4Ft Community Tank Start To Finish

[PlumbersMerchant]

So, after month of waiting to be messed about a final time I thought my dreams of a bigger tank were shattered. And then I saw this beauty on Facebook. ( won't let me post it as it's too big, will try from the laptop later) basically it's a 4ft tank, stand and all the trimmings for £100. I thought it was a steal. On the downside it has come with 2 beasties. An oscar ( 6"+) and a foot long plec. I am re homing the oscar on Saturday as it will kill all my community fish. Feel sad about it as the oscar has a real personality.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to rehome the plec so it looks like I'm stuck with it. Never had one before so any advice would be great.

My current stock for this task is as follows

6 neon tetras
6 harlequin rasboras
1 pearl gourami
1 dwarfe gourami
1 red tail shark
2 frogs
And now the big daddy plec. I intended to do a sweet scape with live plants then up my numbers but somebody has told me it's impossible to keep a tidy tank with such a big plec?

I kept all the gravel from the previous owner, got his filter too and kept about 25% of his water too. Because of this I am going to class it as a cycled tank, just a massive water change.

Immediate questions.
1 - what do I feed oscars as I wanna make sure it's ok till ship out day

2 - what so I feed plecs ? Research says blood worm and zucchini, algea wafers and pellets but I won't have chance to get to the LFS till Saturday.

3 - is my stocking safe with the big plec ?

Will try fire up my ancient laptop now. Will take a while but I'll be back !

 

[sawickib]

is your 4 foot tank a 55gallon or 75 gallon? Im assuming a  55 gallon, so i wouldnt suggest keeping your pleco in there much longer, because they get even larger and prefer much larger tanks, you probably have a common pleco. 
 
Id just feed the oscar what you normally feed it, which i fed mine cichlid pellets, bottom feeder shrimp pellets and bloodworms.
 
The plecs will eat all the stuff you listed if you plan on keeping it. And is safe with your stocking because it is a bottom dweller and there is nothing in that tank that would inhabit its territory. Although im not sure your pleco is plant safe, a small plant safe pleco would be a bristle nose pleco. 
 
Do you have dwarf frogs, or african clawed frogs?
 
75% water change is absolutely ok, if not excellent no harm done.

 

[PlumbersMerchant]

Dwarf frogs. I no they can't live in a tank deeper than 18. This tank is 48" long 15" wide and 18" deep. 2 " of gravel at the bottom with an air gap at the top so I am happy they will be ok. As I was in a rush to set the tank up for the fish ( who had been in 14 ltr buckets for 2 hours) I only got chance to give the stones a quick rinse.

There was still messy water in the bottom but I had to fill it straight up. My thinking was that it would help with the bacteria side also a bit of poop to keep the cycle going with such huge water changes. there is still a lot of crap in the bottom of the tank so I'm wondering if I could get away with syphoning off another 10% tinight and tomorrow night to try clean it up ?

I don't yet have an API testing kit just the 2 main tetra test kits

Current tank ph is at 7.5 -8

Nitrite is <0.3 mg/l

 

[sawickib]

So you have a 60 gallon tank. 
 
You can get rid of all the crud as there is more you can see in the water and the fish will keep producing more crud.
 
Thats very bad to have any nitrites at all you need 0 ammonia 0 nitrite, i suggest doing another about 50% water change.
 
The dwarf frogs should be fine for air, its just getting them food id worry about if i were you.
 
The pleco should be fine in that tank, but i would look into rehoming him if you can.

 

[PlumbersMerchant]

Hopefully here are the pictures if i can get them to work
 
Fully tank shot, set up until saturday
 

 
And here is the big daddy Plec who i guess im keeping. The more i look at him the more i like him. They seem to be scary/ugly looking creatures initially but yeah, he is growing on me !
 
More pictures on saturday.
 
If any advice of what works best with plecs I.E. care or hides e.t.c. please feel free to comment. Also any plants or ways of planting real plants that this bad boy wont uproot would be great.
 
Cheers all

 

[Ninjouzata]

Did you keep the filter media? That is what holds most of your bacteria.
 
The fish should be fine until you can get to the store on saturday. Are you going to pick up a liquid test kit on this day as well? Or is the one you're using liquid? Sorry have only ever had API.
 
The oscar and pleco both need a bigger home, sorry Although in the mean time maybe find some driftwood to make the plec more comfortable.
 
I'd be worried about the RTS being mean to other bottom dwellers but don't think it could harm such a big and armored fish.
 
As has been said you can feed cichlid pellets to the oscar, algae wafers and veggies like zucchini to the plec. Probably some shrimp pellets for the RTS.
I'm not sure what the frogs eat, but they can easily be outcompeted for food so if you can I'd move them to another tank.
 
The other fish could probably eat something like new life spectrum small formula

 

[PlumbersMerchant]

The filter media is just 2 sponges as aposed to stones or anything else hit nice kept them yes. Imy current tests are liquid testers but I've just bought an API on Amazon. Saturday is the day I'm saying good bye to the oscar as he was easy to rehome, it's the plec who is problematic. Will keep searching for a home for him tho.

My current stock is all my fish I have already, I just want a bigger home for them. On Saturday (once the oscar has gone) I will be transferring all my fish to this tank. Also a plastic wood looking cave and a some other Greek looking statue things for now. Will get some fresh big wood and hopefully make a cave out of it aswell.

Behind the plec in my picture there is a piece of down pipe that I thought would make a good cave for him but he doesn't seem bothered ?

Another big water change tonight and hopefully remove more of the poop from the bottom.

 

[PlumbersMerchant]

So I'm about to go down to the LFS to take the oscar back. Gonna check their stock levels and enquire about upping mine. My plan is to move all my fish to the new tank but I'm worried about overloading the filter. Does anyone know if it's safe to transfer my fish across all together or should I do it in stages ? If I move them all today I will wait a week then but more next weekend is the plan.

 

[sawickib]

You should do it in stages to avoid ammonia spikes. And wait 2 weeks between adding new fish.
if their little schooling fish than about 6, if their large bioload fish then 1.

 

[PlumbersMerchant]

For now I've put 6 harlequins across. Leaving the light off for another hour then I'm gonna do another big water change. Got some algea wafers for the plec ( about the size of a 50p coin ) and he said feed him 1 every other day ? Bought some bits of slate so I'm gonna try build a bit of a cave. One of the pieces has a really nice curve in it so I'm thinking if I put that bit at the bottom it may make an extra little cave for one of the smaller fish or frogs to hide in. I intend to use superglue to stick them together with, leave it to dry then submerge it in a bucket of water in the hope of getting rid of any possible toxins it may have ?

I've ended up putting in all the old statues etc and fake plants in for now to try give the harlequins some hiding places. Update for now finished

 

[PlumbersMerchant]

Another big water change done, same readings as last time as I don't have my API tester yet. Should be coming Monday.

All the fish in the new tank seem to have settled down now and are showing more natural characteristics. It is now that I think I identified the plec wrong. I think it could be a sailfin as it has the huge fan of a dorsal fin when swimming an relaxing. Done more research into this particular fish and it should still be kept in a bigger aquarium but I believe this to be its normal full grown size. (Although it can in some cases get up to 16" long)

Put a few extra real plants in the tank but as the fish is so big when it swims past it uproots them. Starting to wonder if 2" of gravel is enough ? Hopefully more pictures later

 

[looking-glass]

great bargain good luck with it

 

[PlumbersMerchant]

So, my API tester kit arrived today so I tested the new tank. With the massive pooping plec and 6 harlequins the results at as follows

Ph 7.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrite. 0
Nitrate 20ppm.

According to my booklet a healthy community tank can be upto 40ppm nitrate so I'm very pleased with the results. Just moved my red tail shark to its new home ( after acclimatising) and he is checking everywhere out. Already got himself a regular hide he keeps going back to. Gonna test again tommorrow and if all is stable move the gouramis across.

Extra note. All this time the dwarf gourami has been Miss identified. It is in fact a gold gourami. Only reason I questioned it was it started getting tiger like stripes. Just proves you can't always trust the labels at crappy pet stores. ( I no longer use that one!)

It also answers 2 previously posted questions on one - how come it always kills the other dwarf gouramis and 2 why is it golden and not red/blue/ sunset ha ha.
Not ha ha at it being a killer but ha ha as in colour !

 

[Ninjouzata]

Results look good
 
Ooh, yeah 3-spots are not known for being the friendliest. They're beautiful though. c:

 

[looking-glass]

youll be better off with the gold gourami