Filtration Question

Right. Whatever. My first aquarium was a ten gallon tank from walmart
that I stuck a lionhead goldfish, two black moors, and a pl*co in. I
never had any problems and I checked the water quality practically
daily. 3 goldfish does not make this tank overstocked. 6 months from
now it may be overstocked but I'd be willing to bet that after six
months he'll have either discovered he doesn't like this hobby and have
gotten rid of his fish or decide he loves the hobby and buy another
tank.

It seems like practically everyone around here is always jumping on
every new person that wanders in about how overstocked their new tank
is. Overstocked is an extremely relative term. I have a 20 gallon
aquarium with about 35 inches worth of fish in it plus clams, snails
and shrimp - it always has less than 10ppm nitrates. Is it overstocked?
No.

The only way to tell if an aquarium is overstocked is to watch the fish
and see if they are comfortable and have enough swimming room and then
test the water to make sure it's healthy. If you can't do that (which
no one here can) then you can't say if the tank is overstocked or not.
The only time we should ever accuse someone of having an overstocked
tank is when they come in here saying "I have 50 fish in my new ten
gallon tank and they keep dying...whats wrong!?!?"

-Daniel