20 Gallon Tropical Setup

[number20121]

Long story short:

16 months ago I started a goldfish tank. n00b that I was I bought a 10 gallon tank for 10 fish. Hurrr. Only 4 fish were left, I finally could afford a 20 gallon tank. Goldfish grow so fast that my Shubunkin is now almost 9" long, the 20 gallon tank is 24". I was looking on craigslist for a 55 gallon tank forever, finally found one for only $ 75.

Seller told me the day before pickup "oh hai, the tank comes with 4 fish LOL" ...... An angelfish, two silver dwarf gouramis and a single platy. I don't know what to do with them so I tried to find a new, GOOD home, but nothing came up so far. So now we keep them.

Since the tropical fish are a lot smaller than my goldfish, I put the goldies in the 55 (since that's what I bought the tank for) and the new fish in the 20 gallon setup. I brought about 6 gallons of "their" water so they'd have their bacteria etc.

With the little fake corals and rocks and plants I built some sort of village over about 1/3 of the ground of the tank. Those ornaments are only... 5 inches tall by the most, so about 75% of the height of the tank is still available for swimming freely. But that way the smaller fish can take refuge in the village in case the angelfish throws a fit.

So far they all seem quite happy. The single Platy seems nervous and very shy though. He hangs out with the Gouramis a lot, but I wonder if I should get him a buddy of his own kind of something similar. Like a Sword Tail or Black Molly. Or wait, don't Black Mollies need salt?

Also, what kind of fish or snail would be good for the algae? Can you keep an apple snail with angelfish? Or is getting a sponge-scrubber the better choice? Plecos grow so big, and in petstores here I only find the common type.
At walmart I saw an "algae eater" looking sorta like this http/myfishtanks.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/697px-Chinese_algae_eater.jpg but I didn't have time yet for research if this fish would be fine in the tank.

Any ideas? And yeah, we are planning to eventually back-grading to 55 gallons for the tropical tank too, but right now I can't afford it. As said, we weren't planning on getting fish, but they came with the tank, and the owner was like "if you don't want them, I'll just FLUSH them." !!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO WAY!!

 

[Gvilleguy]

Since the tropical fish are a lot smaller than my goldfish, I put the goldies in the 55 (since that's what I bought the tank for) and the new fish in the 20 gallon setup. I brought about 6 gallons of "their" water so they'd have their bacteria etc.

Hi Number - welcome to the forum!!! The 20 gallon tank to which you moved the tropical fish (I could not tell from your post how long you ran it with fish in it) - is it running a filter? And, if so, is that filter already cycled? Moving the 6 gallons of water from the 55 gallon tank does not get the 20 gallon tank in a condition to successfully support fish. You need a cycled filter (more specifically - the media that sits inside the filter).

If your 20 gallon tank is new, and running a new filter, then you are in a situation where you need to do a "fish in cycle". If you follow the thread links to the beginner's resource center, you will find a link to "fish in cycling" that will explain what I mean.

Now - regarding the 55 gallon - did that tank come with a used filter that was still wet? I'm kind of assuming since the tank came with fish that you also got the filter it was running. So it is probably cycled and able to mostly handle the fish you put in. Although you are going from small fish to much larger fish, so the filter might need some time to catch up with a larger load of fish waste.

If you don't already have one - you might want to get a water testing kit that will allow you to monitor levels of ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates, and report back to us the levels in your tanks over the next few days.