Hello I'm new here. We got a new 60 litre Elite tank 3 weeks on Friday. We are limited to space for a bigger tank.
Set up as follows:
Grey/black spotted pea sized gravel,
2 live plants. Not sure what. one is varigated with fronds, the other just plain with thinner fronds. Both about 4" high.
2 plastic plant display type things, and one small rock and plant (this came with tank.)
1 Doctor Who Tardis. About 6" high, (specially for tanks.)My daughter is a Doctor Who fan.
Stingrey 15 filter, and 100W (I think) Heater. Both came with tank.
We let the tank run for 3 days, put in Nutrafin Cycle and Aquasafe as per instructions.
Had the water tested before added fish.
We added fish every 3 days and now have 6. Two Prestilla Tetras, two pink Danios and two Neons. All seem ok.
We hope to get 3 Platys 1 male and 2 females soon. (After having water tested again.)
My 1st question is: I read(I'm reading everything I can to keep my fish healthy.) that in this tank I could keep about 13" of fish.
Is this correct please? Also could I add anything else as I'm not sure my other fish will be happy just in two's? I'd love a small Cory.
Question 2/ I also read somewhere to do water changes every 2 days of 10/15% Am I doing too many?
Question 3/ I feed the 6 fish 3 flakes twice a day crushed up, is this enough or too much?
Could I give them bloodworms or anything else as a treat?
Welcome to TFF!
Have you had your water tested since you have had fish in the tank?
13" of fish would be a good aim in your tank. However, you need to really slow down.
You say you added a couple of fish every 3 days - who recommended this? In order to understand why this was bad we need to move to a level of fishkeeping knowledge that is unfortnately way above the head of your average pet store worker.
This is what happens when you put fish in the tank:
The fish produce waste. As they breathe, they produce ammonia. They also poo and wee, which breaks down into ammonia and any dying plant matter or uneaten food also turns into ammonia as it decays. In short - there is a lot of ammonia being produced. Ammonia is highly toxic to the fish, even in tiny doses. It causes burns to the gills and fins and causes the fish to become stressed and sick. This may not happen immediately but fish that are exposed to ammonia generally live shorter and more sickly lives than those who are not exposed.
In a healthy, mature fish tank we have a natural eco-system comprised of a delicate balance of fish and bacteria, with plants helping out as well. As the tank matures (we call it "cycling"), loads of bacteria come and colonise the filter and eat the ammonia. They convert it into something else toxic, called nitrite, and eventually some more bacteria convert the nitrite into nitrate. Nitrate is pretty harmless in the doses we'd see in a typical fish tank and is one of the reasons we recommend a weekly 25% water change on your typical community tank.
This process of growing two distinct and essential bacteria colonies takes 4-6 weeks (sometimes longer) and until it is complete the tank is literally a toxic soup of invisible chemicals. There are two ways to complete this process and "cycle" a fish tank - a fish-in cycle and a fishless cycle.
The majority of older fishkeepers (such as friends and family who keep fish or pet shop owners) will recommend the fish-in cycle. This is because up until recently we didn't know of another reliable way of cycling the tank and a lot of people just didn't know about cycling (as water testing is quite a recent thing) and even those that did know about cycling didn't tend to know just how toxic ammonia and nitrite where. You often hear people saying things like they'll "mature the tank with a few hardy fish" or "pop a couple of goldfish in to get things going". However, the reality is this a fish-in cycle is incredibly stressful for the fish and in many cases, a poorly conducted cycle means dead or dying fish. This is called
New Tank Syndrome. In order to humanely manage a fish-in cycle (which is what you are going through), you need a liquid test kit (such as the API Freshwater Master Test Kit) that tests for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. You also need to be prepared for a LOT of hard work. A fish-in cycle means twice daily water tests for ammonia and nitrite and daily tests for nitrate and pH (although you can wait until you see nitrite dipping before you test for nitrate of you want). Every time the ammonia or nitrite is even a tiny bit over 0, a large water change is needed. This means you could end up doing 75% water changes once or twice a day. Doing anything else - letting the ammonia/nitrites build up because you're busy or don't think it's that dangerous - is simply hurting the fish and the last thing we want to do is cause any animal to suffer through neglect. This is the reality that a lot of people don't know and a lot of people (especially pet shop workers) won't tell you.
The other option is a fishless cycle. This is where you manually add pure ammonia to the tank before the fish go in. The process still takes 4-6 weeks but saves the fish any risk of being exposed to ammonia or nitrite because it involves manually growing the colonies rather than using fish for it. It's safe, humane and much less work as you hardly ever need to do water changes during a fishless cycle!
So this is why adding 6 fish in 9 days is bad - the first fish will have initiated the cycle but the cycle can't have completed within a few days. This means that you're effectively adding more and more toxic waste to a tank that just isn't ready for it, which will make the water bad and the fish sick and in pain. So stop adding fish, get a test kit and focus on getting your tank cycled.
The plants - plants ae great as they help use up some ammonia during the cycle. You don't have very many, so I doubt you'll see much difference, but every little helps. Just watch out for the varigated one - 99% of the time they're not true aquatic plants and will simply die a long, slow death in the tank (which will eventually make the water more toxic). I know P@H often sells these (as I worked there for a while) and I could never work out why they did it.
Your stock - no, the danios and tetras will NOT be OK in pairs. These are shoaling fish that come from shoals of hundreds, if not thousands, in the wild. They are adapted and used to being kept in large groups and well not thrive or be happy in small groups. We recommend 6 as an absolute minimum for shoaling fish. If you wished to keep all 3 species, you should get 4 more of each once the cycle is finished. This would leave you at 18 fish and over your 13" marker. The tank could cope but you would not have space for any more fish unfortunately. Another complication is that neons are very fragile and not at all suited to new tanks, despite what a lot of shop workers believe. Great fish but riddled with disease and they tend to keel over in new tanks. If you get them to adulthood, my hat will go off to you. Pristellas and danios are great for newly set up tanks as they're hardy and easy to look after.
This all means that you have no space for platies or corys. If you would like a bottom feeder, consider investing in some shrimp. Please don't be tempted to keep the tetras and danios on smaller groups so that you can fit in some extra fish - it really is best for the fish that they be kept in shoals as they are highly gregarious. If you don't want 18" shoaling fish and instead would prefer 6-12, take the danios and/or neons back to the shop and exchange them for some more pristella tetras. That way would could have space for a shoal of corys (yep, another shoaling species) and some platies.
Corys - really should be kept in groups of 6 as well. There are many corys so research ones whose temperature range are compatible with your other fish. Some do very well at high temps (26-27C) and some need cooler temps (23-25C). Don't rely on the shop to know fine details about the species they keep. Some do know all about what pH/hardness/temperature certain species should be kept at but a lot have not got a clue and will just make sweeping recommendations.
Platies - please, please don't get mixed sex. Breeding platies may seem cute and fun initially but a trio can easily overpopulate a tank. They breed like rabbits and many females come in from the shop already pregnant. Breeding is stressful for them and quickly contaminates an otherwise stable and attractive community tank. There are literally thousands of small livebearers (platies, guppies, mollies, etc) who don't have homes or have to suffer in over crowded conditions because their owner thought they letting them breed was fun or because a shop told their owner that you
can't keep them in single sex groups. If you want a mixed sex group, have a cycled 10 gallon grow out tank for the fry and let the other fish snack on some of the babies. Don't get sentimental and try to save them all and make sure you have somewhere for them to grow up. You also need to make sure you have a plan for where the fry go BEFORE you start breeding them, not once you're being eaten out of house and home. I would honestly recommend you get 3-4 male platies if you have space.
Water changes - chances are, you should be doing more water changes. Get yourself a liquid regent based test kit and find out. In the meantime, work on a "worse case scenario" basis and start doing daily 75% water changes.
Feeding - food = ammonia. Feed once every 2-3 days until your tank is cycled. The fish will not starve.
This is a link to our
resource centre - here is all the essentials about setting up, cycling and stocking a tank.
