Can you help me please...

Question
Hi Chris,i am new to all this,i have bought a 4.6 gal tank and a stingray filter and rena 50 air pump, added nutrafin aqua plus for better water quality and added nutrafin cycle biological supplement and am now ready to purchase some coldwater fish,having sort of done my home work after buying the tank i wish i had bought a bigger one (i fist thought the tank was quite big but after reading up i have found it is quite small),could you tell me how many fish i can put in my tank 4.6gal 21 litres. Any other information that you think i may need would be greatly apreiated. Thanks. Richard

Answer
Hi Richard;

Until it gets through the break-in period you will want to add only one small fish. Danios, White Clouds, and Guppies are all suitable coldwater fish for a tank that size. Goldfish are coldwater but they can't live in anything under 10 gallons. Bettas are thought to be coldwater fish but they aren't. They are tropicals that require 76f or higher 24 hours a day.

Once it gets through the break-in, your tank could handle a total of about 5 inches of adult fish. This equals roughly one inch of fish per gallon. Even if the fish are small when you buy them, they are probably still babies. Find out how big they get as adults and calculate based on that. Here are some site links about tank populations, new tanks, etc. that may interest you;

http://www.xanga.com/Expert_Fish_Help (My own page about new tanks)

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/beginnerinfo/a/fishcalc.htm

http://www.firsttankguide.net/capacity.php

http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/fishqa/f/coldwaterfish.htm

http://www.fishprofiles.com/profiles/default.aspx?pnl=fresh

I hope all goes well!

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins