"clean" Fish

[katykaye]

Hiya All

A freind of mine has just bought a Juwel Rekord 125 to put in the lounge of the nursing home where she works.

I am going to set it all up for them tomorrow so have a few weeks before fish are added.

Although initially I will be going over as often as I can in order to make sure its all ok, I wont be doing so for ever and because of this I want to stock it for them with fish that are as "clean" as possible - so if the time between water changes is a bit erratic it wont immediately cause a problem for them or the fish.

So ideas for an "easy to maintain" tank would be most welcome please. The only requirements for the fish are that they are as colourful as possible so the elderly residents can see them well.

Thanks in advance

Kaye

 

[JenCliBee]

i'd probably stick 2 the comman 1's neons ,platy's , swords etc...
i would say as there pretty small in gerneral they would probably be the cleanest 2 a certain degree.



jen

 

[rabbut]

Go with smaller fish like tetras and platties, that stay small (under 3 inches) are low waste and that are active and colourful. Try to keep stocking low and pack it with plants to reduce mineral and waste build-up in the water column. This will keep the water quality up longer, mebe even as long as 2months if you stock at 3/4 of an inch per gallon with 75% of the substrate covered with plants.
To reduce filter maintanance, mebe see if you can get them to purchase an exturnal. With light stocking, it may only need attention once every year or so Monthly waterchanges of arround 40% should let the system run without further work. Also get them to feed little arround a flake to every 5 tetras, daily, to stop waste building up. This is plenty for the fish, but not enough to polute the water quickly.
Low maintnance systems will often be a little more costly to set-up, but when done right, they can be kept stable for long periods without work. I'd only attempt it with an experienced aquarist at the driving wheel though. You will need to breath down their necks for a few months to ensure they can spot any issues and know how to rectif them I used to run a system that got a 50% waterchange every 2 months, that ran for arround 5 years without issues. I then moved on to fish that are higher maintanance. Most cichlids are high waste producers, so stear clear of them.

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Colin_T]

is it 125litres or 125gallons?
you could put rainbowfish in there. They get to about 4 inches and are brightly coloured, thus making them easier to see by us oldies
Only feed the fish every couple of days and maybe put a denitrating filter on the tank. Then the water should stay pretty clean for a long time. If you take some dechlorinated water with you for water changes you can do massive (75%) water changes and not affect the fish. The big water changes will help keep the tank clean.
Lots of plants will help but rainbows like plant matter in their diet and might eat them if they get hungry.

more info on rainbows can be found here

[URL="http/members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Melano.htm"]http/members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Melano.htm[/URL]

 

[Corleone]

Go with smaller fish like tetras and platties, that stay small (under 3 inches) are low waste

I love platies, and I think they'd be a good choice in this tank, but there's nothing low waste about them. When my females aren't dropping babies, they're pooing.

 

[OldMan47]

For small, low waste fish, I love my endlers. They are colorful and very active. As has been suggested, a heavy planting of real plants can reduce water changes but there is a lot more work maintaining the tank with plants and dealing with the algae that inevitably comes with the higher light needed for the plants. IMO the water changes are easier than the plants although I love the plants. Sometimes the lowest maintenance is not the look that we would prefer.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

low maintenance tanks are just fine, but it is all in the set up so best to be prepared to take a little time and spend a little bit more cash to make this run more smoothly.

stock with small low waste fish like tetras and do not exceed 1" of fish per gallon of water, get a good quality filter which is capable of managing a much larger tank, put a lot of easy to grow plants in like cabomba and hornwort. feed the fish relativley sparingly and then it should be able to take a lower level of maintenance.

 

[loachman]

If you go with tetras, I'd suggest adding some cherry or amano shrimp. They are relatively good at algae control and eating "waste" food the fish missed. Their bio load is almost nil too. Cherry shrimp IMO would be better just b/c their much brighter.

 

[martyn413]

Platties are a nighmare. My mum got 2 and now they've turned into 50+. Am desprate to rehome all of them.

 

[loachman]

Platties are a nighmare. My mum got 2 and now they've turned into 50+. Am desprate to rehome all of them.

They can be, but they are also very easy to determine whether they are male or female. Male livebearers are also not aggressive to one another. Get all males, and no problem.

 

[Ian H]

Platties are a nighmare. My mum got 2 and now they've turned into 50+. Am desprate to rehome all of them.

They can be, but they are also very easy to determine whether they are male or female. Male livebearers are also not aggressive to one another. Get all males, and no problem.

trying telling that to my 2 male swords!

i would do as suggested and go with the common pretty fish, plant it fairly heavily with fast growing plants and that should keep the algae under control.

 

[OohFeeshy]

The only thing I've noticed about livebearers I've had is that they're pretty bad in the solid waste department. Which isn't really ideal. There's a fair few colourful, larger tetra species (deep bodied ones tend to be more visible), maybe a largeish centerpiece like an angel would also be quite eye-catching.

 

[freddythefish]

STICK TO TETRAS!!!
Livebearers are extremly high waste producers..even endlers!