How Many Endlers In A 10 Gallon Tank
Are you looking to keep endlers in a 10-gallon tank? It can be hard to work out how many endlers you can keep in a 10-gallon tank. In this article, you’ll find out how to calculate the number of endlers you can keep in a 10-gallon fish tank.
It would be recommended to keep around 6 endlers in a 10-gallon fish tank, although there are still other things to take into consideration like the setup, filtration, substrate and frequency of water changes.
Calculating The Number Of Endlers For A Fish Tank?
I use the 1 inch of fish per 1 gallon of water rule to determine the maximum number of endlers per aquarium. So, if you have a 10-gallon fish tank, the water volume won’t be 10 gallons. You also need to take into consideration the gravel, the internal or sponge filter, the decoration or live plants, and the heater. After taking all the tank additions into consideration, your tank will hold around 7-8 gallons of water.
An adult female endler can reach up to 1.8 inches, male endlers are normally smaller. So with 10 gallons of water, you could place roughly 6 adult endlers (10 gallons / 1.8 inches = 5.55). It wouldn’t be recommended to add any more than 8 endlers in a 10 gallons aquarium if you’re just starting out. It’s always better to start your tank with less fish, establishing your aquarium first. That way you can learn how to care for your endless.
Is It Possible To Add More Endlers In A 10 Gallon Tank?
If want to keep more endlers in a 10-gallon fish tank, you are probably wondering how to get around the general rule of thumb: 1 inch of fish per gallon of water.
There’re a few things you can do:
- Get a better internal filter or maybe an external filter
- Add good biofilter media to your filter
- Add fast-growing live plants to your tank
- Use special substrate, rather than normal gravel
- Reduce feeding to minimal (once every other day)
- Do weekly 30-50% water changes
Use An Internal Or External Filter
Most fish tank kits come with an internal filter. Although these filters are sized perfectly for a 10-gallon fish tank, they aren’t meant to run an overstocked aquarium.
To increase the fish capacity of your fish tank, you can get a bigger internal filter, which has better performance, a higher flow rate, etc.
An external canister filter or a hang-on-back filter would be even better to buy. That way you can increase the water volume in your fish tank as the filter won’t take up as much space. The benefit of an external filter is that it holds a certain amount of water, so you can increase the water volume this way.
Get a filter, which is oversized for a 10-gallon fish tank
If your tank’s lid can’t be removed or replaced, you might consider an external canister filter. For a 10 gallon, over-stocked endler fish tank consider using a product like the SunSun HW-603B filter. This is a very quiet and efficient external canister filter. It consumes only 6W and has a flow rate of around 100 GPH (400L/hr).
Using A Good Filter Media
The performance of the filter is only one thing to take into consideration, you also need to add good filter media. In an overstocked fish tank, a sponge filter media will not cut it. You need the real stuff.
Along with using a sponge filter, you’ll need to use biological filter media as well. The sponge filter will catch the heavy dirt, while the biological filter media will provide extreme surface area for the beneficial bacteria to decompose the harmful toxins such as ammonia and nitrite.
Using Live Plants
Besides the fact that live plants are very pleasing on the eye, they can also help a lot for improving the quality of the water.
live plants are great as they’ll consume the toxins produced by fish waste and will use it for growing. Plants that grow faster will extract more nutrients from the water column. It’s rerecommended to use one or more of the following plants in your endler fish tank:
- Java ferns
- Hornworts
- Watersprite
- Wisteria
- Amazon sword
- American waterweed (Elodea)
You can also add flowing plants such as:
- Duckweed
- Amazon frogbit
- Giant duckweed
- Water lettuce
Live plants will also help with reducing or eliminating algae growth in your endler tank.
It’s important to remember, that live plants need light. So, if you add live plants to your tank, make sure that the lights are on at least 6-8 hours a day. If they don’t get enough light, the live plants will slowly die off and will pollute the water.
Time-to-time you may also want to help your live plants with some nutrients. So, you can add aquarium plant fertilizer to your endler tank. Although it’s not a must, it helps to keep live plants healthy.
Using Special Substrate
Gravel is the most commonly used substrate for fish tanks. Not only is it cheaper, but it also looks good and is easy to clean. The downside to using gravel is that it only takes up space and won’t help your fish tank in regards to self-cleaning.
There’re various substrates that you can use to replace normal gravel. Some of these substrates such as the Seachem Flourite helps develop more nitrifying bacteria, which will break down fish waste.
If you don’t want to invest in a special substrate, you’ll need to vacuum the gravel every time you do a water change. You can use an aquarium gravel vacuum for doing this.
Reducing Fish Feeding
Endlers are always hungry and would eat all day long, given the chance. Overfeeding is one of the main problems when it comes to bad water quality.
Adult endlers don’t need much food, so feeding them every other day will keep them healthy and won’t result in huge water pollution.
When feeding your endlers only add a small pinch of food at once. Wait until the endlers eat all the food you gave them. Repeat the process until you think your fish have eaten enough.
Performing Regular Tank Maintenance & Water Changes
An overstocked fish tank needs more attention and care. As the waste will accumulate much faster, you’ll need to do water changes more often.
If you have a good filter and good filter media, you will be fine with doing one weekly water change. It’s recommended to do a 30-50% weekly water changes on your overstocked endler aquarium, in order to avoid any disaster.
You should clean the filter media in your fish tank water every other week. Don’t use tap water to wash your filter media, as chlorine will kill all the good bacteria.
Conclusion
I hope, that this guide has helped you not only in figuring out how many endlers you can place in a 10-gallon aquarium but also on how to make your fish tank better.
