Bio load max?

[Fish Tail]

Hello,

I was just wondering if you would have some suggestions on my choice of fish for my 27 gal planted tank. If I had 2 GBRs and 6 Harlequin Rasboras and wanted some species of cory, which should I choose? I'm thinking 6 pygmy cories (which I'm still on the hunt for), but are there other choices? Or, is my bio load with 6 pygmy cories too big and go for a complete change in stocking?

Thanks,

Fish Tail :fish:

[rangur1]

your 27 gal tank minus space for plants, substrate etc, probably is closer to 23 gals when its all said and done. you have 2 rams, and 6 rasboras. this would give you about 10 gal of volumn left of capacity left. cories are heavy bodied little fish. you could possibly get 6, but your bioload is topped out. i'm also not sure if the cories would not disrupt the rams too much.

an alternative would be 6 pristella tetras, colorful, lighter bioload, and will "fill" out the tank nicely. they combine with rams perfectly. check it out.

[aspects]

"too much" bio-load is only relevent to your type/amount of filtration, and your maintenence schedule.

if you have a proper filter with a good amount of bio-media, you will be able to easily house enough beneficial bacteria to balance out the bio-load and nitrify the ammount of ammonia produced they your stock. this leaves only the nitrate issue which is easily remedied by regular water changes (as indicated by your test kit)

[Wild Turkey]

IMO thats probably fine with 6-8 of whichever species you prefer of the popular, social and peaceful corys. There are a few species that get a little big for that setup, though. Emerald green corys are one that comes to mind at 3-4", as well as some other species that are not actually peaceful, but are harder to find. You could keep more than that but you will probably end up doing more waterchanges. Footprint size comes into play with bottom feeders also.

Just a few varieties off the top of my head

Skunk
Panda
Dwarf corys (6 types)
Bronze
Peppered
Albino ( of both of the previous are available )
Leopard ( a few species get this common name but they are all fine imo)
Sterbai

[Fish Tail]

Thanks
I'll check these choices out.

[Taurus]

Hello,
I'm thinking 6 pygmy cories (which I'm still on the hunt for), but are there other choices? Or, is my bio load with 6 pygmy cories too big and go for a complete change in stocking?

Thanks,

Fish Tail :fish:

Pygmy cories would be a good choice for your tank.

[terrapin24h]

Your biofilter will scale to the amount of waste produced. In as such, "bioload" is self regulating. Having good filtration helps, doing water changes to curb nitrates, and having plants helps even more. In your situation what's more important is physical territory. Sounds like you are fine going with a bottom feeder like cories. If the GBRs get into spawn mode they might nag the cories, but most cories will just go somewhere else. I think they'd make a good addition to your tank

--chris