I have a 300L/H and a 400L/H powerhead filters and a sponge filter
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Hello everyone,
I just had a question regarding the bio load and overpopulating my aquarium.
I have a cycled 16 gallon tank, but yesterday I added more fish and snails having a total of 5 guppies, 4 balloon mollies, 2 swordtails, 2 zebra danios, and 2 apple snails. Yesterday I also added low tech plants to the aquarium and decreased the temp to 24 celsius.
Is my tank overpopulated?? And is 20-30% water change weekly enough?
Thanks in advance
I have a 300L/H and a 400L/H powerhead filters and a sponge filter
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Mechanical filtration is definitely more than enough. Please note that some of your fishes are not the strongest swimmers and if the water flow is too strong, your fishes will get very exhausted and stressed.
You biological filtration (your beneficial bacteria) may not be enough to handle so many fishes at once! It is usually recommended that you add a few fishes into your aquarium every couple of days/weeks till you reached your desired amount of fishes. In this way, your beneficial bacteria will propagate enough to support your fishes. I will actually do it daily 30% in your situation. If your fishes look alright then i guess u could do weekly? It will be best if you check your water with freshwater test kit if possible.
There is a saying, "around 1 gallon per inch of fish" , so i guess it's a bit overpopulated. What genders are your livebearer fishes? If there is pair of male and female, they will give birth to many many fry. If the fry didn't get eaten, your tank will definitely be overpopulated.
What type of plants you have? Plant does help with overstock problems.
In terms of overpopulation, feeding regime is also very important, more food means more waste, and most times we are feeding more than what our fishes require...
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