# If you know a good bit about aquarium stocking...



## cucci67 (Aug 3, 2005)

I am making a computer program (for my programming class) that will calculate the number of inches of specific fish and calculate it to tell you if your tank is sufficient for it. I could just fake it, but I would rather it be somewhat accurate. Bear with me here, this is the first version, and it will be a pretty simple program, the next version is where I will bring out the big guns. 

So there are 16 categories that your fish can fit into, you will type the number of inches for that fish into the appropriate text box. Then the program will multiply those inches by a number depending on that species of fish to tell how many gallons is needed per inch of that fish.

So, I would rather someone with more experience tell me how many gallons of water per inch of a group of fish. Here is an example: Tetra = 1, that would be saying that tetras, in general need one gallon per inch of fish (just an example).

Here are the categories:

African Cichlids
American Cichlids
Angelfish
Barbs
Cories
Danios
Discus
Goldfish
Gouramis
Larger Catfish
Livebearers
Loaches
Plecos
Sharks
(Other) Suckermouth catfish
Tetras 

If someone could kindly fill in these 16 categories I would greatly appriciate it. If and when I do the next program, it will take much longer, and there will be many more categories.


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## CyberSpike (Mar 25, 2006)

A little off-topic, but what programming language are you using?


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## cucci67 (Aug 3, 2005)

Visual basic. It's for extra credit, you have to make a program and it has some guidelines, which I have adapted this program around so it meets all requirements. Then you get more extra credit if you can make a 2nd version of the program with an entirely new interface. So I decided to go pretty simple on the first version, then really go all out on the 2nd, might take me a little while on the 2nd one, should only take a day to write this one.

I could use my own knowledge for the calculations, but like I said before, I would rather it be accurate just because it would be a neat thing to own. I will take a screenshow of the form and post it up here.


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## cucci67 (Aug 3, 2005)

Here is a screenshot of the form. As you can see, very simple design. I just need someone to fill in the inches per gallon for each fish.


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## msdolittle (Mar 4, 2006)

No clue but...............that is a really cool idea!!!!


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Good idea, but do rams and Oscars have the same gallons per inch requirement? You could try .2"/gallon for american cichlids. That way you could have 2 1" rams in a 10 or 2 10" oscars in a 100 gallon.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Maybe .5"/gallon for african cichlids, we tend to pack them denser to spread out the agression, but then we use double or triple the recommended filtration.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

GALLONS PER INCH:

African Cichlids- .75 (cramped) 1.5 (normal)
American Cichlids- 2.5
Angelfish- 2
Barbs- 1.5
Cories- 1
Danios- .75
Discus- 3
Goldfish-3
Gouramis- 1.25
Larger Catfish- 2.5
Livebearers- 1
Loaches- 1
Plecos- 1.5
Sharks- 1.75
(Other) Suckermouth catfish- 1.25
Tetras- 1

Of course, there is a lot of room for error within each group, since for example pacus are tetras, but this should work fairly well enough for a 1.0 version of your program.


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## cucci67 (Aug 3, 2005)

Ok, here is the first verion of the program. Very simple, and general. The next version will be much more in depth.

Thank you, TOS for the numbers.

Download it and try it out, let me know what you think. If you can manage to make it crash, tell me what you did so I can fix the problem (didn't really spend much time on error prevention, since this is just a simple lead up to the real program).


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## Ownager2004 (Apr 4, 2005)

I couldn't get it to open. What do you use to run it?


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

do you have win zip on your computer? 

It all ran fine for me.


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## Ringo (Apr 10, 2006)

wow. if that thing is accurate, that thing is the COOLEST.

U DA MAN, you know how much $ you can make on that. wait bad idea keep it free!

what would otto algea eaters be under? sorry i need to learn to read.


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## Ringo (Apr 10, 2006)

alright i put in these fish:
1 angel fish
5 barbs (cherrys)
3 cory cats
1 gourami
1 large catfish
8 livebearers
3 suckermouth catfish (ottos)
10 tetras
and it said it will happily house the selected fish in a 38G
isnt that too much fish though for a 38G tank?


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## joe kool (Jan 24, 2005)

SpoiledFishies said:


> alright i put in these fish:
> 1 angel fish
> 5 barbs (cherrys)
> 3 cory cats
> ...


I'm sure it was basing the tank size on the "current" measurements you were putting in the program. keep in mind this will be a dynamic # as your fishes sizes increase so will your required tanks size! 

To get an accurate "required tank to house" your fish long term you need to approximate your adult full grown size of the fish you plan on having. I can have several hundred cichlid fry in my 20L fry tank but once they start reaching the 1/4" to 3/4" mark I gotta start thinning them out quick to maintain water quality for any length of time even though this tank is heavily planted and filtered for your average 20gal tank. Also remember there is a diffrence between max size in the wild and max size in a tank ... although it IS a myth that fish will only grow to the tank size they're in (ok partly myth cause they will die and there fore only grow to a certain size before prematurely dieing :shock: ) but fish do tend to have their growth stunted somewhat when growing in 20 to 2000gal (aquarium/pond) versus nature 100's of 1000's of gallons potentially and rivers you have that many gallons or more turn over per second and streams several hundreds of gallons in turnover a second, pristine conditions (again usually) which always aid in rapid healthy growth.


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## cucci67 (Aug 3, 2005)

No no no, you were putting in numbers of fish. The program takes number of inches of fish. It could only be number of fish if I were to putevery individual fish species on the form, which would be very huge. But now that I think about it, I could use combo boxes for the species. I will be sure to remeber that for the 2nd version which is already in progress.


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## Ringo (Apr 10, 2006)

ooooooooh. i need to read stuff


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## Mr Aquarium (Jan 18, 2005)

http://timstropicals.com/Compatibility/CompatibilitySearch.asp same thing pretty much


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## Epic (May 12, 2012)

It's a nice idea but, what about aqadvisor.com? that tells you what water conditions, tank size needed and what not aswell? it tells you the percentage your aquarium is stocked and if you have enough filteration? -- nice idea though, I'm not saying don't do it, it sounds like a cool idea, just wanted to make sure you knew?


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

hey epic.....did you notice that this thread is from 6 years ago.......


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