can i keep in my 5 gallon tank?
NONE OF THEM DIE EITHER HE HAS HAD THAT MANY EVERY DAY I GO IN LIKE 3 TIMES A WEEK!
and they dont look over crowded and very happy :)!
2007-05-30 14:19:24 · 6 answers · asked by ryanderhino 1 in Pets ➔ Fish
It is a matter of keeping PERFECT water quality. You must be extremely careful to do plenty of water changes and over filter the tank. Even then such a set up is a ticking time bomb and usually will crash eventually.
IF you keep excellent filtration and and extremely careful to do superior water changes and very careful feedings you could keep 12 or so in a 5 gallon for quite some time. But again, eventually something will happen and the tank will crash.
I once kept 1500 neons in a 55 gallon tank for 3 months without losing a single fish, but I don't encourage anyone to do that, I put about $3000 into the filter and built some of it myself to save money.
MM
2007-05-30 14:46:25 · answer #1 · answered by magicman116 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Ryan, what you need to consider is this person is very liable to be selling these and just refilling them as they may be breeding. There's lots of reasons why this could happen, but I don't think you are going to find anyone here that will advocate to you to overcrowd or overstock a home tank. Consider that at home, you are not going to have fish going in and out of your house unless you plan on making your home tank a business. Those cannot be the same fish you see when you go in every time. If this person was not selling them, he wouldn't take the time to stock them.
To be honest, it's just not a good situation to even be in where you have an over crowded tank. All it's going to take is one disease to get in there and bang there they all go. If you had a tank that wasn't heavily populated, you have a greater chance of spotting it and treating it before it wiped out your entire stock. In a five gallon tank you might get away with 3-5 but you wouldn't be able to add much more then that. Tanks under 10 gallons I personally feel should be reserved for Betta housing. I think it's great you want to get a nice sized population, but please consider the potential health issues here. Also remember something as well, people on here are going to give you advice based on our experiences, taking advice from your local fish selling is going to be influence somewhat because he needs to make a profit. We have nothing to gain here by advising you on your stocking.
JV
2007-05-30 14:42:39 · answer #2 · answered by I am Legend 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
In a 20 long, you could support about 24" of fish. In a 20 high, about 20" of fish. 50 cardinals is way over stocked, that's about 75" of fish!
In a 5, you better keep 5, so they can school, but 5 would be overstocked due to poor surface area and low volume.
2007-05-30 14:24:59 · answer #3 · answered by Democrat with 5 Guns 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You have to keep in mind that if he can clean the 20 gallon, it is still much larger, so each individual fish has a full 20 gallons to swim in. At five gallons, you can't do much. I don't know why you don't just go larger. You can cramp a bunch of fish into such a small tank, but it's hardly nice.
2007-05-30 19:45:04 · answer #4 · answered by boncarles 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
3! 5 would be to many!
2007-05-30 14:29:25 · answer #5 · answered by jra60411 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
They grow to about 1.25". You could keep 5 of them with a decent filter and heater. This would provide you with a good school and their true behavior would come out :)
2007-05-30 14:29:08 · answer #6 · answered by Barb R 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋