I have a 90 gallon lake tanginkyan community tank. Up and running 4 months with fairly good results. Have lost 4 out of 32 fish.
Parameters - 8ph 0 ammonia 0 nitrite 20ish nitrate
Filtration - big sponge filter and a fluval fx6. 8 or 9 plants attached to stone , various anubias and ferns
Hardscape - 75+lb dragon stone with lots of caves hiding spots and 1 big 20+lb piece of holey rock. Sand and 24 shells for the gold occelatus.
Current stocking is
12 adult cyprichromis utinta (had 14 2 died)
6 Juli Marlieri roughly 3 inches
6 Gold Occelatus roughly 1-1.5 inches
4 black calvus 2 are about 1.5 inches and 2 are about 2.5-3 inches . started with 6 , 2 died they never seemed to find a territory and were bullied should of pulled them out I guess but didn't. Unsure of cause of deaths. Was fairly sudden no signs of sickness. I let my nitrates get a little high somewhere between 20-40 and started doing more frequent water changes to lower them (2x a week) and this is when the deaths occurred and I later learned that younger calvus can be sensitive to water changes (heard on a podcast with a interview with owner of davesfish) .
So I'm at 28 fish. Obviously as the fish mature and hopefully pair off this will thin the numbers out.
To my question
I wanted to get others thoughts on adding some synodontis lucipinnis. Am I already to overstocked or would these work and if so how many? Research I've done seems they prefer/will be more active in bigger groups. So my thought was to get 4-6.
Thanks for any advice.
Parameters - 8ph 0 ammonia 0 nitrite 20ish nitrate
Filtration - big sponge filter and a fluval fx6. 8 or 9 plants attached to stone , various anubias and ferns
Hardscape - 75+lb dragon stone with lots of caves hiding spots and 1 big 20+lb piece of holey rock. Sand and 24 shells for the gold occelatus.
Current stocking is
12 adult cyprichromis utinta (had 14 2 died)
6 Juli Marlieri roughly 3 inches
6 Gold Occelatus roughly 1-1.5 inches
4 black calvus 2 are about 1.5 inches and 2 are about 2.5-3 inches . started with 6 , 2 died they never seemed to find a territory and were bullied should of pulled them out I guess but didn't. Unsure of cause of deaths. Was fairly sudden no signs of sickness. I let my nitrates get a little high somewhere between 20-40 and started doing more frequent water changes to lower them (2x a week) and this is when the deaths occurred and I later learned that younger calvus can be sensitive to water changes (heard on a podcast with a interview with owner of davesfish) .
So I'm at 28 fish. Obviously as the fish mature and hopefully pair off this will thin the numbers out.
To my question
I wanted to get others thoughts on adding some synodontis lucipinnis. Am I already to overstocked or would these work and if so how many? Research I've done seems they prefer/will be more active in bigger groups. So my thought was to get 4-6.
Thanks for any advice.