Guppy tragedy…
Hi Sam,
There is no “rule”, whether it’s 1″ per gallon or 2 gallons per fish that works… except for slim-bodied fish that stay under 3″ as full grown adults. For example, a 10″ Oscar certainly can’t be kept in 2 gallons of water, nor will 10 gallons of water be sufficient…. more like 75G for that single fish… although some people do squeeze them into 55G tanks as long as they keep up with their PWC’s and have plenty of filtration.
I have a long article on my blog where I did come up with a simple guideline for fish stocking but there are several simple scenarios that need to be looked into. There is no one-rule-fits-all.
One of the reasons that the 1″ per gallon “rule” doesn’t work is that it is only looking at fish length where larger fish and wide bodied fish have a lot more body mass than a torpedo shaped fish of the same length.
Here is some scientific based information concerning goldfish. A single 8″ goldfish is equal in body-mass to over 500 1″ baby goldfish. The reason for this is that every time a goldfish doubles it’s body length, it increases it’s body mass by eight times. So, a 2″ goldfish is equal in body mass to eight 1″ goldfish. A 4″ goldfish is equal to 64 1″ goldfish. That 8″ goldfish is equal to over 500 1″ goldfish. This is one of the reasons why a pair of fancy goldfish need at least a 55G tank and that still means lots of filtration and lots of PWC’s as the fish grow.
Lenny Vasbinder Fish Blog - http://GoldLenny.blogspot.com (Links to articles referenced above listed on the right side under Archives - Year, Month and under Labels)
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
