A Few Questions

[Beephnix]

Yesterday I started cycling my 60 litre (15+ gallon) tank with three cherry barbs. They've been fantastic and have been playing around in the water currents and eating and such, so they seem quite happy. Unfortunately, one of them literally disappeared overnight and I have no idea where he/she has gone. I did notice that after I came out of the shower this morning, all three had disappeared. I took the top off and opened the cover of the filter unit to find two of them swimming around looking lost in there. Since then, I have placed a plastic grate over the small opening that they must have gotten through to stop it from happening again. I took all of the filters, heater and pump out, but no sign of the third. I've just resigned myself to wait and see what happens. The other two are still playing happily.

Anyway, on a separate note, I've tested the water using test strips which I bought. Each is a strip with 5 small squares which test Nitrate, Nitrite, pH, alkalinity and hardness. All of the tests came back within acceptable limits according to the instructions. ph was around 8.0 - 8.5, hardness at around 300 (very hard according to the pack), nitrite was 0 and the nitrate was somewhere around 20 - 40 mg/L. I've tested the water straight from the tap, and noticed that the nitrate level is the same. Is this amount of nitrate safe for the fish? Also, do the other results sound ok? They all seemed to be coming back towards the top end of the acceptable scale.

I have been having second thoughts about getting a Betta. The cherrys are having a great time in the currents from the pump, but I've heard that Bettas prefer still water. The front part of the tank doesn't have much of a flow, but I'm still not sure. Does anyone have any suggestions for other fish that I could put in there? I'd like something of around 3 to 4 inches which will be ok in a fresh water community setup. Something with character would be nice, that's pretty to look at. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. My original plan was:

Betta,
Bristlenose Catfish,
6 Cherry Barbs,
6 Harlequin Rasboras.

Sorry about this ridiculously long post. Any help and advice on any of these issues would be great.

 

[CruX]

You may have some problems cycling with fish, did you research fishless cycling before opting for using fish?

You need to get an ammonia test kit, and I have heard the test strips are a bit pooh with regards for how acurate they are. Liquid test kits are far more reliable.

I don't know your experience level so I don't mean to teach granny to suck eggs, but you are aware you will need lots of water changes and you need to feed sparingly, once every 2 days for the feeding and I would personally do a 50% water change daily. Any ammount of ammonia or nitrite is bad for fish, I wouldn't worry about nitrate as your water changes bring that into line and only really high ammounts are toxic to most fish.

Hope this helps.

 

[Beephnix]

Ok, thanks for the advice. In good news, I found the missing one! I'm not entirely sure, but I think he'd swum into a small hole in one of the ornaments and gotten stuck, because I found him when I lifted it out. He's swimming around the tank again now and he seems happy enough. Hopefully he'll be ok.

 

[Beephnix]

I got an ammonia test kit and tested the water today. It couldn't detect any ammonia at all, so everything's fine at the moment. The fish are very small, so I suppose they wouldn't have too big an effect on a 60 litre tank. They've been in there for about 2 days so far.

Does anyone have any suggestions for fish (see third paragraph, first post)? If you can just give me some ideas, it'll help me to research them.

Thanks.