feeling overwhelmed (with bad advice!)

[cavies]

I am brand new to the hobby and have been seeking advice for the past few weeks.

I started by going to my LFS and speaking to a guy who I thought was knowledgeable. I asked specifically about corydoras as they really caught my eye. Unfortunately I was advised that a group of peppered cory would happily fit into a 57 litre tank. I went ahead and purchased a fluval flex 57 litre tank only to discover after a bit more research that it would be far from ideal!

Anyway, feeling a bit annoyed - at myself mostly, for getting carried away and buying the tank - I decided to visit a different store, the chap was pretty helpful and happy to talk. I showed him what I had previously bought and he said a group of panda corys could comfortably live in there with some small tetras...alarm bells started ringing again, surely the pandas would also be too big? on a side note, I did previously purchase some sand substrate intended for catfish so hopefully that's right at least!

I am getting so much conflicting advice! its incredibly frustrating. The dimensions of the tank are 16 x 15 x 15 inches, the lighting is 9w (LED) and I live in a hard water area, although I was told that soft water would not be needed as the fish were acclimated to hard water in the shop. I even asked if I could use bottled water, as silly as that may sound! but he said there was no need.

Any help would be appreciated as the enjoyment I initially felt is gradually diminishing!

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

The surface area of your aquarium is the main problem. An aquarium that is 16 x 15inches doesn't have enough surface area for many fish, especially a group of Corydoras that like to move about a bit. If the tank was 2ft long x 15inches wide it would be better and 3ft long x 18inches wide would be great.

There are Pygmy Corydoras (aka Cories) and a group of 10 would be fine in your tank when the filters are established. Unfortunately Pygmy Cories are not that common so you might need to ask the shop to order some in for you and then wait 3-6months before they arrive.

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The easiest way to find out how hard your water is, is to check your water company's website and see what they say it is. You can also telephone them and ask but most people simply check it online. If the general hardness (GH) is less than 300ppm (mg/L) then it is fine for Corydoras.

You should also check the pH of the tapwater and tank water. A basic pH test kit can be purchased from any petshop for about $5.00. Just get a basic liquid pH test kit that contains a small bottle of Bromothymol Blue and a plastic phial. The packaging should have a colour chart on it so you can compare the test sample to the chart and see what the level is.

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Besides Pygmy Cories, you could look at small gouramis like Honey Dwarf Gouramis, Indian Banded Gouramis, Sparkling Gouramis and Licorice Gouramis.

 

[Fishman04]

Thats really good advice Colin! May i just add that i looked at the pygmy corys and i feel that the flame dwarf gourami would fit that tank very well? I always loved the dwarf gouramis but the flame gourami just caught my eye and has never let go.

 

[Byron]

I would like to provide a couple of general comments from your initial post. First is, never trust advice you receive from a staff person in a fish store unless you know the store very well, and know the knowledge level of the owner and staff. I was fortunate to start off with a good local store owned and staffed by hobbyists, and I learned they could generally be relied upon. But even so, it is best to ask question on forums like this one before any decision as to acquiring this or that fish is made. There is a lot to keeping fish healthy, it is much more involved than any other non-aquatic animal.

Second point is, you/we need to know your source water parameters. GH (general or total hardness), pH are the most crucial, but knowing the KH (carbonate hardness or Alkalinity) is helpful too as this can impact pH fluctuations. Check your water authority's website, or call them. We need the number and the unit they use (mg/l, ppm, dH, etc). We cannot suggest fish until we know this. Some fish need softer water, some harder, some in between.

There are also other issues, like the substrate material, aquascaping, and obviously tank size. Pygmy cories were mentioned...these must have sand. And slightly cooler temperatures than gourami might prefer, depending upon species.

 

[Essjay]

Pygmy cories (Corydoras pygmaeus) are quite common in the UK, it's the other two dwarf species that are not very common.


I would avoid any colour of dwarf gourami (Trichogaster lalius) as they are very prone to disease. Honey gouramis (Trichogaster chuna) are not a variety of dwarf gourami, they are a different species and not as susceptible to disease as dwarfs.

 

[IHaveADogToo]

A lot of good advice here in this thread.

Just to add - when setting up a new tank, it's best to go in with a plan. Impulse buying fish, or deciding on the fish after you look around the store, is where a lot of people go wrong. Plan plan plan.

Start out by picking out a place in your home where you want a tank, then buy an appropriate size tank for that space. Then cycle the tank, then add fish. If you know of specific fish you want, you can plan a tank around those fish, but if not, then you will have to get fish that work for what you have.

I encourage you to get active on this forum, as well as other fish keeping forums, so that you have other hobbyists to bounce ideas off of and turn to for advice. You could also try local fish clubs, or even facebook groups. Always go into the fish store with a plan. If you do see something in the store that catches your eye, make note of it, or take a picture, and then talk to other hobbyists about it before making any decisions.

You do need multiple test kits for various things like ammonia and nitrate, but one thing that comes in real handy when choosing fish is knowing your tap water's pH and general hardness. Some fish like soft water, some like hard water, some like it more alkaline, some more acidic. If you go for fish that like the kind of water that comes out of your tap, then you'll have an easier time as a beginner, because you won't have to worry about messing with water parameters to make some impulse-buy fish species comfortable.

 

[cavies]

Thank you for the advice everyone. I am annoyed that I have done everything backwards really, which is not how I normally do things at all! I think I have just got carried away in excitement!

So far I have purchased the API freshwater master test kit, Dr tims one and only nitrifiying bacteria and ammonium chloride and also some water conditioner in anticipation of cycling the tank. (and a few other items to keep the tank clean)

Here are the water parameters from the local water authority:
467.25 mg/l :Calcium Carbonate
186.9 mg/l :Calcium
32.521 °C degrees Clark
46.725 °F degrees French
26.54 °dH degrees German
4.673 mmol/l :Millimoles

With regards to the pygmy cories, there were actually some in the shop and I was advised they could happily live with a group of ember tetras. I thought the pygmys were lovely, as were the tetras, but - if they are indeed suitable for my set-up - I'd of course be happy to wait until the tank was more established before adding the cories.

 

[Essjay]

The two hardness units used in fishkeeping are German deg (also called dH) and ppm (also called mg/l calcium carbonate)

From your list, those values are:
dH 26.54
ppm 457.25

I'm afraid you have very hard water which is not suitable for cories or ember tetras.

With a 57 litre, almost cubic tank the only suitable fish I can think of are male endlers or male guppies. No females because the tank would quickly become very over populated. Other livebearers need a bigger and longer tank, as do Rift Lake cichlids. But other members will probably know of small hard water fish that would also be suitable.

 

[cavies]

The water in my area is awful for hardness (limescale build up on everything!) is there anyway I could change the parameters of the water? e.g filtering, buying bottled water that has been sourced form a soft water area.

I really do like cories and for myself personally I don't think it would be right to purchase a different species of fish that I wasn't that keen on, it would feel like I was getting them for the sake of it.

 

[Colin_T]

If you get regular rainfall, you can use half rainwater and half tap water to reduce the hardness. Rainwater is pure water and has 0 hardness so a 50/50 mix of rainwater & tap water would give you a general hardness (GH) of about 225ppm and that would be fine for most freshwater fishes, although a little high for ember tetras. But you could make it 60/40 or even 70/30 and lower the hardness even more.
Ember tetras like water with a GH below 150ppm.

You can get reverse osmosis (R/O) units that will remove minerals from the water. However, they waste a lot of water doing so, the good units give 1 litre of R/O water and 1 litre of waste water.

You can distil tap water to get pure water. If you live in a hot climate simply half fill a 100litre plastic storage container with tap water. Put a clean 10litre bucket in the storage container and have a few clean rocks in the bucket to hold it down in the water. Put the lid on the storage container and place a small rock in the middle of the lid. As the water evaporates it condenses on the underside of the lid and runs towards the middle (due to the rock on top). The pure water then drips into the bucket. When you have a bucket of water you put it into another storage container and use it for water changing the tank.

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Some types of Rainbowfish would be ok in your tank, however you might not be able to get them where you live. But Pseudomugil signifier, cyanodorsalis & tenellus would live in the tank with hard water.

 

[seangee]

That is really hard. Liquid rock springs to mind. I struggled to find suitable nano fish for my flex and my hardness is 16dh. I don't want to keep live bearers and ended up with celestial pearl danio. As they are so small I have a school of 24 and no other fish

One of the things I did explore was mixing RO water 50/50 with my tap water. For a 50% weekly change you would need 12.5 litres. My lfs sells it quite reasonably for a 25 litre vat if you supply your own vat.

If this would work for you you could always decide later to filter your own but it would give you a lot more options for stock.

 

[cavies]

That's some great information, thank you something did occur to me though; the fish in my LFS are all currently living in a hard water environment, which I was informed they were acclimated too. If I were to then move the fish into more softer water could this potentially make them ill or stressed?

I have seen RO water mentioned, is it correct that its the same as distilled water that can be purchased from supermarkets? I'd be happy to explore this route if it made the fish happy and healthy. Also by using this method, would a 50% water change be a strict rule or could the % vary?

I live in a very dry county in the east of england so unfortunately rain water wouldn't be a reliable option.

Thanks!

 

[Colin_T]

The fish in the shop won't have been bred in hard water unless they were bred locally. If they were bred locally they will be fine in the hard water, but if they were bred in Asia (and 99% of fish are), they will have come from softer water than what you have. The fish in the shop will be use to the hard water but it won't be good for them in the long run if they naturally occur in very soft water. Having said all this, softwater fishes will tolerate hard water better than hardwater fishes tolerate soft water.
damn tongue twister

Basically if you want to keep softwater fishes then they will live in hard water, but probably won't live as long as they could if you kept them in softer water.

Moving them into soft water can make them sick if there is too much variation between the water they are in now, and the new water.
eg: they are in water with 450ppm hardness and you put them in water with 100ppm hardness it will stress them.

You want to reduce the hardness slowly by about 50ppm per week. It's easy to do, simply do a 10% water change each day or every couple of days and use R/O water for the water change. Use a GH test kit to monitor the hardness of the tank water and when the hardness is where you want it (about 150-200ppm) then you start using a mixture of R/O and tap water to do the water changes.

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You can mix any percentage of R/O water with the hard water to make any hardness you require. If you want water that is about 225ppm of hardness, then use 50% R/O and 50% tap water. If you want softer water, then use more R/O and less tap water.

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For a small tank like yours, either distil your own water using the plastic storage tub method in my previous post, or buy it from a shop.

Most supermarkets sell R/O water and you can use that instead of making distilled or buying it from a petshop. Some supermarkets sell distilled water and that is fine too.

 

[cavies]

Basically if you want to keep softwater fishes then they will live in hard water, but probably won't live as long as they could if you kept them in softer water.

I'd feel really uncomfortable doing this, I want them to live for as long as possible (and to be healthy too!) so I will definitely be going down the R.O/ distilled water route.

When I initially set up the tank to do the fishless cycle, would the correct method be to use tap water with the conditioner, check ammonia / nitrate / nitrite levels through-out with the test kit and then once the tank has cycled, purchase the fish e.g tetras and place them in the tank and then begin the gradual process of changing the parameters of the water? or would I use the distilled water whilst doing the cycle?

I plan for it to be a planted tank also, would it be better to add the plants before or after the cycle?

thanks.

 

[seangee]

You do need to mix it with tap water. Fish and plants need minerals and re-mineralising pur RO or distilled water can be a pain. 50/50 would actually be a fairly good mix for you. I would get the water to where you want it to be and get it planted before introducing fish. It doesn't matter too much when you are just cycling but plants also don't respond too well to changes in the parameters.