When to stop adding fish

[andy51632]

I have got alot of ideas for fish in a recent post and will probally go with alot of small fish in my 90gal. I QT all my fish in a 29gal and only add one fish a month unless I get a small school of fish.
I have alot of lr in my tank and fuge and a great skimmer. I have not had a nitrate reading in 2 months.
What are some of the warning signs that your tank can not except much more bioload? Is it when my nitrate reading gets around 5? Anything else I can watch for?

 

[mopar9012]

I think your best bet would be to make a list of the fish you want in your tank, post it and see what others say. Of course you dont want to add them all at once.
I wouldnt really even want my nitrates to be present in my tank

 

[sietedos]

Originally Posted by mopar9012
I think your best bet would be to make a list of the fish you want in your tank, post it and see what others say. Of course you dont want to add them all at once.
I wouldnt really even want my nitrates to be present in my tank
Giving a list and letting people give opinions is subjective. Like the original poster, I'd like to see a more objective and scientific way of figuring out fish capacity. The inches/gallon ratio obviously doesn't work. Measuring nitrates may be a good way to do it, but I'm sure some of the more experienced people on here can say for sure.

 

[petjunkie]

Actually nitrates is a decent way to tell you there is too many fish for the filtration, if they stay steady and low you are probably ok, once your parameters start getting out of whack then you are overstocked. A lot of smaller fish will eat the algea and pods in the tank and don't add a lot of bioload so you can keep quite a few in a 90 with good filtration.

 

[andy51632]

It is going to be fish only but I am going to add some ornamental shrimp. I already have a skunk cleaner who I got a month ago. It is doing great.
I would want to keep my nitrates pretty low with ornamental shrimp, right? Should I quit stocking once I pick up some nitrates on my test kit?

 

[stanlalee]

dont think it has anything to do with nitrates and water quality (except for reef tanks where an excessive bioload can hender everything your trying to do). For the most part including most reef tanks with filtration, skimming and maintenence practices you can always keep way more fish than is practical or ideal. You should factor in things like species spacial needs, aggression possibilites and lastly use your eyes (assumming you have decent taste and common sense). Once you've determined the tank meets each species size requirements, you can filter it and there is no excessive aggression problems due to cramped quarters you must use common sense and sometimes learn to leave well enough alone.