CPDs and Microdevarios in planted Fluval Edge

[plantednano]

I have a planted Fluval Edge with some drift wood, a few Red Cherry Shrimp and a wild snail that appeared one day. I added 5 CPDs a few days ago and they did their characteristic hide-in-the-greenery thing. For such a small tank, somehow they pretty much disappeared whenever I entered the room. Yesterday I added 5 tiny microdevario kubotai. I know this is getting to the upper limit of stocking a 6-gallon tank, but so far so good with ammonia and nitrite levels (after feeding them a couple of times).

The CPDs suddenly came to life when I added the much less shy microdevario kubotai – they’re out of the vegetation and scooting about, even though the tiny microdevarios spend quite a lot of time chasing them. I’m feeding them all Hikari micro pellets. Any advice for keeping my little tank happy and balanced? Are the Hikari micro pellets enough, or should I be feeding them other things as well?

All advice greatly appreciated! Picture attached.
[attachment=0:jtasid5j]tankready.jpg[/attachment:jtasid5j]

[BallAquatics]

Hi plantednano, welcome to the forum! Very nice looking tank you have there. I would keep a close eye on the water parameters since you have added 10 new fish in just the last several days. Your bio-filtration my not be able to keep up with the load initially.

Dennis

[plantednano]

Thanks Dennis,

Yeah – I was worried about getting a bit of an ammonia/nitrite spike, so I’ll continue to test every day for a while. I’ve just found out that my additional fish are not microdevario kubotai at all, but Sundadanio Axelroti ‘blue’. I was thinking of seeing how the tank settles and adding another couple of these (bring it up to 7 or 8 Sundadanio Axelroti).

Do you think this will overload the system? Total of 7 or 8 Sundadanios, 5 CPDs and 3 Red Chilli Shrimps.

All tiny fish, but it’s only a 6 gallon fluval edge. I’ve been given conflicting advice. Some people say that the tiny fish don’t produce as much waste per cm of fish as the larger fish, and so the ‘3 litres of water per cm of fish’ rule doesn’t really apply. Others say that 5 CPDs for a 6-gallon tank is max, but they are completely dwarfed in there and the tank honestly looked unoccupied.

I guess time will tell, but I don’t want to lose my beautiful new fish!

[BallAquatics]

@plantednano wrote:

Do you think this will overload the system? Total of 7 or 8 Sundadanios, 5 CPDs and 3 Red Chilli Shrimps.

Honestly, I don’t subscribe to the 1 inch per gallon or 3 liters per cm of fish rules. Monitor your water and simply adjust your water changes accordingly. Your live plants will help to keep the water clean too.

Dennis

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