interesting...

[onspeed]

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/4468/howmany.html

512 fish in a 10 gallon tank.
:) although i think he`s onto something...

Per inch of fish methodology does seem flawed...

Going by per inch (by volume or by surface area) my tank is overstocked,
even though it has been this way for a while and the fish are pefectly
healthy and the water crystal clear with no smell... In the 4 years of
having the tank i have not lost any fish, or even had any fall ill.

I reckon there are a lot of people like me who prove the so called experts
wring with our stocking habits...

[[email protected]]

there are always people who can ignore the recommendations and have no problem. but
the average newbie out there is going to lose their fish within the first 6 months or
so if they dont follow the recommendations. consider that single tail GF can live up
to 40 years, fancies live about 8 or 9 years. commons are a lot tougher than the
fancy GF.
You dont seriously think any of the experts follow these recommendations do you? Jo
Ann Burke always had more fish per tank than SHE recommended to others ... she even
had some large gravel on 1/2 the bottom of the tanks altho she recommended bare
bottom to everyone. The difference? she was checking the water all the time and the
fish were not in those crowded tanks for long.
Jo Ann came up with a "formula" for newbies to easily keep their fish alive. It was
meant for the people were buying her big expensive very high quality fancy GF.
People who kept that expensive fish alive were more likely to buy more fish. She
already had a huge customer base when she came online and the rest of us struggling
to keep fish alive were able to take advantage of that expertise and her knowledge
base.
So it really comes down to ...... give newbies and those who cant seem to keep their
fish alive an easy formula to follow so they are almost guaranteed success. Then as
they become more proficient they can start changing things.
The single greatest problem with keeping fish alive over the long term is staying on
top of the water quality with water changes. Fish get bigger, fish spawn, fish get
overfed sometimes, people get busy, people forget, etc. This is why everyone is
looking for an automatic nitrate removal system of some kind... so then water changes
wouldnt need to be so frequent nor so stringently followed. When somebody develops a
cheap, simple method that gets rid of nitrates automatically, keeping fish is going
to be soooo much easier and successful in general.
the single most important factor for keeping healthy fish is good water quality. And
the more water there is per fish means the more forgiving the system if water changes
arent done on schedule. Ingrid

"onspeed" > wrote:
>Going by per inch (by volume or by surface area) my tank is overstocked,
>even though it has been this way for a while and the fish are pefectly
>healthy and the water crystal clear with no smell... In the 4 years of
>having the tank i have not lost any fish, or even had any fall ill.
>
>I reckon there are a lot of people like me who prove the so called experts
>wring with our stocking habits...
>



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
http://puregold.aquaria.net/
www.drsolo.com
Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other
compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the
endorsements or recommendations I make.

[E.Otter]

I looked at this guy's website and although I agree having enough water per
fish for "waste dilution" and enough surface area per fish for O2 exchange
is important, those can't be the only important factors. Its my
understanding that you also need enough space per fish for them to move
around and not just because they need the exercise.

The fact that his formula calculated 512 0.5 inch fish for 10 gallons should
have rang a warning bell that something wasn't right. You can create
mathematical formulas for predicting all sorts of things, but its all just
pie-in-the-sky until you actually do some experiments to see if those
formulas work.

"onspeed" > wrote in message
...

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/4468/howmany.html

512 fish in a 10 gallon tank.
:) although i think he`s onto something...

Per inch of fish methodology does seem flawed...

Going by per inch (by volume or by surface area) my tank is overstocked,
even though it has been this way for a while and the fish are pefectly
healthy and the water crystal clear with no smell... In the 4 years of
having the tank i have not lost any fish, or even had any fall ill.

I reckon there are a lot of people like me who prove the so called experts
wring with our stocking habits...

[Donald K]

E.Otter wrote:

> The fact that his formula calculated 512 0.5 inch fish for 10 gallons
> should
> have rang a warning bell that something wasn't right. You can create
> mathematical formulas for predicting all sorts of things, but its all
> just pie-in-the-sky until you actually do some experiments to see if
> those formulas work.

My take was "gee, the guy can create a spreadsheet with formulas, but
this doesn't have doo-doo to do with reality."

My LFS probably has a couple hundred feeders in a 100 gallon tank. Do
they sort of survive? Yes. Do I expect them to thrive? No.

Um, [pulls a sort of scientific sounding theory out of a dark place...]

My theory is that the limiting factor on the size of goldfish is that
they have to be 2 orders of magnitude larger than the water molecules
so that they can swim around... Lets see 100 gallons, 400-ish liters,
1000 grams/liter.

Hey Ingrid, if you're at work you can probably see a periodic table,
what's water? 16-18 grams per mol? Let's see call it 60 mols, goldfish
need to be 100 times bigger... 0.6 mols. 1 mol = 6x10^23. So...

My prediction, backed up by a good-sounding, but BS theory, is that we
can have 3.6x10^23 goldfish in a 100 gallon tank!

Whoo Hooo!

Clearly the 10 gallon per fish, 1 inch of fish per 10 gallons and other
commonly held rules of thumb are useless. And I've "proven" it with my
math.

@@

-D
--
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy
enough people to make it worth the effort." -Herm Albright

[Iam]

> My take was "gee, the guy can create a spreadsheet with formulas, but
> this doesn't have doo-doo to do with reality."

The person you are attacking knows more about goldfish than you. He
was talking about theory based on available information.

[Donald K]

Iam wrote:

>> My take was "gee, the guy can create a spreadsheet with formulas, but
>> this doesn't have doo-doo to do with reality."
>
> The person you are attacking knows more about goldfish than you. He
> was talking about theory based on available information.

In the interest of fairness, I revisited the thread and the website.

The only "theory" put forth was that wastes are proportional to the
surface area of a fish. A hand-waving justification followed. The
author themselves called the page "speculation."

I did not see any "available information" on that page or other page it
linked to.

The page itself was a mathematical exploration of the implications of
fish wastes being proportional to length, surface area and mass. No
measurements other than a simple, numerically-generated spreadsheet
were presented.

Following the recommendation of "speculation" would say that 4 two-inch
goldfish should be fine in a ten gallon aquarium. My personal
experience says that that is a really tight fit.

While perhaps overly glib, I stand by my initial assessment. The page is
a spreadsheet with formulas. If the author wishes to tie it to reality,
measurements should be taken. Something along the line of nitrate
accumulation, conductivity or TDS (or some other metric that indicates
total system state) as a function of time and number/size/weight of
fish.

I make no comment on the author's knowledge of goldfish, just that the
sited page does not present enough evidence to tie his/her speculation
to reality.

-Donald
--
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy
enough people to make it worth the effort." -Herm Albright

[someone]

in article , Donald K at
wrote on 4/18/04 1:39 AM:

>>> My take was "gee, the guy can create a spreadsheet with formulas, but
>>> this doesn't have doo-doo to do with reality."
>>
>> The person you are attacking knows more about goldfish than you. He
>> was talking about theory based on available information.

The formulas used in aquaculture are ignored by aquarists due to the small
scale of an aquarium. However, they exist and performance can be predicted
with math or spreadsheets. I think the theory was put forward to generate
interest. It's disappointing to see the author bashed because he isn't part
of the circle here.

[Donald K]

someone wrote:

> It's disappointing to see the author bashed because he isn't part
> of the circle here.

Um, I wasn't bashing the author...

I was "bashing" the reality of a spread sheet that says that you can
have 512 0.5" goldfish in a 10 gallon tank. Particularly one that isn't
backed up by experimental data.

I have stated the reasons for my disagreement and suggestions as to how
I could be convinced otherwise.

If my comments were taken as personal attacks I apologize.

-Donald
--
"The one unforgivable sin, the offence against one's own integrity, is
to accept anything at all simply on authority." - Maureen Johnson Long