"Jim Morcombe" wrote in message
...
Dick

I have firmly reached the opinion that a stable over-stocked aquaroum
is far
better than an aquarium that has a variable level of stocking.

I think that if you slowly raise the number of fish, the tank will
slowly
grow to cope with it.

I also think that it depends on why you keep an aquarium.

If you are trying to breed something, then you need to be careful on
stocking levels.

If you want a good-looking and fun aquarium that is interesting to
watch,
then over-stocking is sometimes a good idea. It forces fish to
interact in
ways you may not see otherwise.

Jim

oooh, forcing fish interaction....controversial stuff. I'm a firm
believer in that as soon as you get the basics down, research &
experiment, with discretion.

On overstocking, I once filled a 135g with a box of Platys. These are
fish which didn't mind being a little crowded. The tank was aged, lots
of petrified wood (keeping the water a little hard just like Platys
prefer), Java ferns and I kept a bit of salt in the water. Filtration
was with two 404s, connected to UGF plates covered by river stones
(always vacuuming the bottom that way). Platys were about 1-1/2 inches
long when they went in. I lost about 4 to Ich (and they were the only
ones who ever showed any symptoms) and about a dozen to bacterial
infections they brought with them (over about 4 months, symptom was
wasting away). The rest of them were fine, excellent activity, appetite
and tons of babies. Because my change in stocking level was abrupt (I
went from zero to emptying a box of fish in there), we did do a lot of
water changes, and we were testing the water twice a day for a month.

There are 900 Platys in a box, do the math ;~) We emptied the tank when
the Platys were becoming too difficult to catch to sell (there were about
80 left).

ps: this was a commercial tank, under almost continuous observation,
don't try this at home.
NetMax