any more larger fish in there. I'm leery of adding more otos unless you have algae issues, but I think more neons would fit fine.

[CorydorasEthan]

I'd say that the tank is pretty highly stocked, though not in terms of the bioload, but rather the swimming space. It is fine now, but if you were to add more schooling species like danios or large-ish tetras, then they might be pretty crowded. The neons might work though. I would say add freshwater shrimp or snails if you wanted more fish. Also no more otos, as they might not all be able to get enough food.

Try out http://aqadvisor.com/ it's a great stocking calculator for calculating bioload. Unfortunately, it doesn't take into account the plants in the aquaria and the extreme benefits that they provide. So you could theoretically go over the maximum bioload if you have plenty of plants.

[Dwayne Brown]

It depends what you would want to add to your aquarium. I would say its close to being full but you could probably get away with adding some more fish depending on the species.

[Mark Lederman]

Thanks all for the valued perspectives on this question.

[lefty o]

dont know what your filtration is, but with the plants, id say you can add a few more neons or ottos.