The tank
Stock it
Nothing stocked yet. Add a species to see what collides.
Species data & sources
| Species | Adult SL | Temp °C | pH | Group size | Min length | Waste × | Source |
|---|
The load bar is a heuristic, and here is the formula.
Load points = Σ (adult SL in cm)1.5 × count × waste factor, against a
capacity of one point per 1.4 litres of stated volume. It is a rough guide to
filtration and maintenance burden, not a law. The hard checks below it — footprint,
temperature and pH overlap, group minimums, predation, nipping and the shrimp-and-snail rule — are the ones that
actually decide whether these animals can live together, so they are reported
separately and never averaged into a single score.
And three of the numbers in that formula are ours, not a source's. The exponent 1.5, the 1.4 litres-per-point capacity constant, and the per-species waste factor shown in the table above are this project's own estimates, not taken from a primary source. Most of the waste factor is a second size term: across the 37 species rows that link a source, body length alone accounts for about 62% of its variation, so the formula as a whole grows roughly with length to the power 2.1. The rest is judgement, and the largest single judgement is that shrimp and snails load a tank far less than a fish of the same length. In our own test of 6,240 two-species stockings, replacing that judgement with length alone changed the load warning on about 1 in 15. The load percentage is only as good as these numbers are. Act on the hard checks below it, not on the percentage.
And three of the numbers in that formula are ours, not a source's. The exponent 1.5, the 1.4 litres-per-point capacity constant, and the per-species waste factor shown in the table above are this project's own estimates, not taken from a primary source. Most of the waste factor is a second size term: across the 37 species rows that link a source, body length alone accounts for about 62% of its variation, so the formula as a whole grows roughly with length to the power 2.1. The rest is judgement, and the largest single judgement is that shrimp and snails load a tank far less than a fish of the same length. In our own test of 6,240 two-species stockings, replacing that judgement with length alone changed the load warning on about 1 in 15. The load percentage is only as good as these numbers are. Act on the hard checks below it, not on the percentage.