Overstocked?

My 29 Gallon is a heavily planted tank dominated with stem plants. The only plants that aren't stem plants are downoi and...2 small plants of Crypt nurii. This tank is also overfiltered with an AquaClear 50 that has a flow rate of 200 and a canister filter that has a flow rate of 264gph. I do 50-75% water changes weekly on Sundays.

What I want to stock is:

Pygmy Cory x10
Rummynose Tetra x10
Cardinal Tetra x10
German Blue Ram x2
Oto Cats x3
Amano Shrimp- x3 or 4

Im still debating weather I should get the 3 otos or just nerite snails. I read plants suck up a lot of nitrates and hopefully the overfiltration helps as well. What do you guys think? Let me know.

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Permalink Reply by Hmoobthor on November 26, 2011 at 10:34pm

a 21% overstock.

But my suggestion is that either the cardinal or rummynose will be too crowded. Rummy like open area to swim. I would go for just one species of top water dweller.

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Permalink Reply by AsianKidOnTheBlock on November 26, 2011 at 10:39pm

I don't really like using aqadvisor. Amano shrimp arent much on the bio load but on aqadvisor it takes up about 10% and I'm still kind of deciding if I want to have otos or just one nerite snail. Also, I thought that rummynoses stayed more near the bottom and the cardinals mid-water. I don't think I have any fish that are top level dwellers. I used aqadvisor once with just the corys, tetras, and rams and it said I had 108% stock level and well over 200% filtration level. And that doesnt take into account how heavily planted my tank is.

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Permalink Reply by 2apes2gp667wr on November 26, 2011 at 10:45pm

I don't think shrimp are even counted as bioload in a community tank. If you're overfiltered and do regular water changes being somewhat overstocked isn't that bad. I think one schooling fish looks better than multiples. 20 Rummys or Cardinals over 10 and 10 of each.

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Permalink Reply by AsianKidOnTheBlock on November 26, 2011 at 10:52pm

I was thinking about the 20 of either one too, but the thing is its so hard to choose which ones are better. I also agree on the shrimp bio load. I have a 5.5 gallon with RCS and theres about 75 in there now and it doesnt seem to be effecting anything.

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Permalink Reply by 2apes2gp667wr on November 26, 2011 at 10:58pm

Between those 2 I believe the rummys are the tighter schoolers and that's what is what we're looking for. I've got Harlequins and they are dynamite, but are often off in little groups of 4-5. At feeding time and when the apistos are out patroling though they school nicely. Should have thought it through though. They're usually about $3-$4 each.