How many fish is too many for a 285L tank?

[vapo]

We have :

10 neons,

4 gourami (opaline, pearl, blue and a gold),

2 plecos (4" each at the moment),

and 4 clown loaches,

all in a 4' tank with approx 285litres.

Tank has been up and running for 12 days and the fish were placed in there with along with five young plants (an Amazon Sword and four others), in the past week. Will I have an ammonia spike? All tests have been done daily for the first week then every 2nd day and everything seems to be okay so far. We have only done one 20% water change on Monday. Does this sound OK?

BTW also setting up a 40L quarantine tank for future use.

Cheers.

[Caryl]

I would expect a spike as that is a lot of fish to add at once. Keep testing as the next few days will be critical. The water change will have helped. What sort of filtration are you running?

That is a lot of bottom dwellers too as all of them grow very large (but slowly). Be prepared to have the landscape uprooted repeatedly as those plecs grow.

[vapo]

Hi Caryl, I added these fish over the last 9 days (they are all very small and our tank still looks empty, but we're gonna stick to this amount of fish unless we get another full-time tank). The first day we added ten neons and a pleco. 3 days later another pleco, 2 days after that, two loaches and two gourami, 2 days after that two more gourami, and then the last two loaches yesterday.

We only had the tank cycling for about 3 1/2 days before hand, but the gravel and filter media came from an up and running, healthy tank, so thought we would risk it. Water has been fine so far. Got our fingers crossed.

My filter is a 1200L/hr power head with the filtration in three 30cm x 25cm boxes with noodles in two and activated carbon in the other. These filter boxes are all in the hood and have sponges(?black coarse stuff one side and white spongy stuff on the other), over the top of each.

Also we're planning to get another tank in a year or two to house one of the plecos and the loaches? If we can set up one that is compatible to both. Will the plecos grow too quickly for that? Also the substrate is quite coarse, the clown loaches can only just move it around, though they're only 2-3 inches long at the mo'.

I'll try and post a pic.

[vapo]

Second day after receiving tank.

First fish added (neons and a pleco).

Yesterday. Last fish added (two clown loaches).

Must take the anemone out as it doesn't fit the theme. It was a gift, so I'll probably put it in my hospital tank.

[Caryl]

Using media etc from an established tank, plus adding the fish over that time rather than all at once (as I thought you meant), makes a big difference so you probably won't get a spike at all.

You can easily wait a year or 2 for the other tank as plecs don't grow that quickly and clowns grow even more slowly.

You're doing well! :lol:

[vapo]

Thanks very much thats a relief, last thing we wanted was to kill all our fish. I will be testing the water every day now for the next couple of weeks, thanks for the advice.

[Caper]

vapo...very nice tank