yhbae

I just checked 4 sites and they say minimum required was: 36x12 36x12 24x12 30x12 !!! That just goes to show how inconsistent profile sites are....

AqAdvisor.com currently uses 4 inch size. Is this too small?

Confused... What do you mean??

In what aspect didn't you agree on? Zebra loach is currently marked as 3 inches so it is close to your figure. I did mark the minimum tank size as 30x12 inches which might be a bit generous. I guess your tank's footprint is a bit smaller than this? Those make sense. I'll add them to the wishlist. Thanks!

LOL yeah no kidding... And I am only half way done!

What's new for 2010 01 07 build: - Added White Cichlid (Vieja argentea). - Added Vieja fenestrata. - Added Tailbar Cichlid (Vieja hartwegi). - Added Black Belt Cichlid (Vieja maculicauda). - Added Redhead Cichlid (Vieja synspila). - Added West African Bichir (Polypterus retropinnis). - Added Polypterus mokelembembe. - Added Polypterus teugelsi. - Added Saddled Bichir (Polypterus endlicheri endlicheri). - Added Congo Bichir (Polypterus endlicheri congicus). - Added Guinean Bichir (Polypterus ansorgii). - Added Ropefish as an alias to Reedfish. - Added Leopoldi Stingray (Potamotrygon leopoldi). - Added Flower Stingray (Potamotrygon schroederi). - Added Motoro Stingray (Potamotrygon motoro). - Added Common Stringray (Potamotrygon laticeps) - requester please confirm if this is the right species for a "common" ray. - Added Thinbar Datnoid. - Added Florida Gar. - Added Shortnose Gar. - Added Longnose Gar. - Added Aligator Gar. - Added Cuban Gar. - Added Tropical Gar. - Added Lima Shovelnose Catfish. - Added Cherry Red Cichlid as an alias to Maylandia estherae. - Added Half Banded/Half Barred/Zig Zag Spiny Eel. - Added Tiger Shovelnose Catfish. - Added Domino Syno/Synodontis notatus/Synodontis notata. - Added Redbreast Sunfish (Lepomis auritus). - Added Green Sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus). - Added Pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus). - Added Warmouth (Lepomis gulosus). - Added Orangespotted Sunfish (Lepomis humilis). - Added Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus). - Added Redear Sunfish (Lepomis microlophus). - Added Spotfin Goby Cichlid (Tanganicodus irsacae). - Added Tandanus Catfish. - Added Polkadotted/Angelicus/Marble Loach (Botia kubotai). - Added Copper Harlequin as an alias to Swift Rasbora. - Added Maingano Mbuna (Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos). - Added Redline Shark/Redline Barb as alias to Denisoni Barb. - Added Glowlight Danio (Danio choprai). - Added Blind Cave Tetra (Astyanax jordani). - Added Peacock Bass Monoculus. - Added Peacock Bass Orinocensis. - Added Peacock Bass Temensis. - Added Peacock Bass Temensis. - Added Peacock Bass Ocellaris. - Added Pike Cichlid (Crenicichla sp. Xingu). - Increased bioload of Hypselecara temporalis. - Updated Blue Gourami to be more friendly with smaller species. Minimum tank footprint has been adjusted to 30x12. - Reduced size of Silver Dollar to 6 inches. Also minimum tank size has been reduced to 48x12. - Renamed scientific name of Silver Dollar to Metynnis argenteus. - Added a note to female betta - "can still become aggressive even if she doesn't show aggression right away. Not recommended to be mixed with peaceful community species.". Male betta already shows warning if more than 1 are selected. - Aggression for Severum has been reduced. It should be more peaceful towards less aggressive species. - Aggression for Blue Acara has been reduced. It should be more peaceful towards less aggressive species. - Added some notes to Black Knife Ghost Fish. - Added some notes to Clown Loach. - Updated scientific name of Cobalt Blue Zebra to Metriaclima callainos. - Updated bioload for Cobalt Blue Zabra. Also updated water requirements. - Reduced bioload for Tropheus Duboisi slightly. Minimum number has been raised to 12. - Reduced size of Tropheus Moorii to 5 inches. Also reduced bioload slightly. Minimum number has been raised to 12. - Added Lifeguard Aquatics Bed Filter series filters. - Added 45g tank. - Fixed a bug: If you select a filter in Gallon mode and flip to Litre mode then do other operations, filtration capacities were incorectly displayed. This has been fixed. - Fixed a bug: Exception list handling code contained a bug that caused AqAdvisor.com to report potential interbreeding possibilities when drwarf puffer & shrimps are selected. Fixed! - Total number of filters in DB has been increased to 190. - Total number of tanks in DB has been increased to 61. - Total number of species in DB has been increased to 528. I am still way behind going through the wishlist for the application. Still, please let me know if you have more suggestions - those are always welcome! To access the application, please click on AqAdvisor link.

I agree with you whole heatedly. Thanks.

This suggestion is already in my wishlist. This one will take a bit more effort but it certainly is feasible.

Ouch. yes, 250,000 and going up... And I agree...

Yeah I think I am pretty comfortable with stocking and filtration for more common species now. Still looking for more feedback on rarer species which understandably does not get as much feedback. I think I will continue with the current approach of being cautious with warnings and notes. If they don't end up hitting these problems then good for them, but the goal is to let users know there could potentially be problems.

Thanks.

I agree there are many variables. That's why approaching this "problem" using general formula will not work. You can think of this app as a code that looks up a database of a huge matrix. Say if I have 500 species in DB, I am maintaining 500x500 matrix (that's 25000 different cells!) where each cell holds reasons why those two species may or may not get along. And this can be any reason since I can manually state them. In reality, it is not possible to manually go and update each cell because there are too many, hence I created many general rules, but also have things like grouping, good exception rules, bad exception rules, etc to help me fill this matrix more sensibly. In other words, if someone points out that these two species won't get along, then whatever the reason is, I can program it and show valid reasons. Same goes the other way, two species may defy common sense and manage to get along. I can code that into DB as well. And it is relatively simple to do this. The app is not fully mature so it still requires me to update PHP code. But at some point, fine tuning of individual species behaviour will be a matter of updating DB content without needing to update PHP code. Hopefully with another year or so of effort into this app, I am hoping it will start to show some maturity.

100% agreed, and I also added this suggestion on the same screen. I do see people doing brain storming on possibilities but they do tend to post their stock ideas on the net. At times, they do turn out wrong, in which case, I also catch them and fix them.

Yeah I knew what I was getting myself into. And when I started this project, pretty much everyone around me was saying this is not feasible. But I went ahead anyways, knowing that this is still a finite problem. Here I am, about 1 year later, and I can still see I am a long way to go... lol.

Ouch... No wonder you got that kind of stocking level...

Ok, so your fishes are babies. The app doesn't account for sizes as the above post has pointed out. This may come out eventually as a new feature. If all of your fishes in the tank is fully grown up, would you say that stocking level is reasonable? How many of BN and guppies do you currently have in that tank? And also tank dimension? Thanks.

Oh I don't drink beer either (same reason as yours) so we can settle for another drink! I am few km away from you though, so that could be a problem... This has been brought up before and it is on my wishlist. Just that it is looong way down on my wishlist. Hmm this is going to be tougher. I'm not sure I am going to ask each user what type of food they feed and how often. May be how often is feasible. Different species have different eating requirements. Perhaps I can assume the users got this "right"? Currently, AqAdvisor.com does feature what I call "bioload factor" where I can individually tune each species bioloads. This has been brought up as well but again, I'm not sure how to implement it. I am assuming they will use whatever media that was packaged with the product. I do know what you mean though - I did research this topic a while back with a great deal of interest. I even thought about letting users select the type of media but I figured that path is kinda hopeless with so many different materials you can use in your filter if you go DIY. Lot of people are now asking for support for sumps too which means I will need to deal with this one way or the other. I am open to suggestions. Yup that is the idea. I will still need to know what would be the bioload for the younger ones though. I have a feeling that since younger ones are more active, 4cm young species will command more bioload than a 4cm fully grown up species if everything else being equal. This is now one of the most common request. I am a believer that plants do help in the tanks. The problem is that depending on who you talk to, you get two different answers. As an example, plants do absorb nitrates (I have a tank with zero nitrates because of plants), but some say plants don't absorb all toxins produced by fishes. Hence although they do remove some harmful chemicals, not all of them. Would this be true? Yeah, and I expect this to go on for a while.... Thanks for your feedback!

I think if you know what you are doing, you can go very far away from the common advices and create very interesting but feasible mixes. Even right now I have a tank that I kept for 2 years that would be a disaster for this tool but I would not recommend this setup to any beginners...

What species do you have, and how many of each? What are the dimensions of your tank? This could be just a case of one or two species affecting the result. Also keep in mind that this tool tends to be a bit on the conservative side to be safe for novice users too...

You can click on "Add a filter" to add more filters. In theory, you can have unlimited number of filters.

That's true. But since everyone has different amount of them, I'm not sure what is the best way to handle this.

Actually it does assume it is filled to the brim just to make the calculation simpler. If you really want to take that into account, you can make your height of the tank a bit lower to match your water level.

Thanks. Are you the one who requested for Thinbar Datnoid? I just added it to my dev server earlier today, so it should show up on the next release. I am so behind in terms of adding new species and adding/updating features. Users are very demanding! But I am dealing with a finite quantity here, so it will eventually end...

I'll add your filter in the wishlist. Even if you don't select the filters, it will still report the stocking level since this is independent from the filtration capacity. I'm pretty sure pearl gourami is on the list.

I did look at some of those all-in-one setup and hit into a problem. Not really related to all-in-one issue but in general, all tanks marked in litres appear to over-quote their volume by a good margin. I could not figure out the actual dimension of the tank and often, if you use their dimension, the volume comes out 15-20% lower than the manufacturer quoted numbers. If I knew what numbers to use, I'm sure I can find a way to implement it. I too had an overstocked tank and kept them healthy for years. My bristlenose plecos even bread in that tank. Lots of water changes but it certainly is feasible.