# 36 gallon stocking



## crzyboicris (May 7, 2009)

so i have a 36 gallon bow front tank and here is my current stocking 
1 creamsicle lyretail male molly
4 dalmation female mollies 
1 male swordtail 
2 female swordtails 
2 male fancy guppies 
4 female fancy guppies 
1 hifin male platy 
2 female platies 
4 neon tetras 
4 albino cories
1 com. pleco 
1 dwarf frog
and a bunch of fry!
what do you guys think? should i add or take away anything ?


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## Buggy (Oct 17, 2006)

You think you have "a bunch of fry" now? With 12 female livebearers in there, "a bunch" is puting it mildly. LOL

Each of the female mollies and platys (the swordtails are platies too) have the potential to throw 10-30 babies EVERY MONTH and the guppies...well we all know how they reproduce. lol

The neons need a larger school to thrive....6-10 ideally. And the common pleco is not a good idea for a tank that size. He can get up to 20" easy and do it quite quickly. He is also going to be a major mess factory.

So, my opinion (and mind you that is all it is) would be: return the pleco and the dwarf frog. Get 2 more albino cories and 4 more neon tetras. 
With that you will be pushing the max on stocking limits but as long as you keep up the partial w/c's and watch for spikes in ammonia you should be able to pull it off.

If you get too many fry going in there, you will want to set up a grow out tank to put them in until you can find something to do with them. With that heavy stocking load, it won't take long for the fry to overwhelm your bio load and cause major problems.


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## crzyboicris (May 7, 2009)

petsmart wont take the pleco back i didnt realize how big they got until i had already got one. he has already grown 1-2" since i have had him . Does any one know where i can trade him in ? hes only about 5" now. I would also welcome a suggestion for a smaller"sucker fish".


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## OneFishTwoFish (Apr 16, 2009)

Try looking on Craigslist for your area to rehome him. Also, look into a Rubberlip pleco, they tend to be on the smaller side of plecos.


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## 207lauras (Jan 28, 2009)

I bought 3 L144's for my 40 gallon (after trading in my common pleco in at almost 7 inches, I bought him at 2!) They are an albino blue eyed bristle nose pleco and they dont get bigger than 4 inches. Bonus, even though they poo a lot, it is not the nasty stringy stuff that the common plecos leave all over the tank!


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## ronnfive (Sep 19, 2005)

I agree with buggy with most of his comments, though kinda not agree with the "swordtails are platies too". 

This is kinda Off topic but I would like to elaborate it so that reader's and new comers wont be confused...

Swordtails and Platies are two different species... Male swordtails are known for its elongated sword-like tail, thus they got their name. Male platies are typically smaller than of female platies. Male platies don't have swords and more shorter and thinner than male Swordtail. They are both "Xiphophorus" thus they do cross breed a lot. The genus for Swordtail is _Xiphophorus helleri_ while the Platy is _Xiphophorus maculatus_. Try to check my thread for more of their difference... http://www.fishforums.com/forum/livebearers/5316-how-identify-male-female.html

On to Topic.

Yes, with 12 females you can easily overrun with babies. Monthly they drop with at the least of 20 frys depending on their size. IME, some of my regular female mollies drop 80 or over 100 frys providing good food and good water condition. Guppies are known by name million fish, their gestation period is only 28 days, they produce faster than the rest of common livebearing fishes.

I would suggest same as buggy... return the frog and common pleco, add 2 corys + 4 neons. You will be adding 1 angelfish *OR* 1 dwarf gourami for fry control. Return 2 female dalmatian mollys, as to make them 1M is to 2F. Add 1 BN (Bristlenose Pleco) they stay small mine hardly get 4 inches.

Hope this helped,
Ronn


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Veering off topic again, many platy species do indeed have swords. heh,heh.
Sorry; couldn't resist. No need to argue about it. _X maculatus_ does not have a sword.

Anyway, as for this tank.. hooboy.. what a disaster in the making. Crzyboi, you might want to start shopping around for some more tanks and places to put them, because you are going to be up to your eyeballs in fish very soon. If you get lazy and decide to just leave the fry in this main tank, your tank will crash within a few months. There are plenty of things you can do with fry, though, so don't despair.
I myself have a tank with way too many mollies in it. I got some wild ones of a rare species that apparently breeds much faster than the domesticated ones we typically see. Soon I'll have to either put them outside in pools or start sending them to people in the mail. You should be able to at least turn some in to local petshops for credit.


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