Advice On Restocking An Old Tank Please

[figlet88]

Hiya, firstly thank you in advance for any responses. I have just moved a fish into a bigger tank so my fluval 90 litre tank is now waiting to be restocked again with tropical fish. When i cleaned the tank out i left half of the water in and refilled it so hopefully it shouldnt take too long to cycle, also put in the filter start and obv tap conditioner. Stupidly i washed the filter completely clean with tap water so its no longer mature. Anyway once my tank is ready (no great rush, would rather take longer until tank is ready then add fish early and them die!) i would like some advice on stocking, want to get it right.

(So assuming my tank is ready for fish) I have a fluval 90 litre with a fluval 105 external pump. These are the fish i was thinking of:

3 x cory catfish
1 x Gold Gourami
mollies (how many??)
Tetras (how many??)

Is this going to overstock? Id rather have less fish and them be healthy. Wanted the catfish as bottom fish, the gourmi as a kind of main fish, and then i was thinking of some shoaling fish ie mollies or tetras (or both). Any advice, or other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Sorry if this doesnt make sense, im due to give birth in a few weeks and am a tad tired!

already made a mistake, the gourmi would be either a honey or dwarf i think

 

[jonathand]

Ideally you would need at least 6 each of the cory and tetras.

 

[moochy13]

if i was you id go with 6 of everything, other than the gourami obviously. then if possible - i dont know - go on from there.

 

[waterdrop]

...was glad to read that last line about the Gourami mistake (and anyone carrying a baby is due some understanding!) actual Gold gouramis are a color variant of the trico that can be either blue, opaline or gold and they not only get to be really big but can be pretty bothersome nippers when alone in a community tank in some cases. Much better for you would be honeys (dwarves are beautiful but the males can be nippers too, though do not get so big of course.)

Welcome to TFF and our little beginners freshwater section here! Hate to be the bearer of bad news but we've not found that those "filter starters" (bottled bacterias) do much of any good that we can ever seem to sort out. Not only that but they get in the way of the members here getting a chance to pass along the wonderful baseline learning about "biofilters" and how to start them up and know how they work with some hands-on experience. This kind of baseline learning helps you be a much better aquarist from then on. Have a read of "The Fishless Cycle" in our Beginners Resource Center and consider that since you already have another fully operating tank, you can move a small portion of "seed" media to the new filter and the household ammonia fishless cycle will likely not take all that long. The other homework to go along with it and add to the understanding are The Nitrogen Cycle and The Fish-In Cycle articles.

The main necessities for a household ammonia fishless cycle are a good liquid-reagent based test kit (have you got one of those?) And the finding of the correct type of simple ammonia in distilled water. In the UK, most members are finding it at Boots and it's even easy to use google images to see the look of the bottle. Likewise if you are in the USA people have been finding it in Ace Hardware. The products are just a small bit of ammonia dissolved in a lot of water (usually less than 10% ammonia and meant for cleaning) and its important in our case that it not have fragrances, dyes, surfactants or soaps. It should just create largish bubbles for 2 or 3 seconds when shaken, just like plain water.

You should get the correct dosage of ammonia concentrated in the tank with the filter running and the temperature raised to 29C/84F before considering the move of some mature media from your existing filter. Never take more than 1/3 of the biomedia from the running donor tank, that way the leftover bacterial colonies will return to full size before there can be a spike of the ammonia or nitrite poisons. Be sure to have new media of the right types on hand to fill out your sponge space or whatever media it is. It often requires some creativity in cutting/moving whatever media it is. Does this make sense?

~~waterdrop~~