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What you should know when adding fish to your tank?

It’s easy for the beginner to feel bewildered by the kaleidoscope of offerings at any fish shop. At the spur of the moment, it’s pretty hard not to point at the prettiest fish and buy dozens of them for your new tank.

But stop for a moment. Overcrowding your tank could mean the death sentence for your fish.

What Else Could Happen If You Overcrowd Your Fish Tank?

Too many fish translates into oxygen starvation for the entire aquarium community as the fish compete for limited air. They will also produce too much carbon dioxide in the water. Waste such as ammonia and nitrated build up, turning the environment poisonous.
What You Should Do When Adding Fish To Your Tank

Before adding fish to your tank, consider these pointers:

Start with Hardy: Beginners should start out with a few hard specimens. Favorites like guppies and tetras are colorful additions that require little care. And you can buy them cheap. Sucker fish are interesting to look at, and help keep the tank clean at the same time.

Number of Fish: Limit the number of fish, especially if your tank is new, and if the plants, animals, and bacteria have not had time to establish a proper cycle.

Add fish slowly and gradually. Safely bringing your tank’s population up to the maximum can take more than six months.

The rule of thumb is to have 1cm of fish per liter of water. But this doesn’t mean that a 100-liter aquarium can house a hundred small fish. It’ll be just about right for 20 fish about 5cm long each. Also, don’t forget that your fish will grow, so 5cm should be the adult size of the fish.

Tank Size: The best-sized tank holds about 80 to 100 liters (about 75cm x 32cm x 35cm) of water. Try to avoid small tanks, especially those that hold less than 40 liters of water. It’s difficult to keep fish healthy in them.

A tank capacity of between 40 to 100 liters (10 to 26 gallon) is large enough for keeping a variety of different fish.

If you don’t know the volume of your tank, here’s an article on how to measure the volume of your aquarium.

Tank Shape: The shape of the aquarium also makes a big difference to your fish. I have written on this topic in length here, and to sum it up in one sentence: Tanks with narrow surface areas should hold fewer fish as there is less room for oxygen.

Schooling Fish: Many species of fish live in schools. Neon tetras, rainbow fish, and clown barbs, for example, feel happiest living in groups. They not only look great together, they also survive better as that’s how they live in the wild. Keep about eight of each variety in the tank.

Some fish simply don’t get along. They are hunters, or get territorial, eating, biting, chasing or harassing others until they die of stress. Catfish, for example, will eat fish less than half their size.