5 G stocking do-able?

**bustersg** · 25th Jan 2017, 00:51

40cm long, 5 gallon driftwood planted tank.

boraras brigittae/chili rasbora OR Boraras merah/phoenix rasbora

i plan to keep a pair of clown killifish as center piece and 6 rasbora (either type above) as back stage.

the rasbora are small - don't think they gonna have a huge bio-load as a school compared to other common school fishes like neon, white cloud etc
plus 2 clown killifish (smallest of the killifish family) to just to add a tad more color to the tank.

feasible?

**Urban Aquaria** · 25th Jan 2017, 16:42

Yeah, that's an okay stocking level, quite conservative. The boraras and clown killiefishes stay small sized so they wouldn't put much load on the tank filtration.

Try to go for boraras brigittae, and try to handpick the full grown male ones with the strongest red colors from LFS tasks, they have way more intense colors than other boraras variants.

As for clown killiefishes, you could consider getting a few more to stock the tank too. They stay mostly at the edge of the water surface and have a tendency to jump out when startled, so you may face attrition in their numbers over time (unless a tight fitting cover is installed).

**bustersg** · 25th Jan 2017, 18:18

Over at fishlore.com all the angmo said 5g cannot stock even a single sch of fish ask mi betta or rcs only. Over this forum, still can stock some more. Jin funny real extreme.

Went lfs today wow clown killi super small lor. But i fall in love wif green neon tetra.

**Urban Aquaria** · 25th Jan 2017, 21:18

Yeah, those online aquarium tank stocking calculators tend to base their stocking ratios only on water volume.... but they don't include other important factors like filtration, plant density, water changes or tank maintenance etc. All those other factors make a huge difference in how much actual bio-load a tank can handle, not just water volume.

There are millions of different tank setup and equipment combinations, with the biggest variable being the human element (whether the aquarium keeper maintains the tank properly or just neglect it). So its impossible for those online calculators to factor everything in.

Therefore due to their limited formula that has only one variable (water volume), their stocking recommendations also have to be super conservative too, assuming the worst case scenario of no filtration and/or little maintenance in the hands of a beginner fishkeeper.

For tanks with good filtration, lots of plants, regular water changes and tank maintenance, the bio-load capacity can be much higher. Just have to stock the tank progressively and observe the health of the fishes. If you want to stock even more fishes, then have to improve filtration efficiency and do more maintenance accordingly. Its all a matter of how much equipment you want to utilize and how much work you want to put into it.