Hi,
I'm new to keeping fish and need some advice. I decided a few weeks ago to get a small tank for the kids and decided on a Baby Biorb (I now realise after I started to research what fish to put in that it may not have been the greatest one ever but I have it now!). Loads of questions so please bear with me:
No worries! This is what we're here for.
1. I filled the tank, and follow the instructions. It says to leave for a day then add fish but having done a bit of reseach I'm leaving it 1-2 weeks then getting the water tested at pets at home before buying my own test kit. (No matter how much I read I cannot get my head around nitrites, nitrates, spikes - I could do with an idiots guide!
Here's my attempt at an idiot's guide (you're not an idiot, by the way):
In nature, we have eco-systems. An eco-system is a delicate balance of plants, bacteria and animals that keep the environment in a stable condition. For example, we might have lots of grass so a species that eats grass evolves and keep the grass down, but then there are lots of the grass-eaters so a species of predator evolves to keep the grass-eaters in check. The sun and rain grows the grass which the grass eater eats and the grass eater is eaten by the predator. If one part of the cycle goes, the others also suffer. With me so far?
Well, in our tank, we have a similar situation. It's on a smaller scale but it is the same principle. In the tank we have fish. Fish poo, wee and breathe. All of these activities produce waste chemicals (called ammonia). If these waste chemicals build up they will make the fish very sick. However, because nature is awesome some bacteria realise that there is a food source (the ammonia) so they come to eat it. Only a tiny number of bacteria get into the tank initially and over the course of several weeks more and more bacteria grow in the tank until there is a perfect balance between the amount of ammonia produced and the amount of bacteria. Because the ammonia produced is a direct consequence of the fish, there is literally enough bacteria in the tank to keep the fish alive. Neat, huh?
It gets a little more complicated now. Basically, when the bacteria eat the ammonia they have their own waste chemical. This isn't so daft when you think about it - most relationships between organisms and food involve some kind of 'poo' somewhere along the line. In this case, the bacteria produce a chemical called nitrite which is unfortunately also really bad for the fish. So, we get some more awesom bacteria to come along and eat the nitrite and make nitrate. Fortunately, nitrate is relatively harmless and although nature sorta fails us here (by not producing any bacteria to eat the nitrates that can survive in a typical fish tank), we can easily remove the excess nitrate by doing regular water changes.
Now, as I said, it takes quite a few weeks for there to be enough bacteria of both kinds (the ammonia-eaters and the nitrite-eaters) to keep the fish safe. This is where you have to mak a choice. You can either grow the bacteria by hand using bottled ammonia
or you can get some fish to start the cycle for you.
Using bottled ammonia is the easiest method, in my opinion. All you are doing is adding some ammonia and 'fooling' the tank into thinking there are fish in there. The bacteria don't care if the ammonia comes from fish or a bottle so they'll happily grow. This method is great for a few reasons - 1) you don't need to subject fish to toxic chemicals that make them sick 2) you can get to know how the sciencey stuff works before trying your hand with live fish 3) you can spend the time it takes to grow the bacteria carefully researching fish to go into the tank. It's win:win really! There is a recipe for doing a good fishless cycle and you an find that
here.
If you use fish from the beginning, you have a harder job. When using fish to grow the bacteria, you will be exposing the fish to the very toxic chemicals that you are growing the bacteria to save the fish from. This means that if you just let the chemicals rise and rise in the tank, the fish will get sick. This is called New Tank Syndrome and is very common because a lot of people don't do the research you are doing. If you want to use fish to cycle the tank
and keep them safe, you need to do large water changes every single day (sometimes 2-3 times a day) to dilute the chemicals. This is a lot of worry and work for you and there is still a risk that the fish will get sick. There is a recipe for a fish-in cycle
here.
Have a read of those links and have a realy good think about what method you want to use. There are some other ways of doing it but I'd always recommend a basic cycle to a beginner as it is harder to make mistakes if you do it slowly and thoroughly.
2. The Biorb leaflet says to change the filter every 6 weeks, but I have also heard this will upset the water cycle and I should wash it in tank water when doing a 20% water change and only change every 4-6 months - I don't know who to believe.
BiOrb say to change every few weeks to make money from you. Their basic filter kit is just a sponge in a bracket. Nothing fancy. All you need to do is rinse it every few weeks in a bucket of old tank water and pop it back in. This is where your bacteria are going to live so you want to take really good care of it! If it gets worn out (which might take years), then you can worry about changing it for a new one.
20% weekly water changes are a good start for tank maintenance. There is a good guide
here.
3. I understand x-ray tetras are a hardy fish, is the tank big enough for maybe 3 of these and are they happy in a group that small? My daughter really likes neon tetras and fancy guppys but I don't think I can put them in a new tank. Otherwise, do you have any ideas on how to fill it? (I have bought the heater for it)
I don't have personal experience of how hard x-rays are but I will say that they will get too big for the tank. They are small fish but what we think of as small doesn't always match up with the space we think fish need. All fish need space to exhibit natural behaviours, find places to hide and get exercise. With x-rays getting to 2 inches (5cm) as adults, they wouldn't be happy in a little BiOrb. They are also shoaling fish which means they need even more space as they need to be kept in groups of 6 or more. 3 really isn't enough. That would literally be like you only meeting 3 people in your entire life. You'd get really miserable!
Neon tetras get to about 1.5 inches and are not suited to a very small or very new tank. Guppies, on the other hand, might be a good choice. Some varieties of guppy are very poorly bred which results in general lack of hardiness. Due to all the ups and downs of a new tank, fancy guppies are generally not recommended by Pets At Home and many other fishkeepers and shops. However, if you do a fishless cycle, you could get guppies as the toxic ammonia and nitrite that would normally hurt them won't be there. I think 3-4 male fancy guppies could be great for that little tank!
If you want some alternatives, how about 6 chilli rasboras or 6 celestial pearl danios (AKA galaxy rasboras) or a trio of sparkling gouramis? You could also consider 4-6 endlers livebearers instead of male guppies - they are relatives of the guppy but smaller. Google them and see what you think. The key with a small tank is a few small fish, even smaller than your standard neon tetras. OldMan recommended rasboras which are wonderful but you want to find species that count as micro-rasboras (such as the chillis). Micro-rasboras and 'micro' tetras are species of shoaling fish that stay under an inch long. The ones he posted a photo of are harlequin rasboras which are wonderful fish but will be too big and active for your tiny tank once they are grown up.
I will warn you now - what we suggest to new keepers about what type and how many fish for a tank is rather different to what shops like Pets At Home recommend. As you mentioned Pets At Home earlier I'll talk about their policies. P@H recommend a maximum stocking of 1cm of fish per litre. This means that if you add up the total size of all the fish, that's the maximum you should have. Think about it like this – say you have a 15 litre tank and you have 15 tiny fish that are only 1cm long each. You would have 15cm of fish in a 15 litre tank, which is 1cm per litre. When doing this maths, you need to know the adult size of the fish. It's all very well buying 15 baby tetras but when they call grow up you could have 5cm per litre instead of 1cm per litre!
Now, 1cm per litre is actually nearly double what we would normally recommend for a beginner. The more fish you have, the more complicated the tank becomes and the more chances there are of something going wrong. Plus, the more fish, the less space per fish and the more likely the fish are to get stressed. It's not worth over stocking your tank when you're just starting out. We'd recommend about 2.5 cm per litre at your stage.
Shops also often recommend fish that will get too big for small tanks. I was forever being told to sell zebra danios to tanks the size of yours which is really silly when you realise zebra danios can get to about 2.5 inches long and are really fast, active fish! They are just not happy in a small tank but because they are “small fish”, many shops don't really mind how small the tank is. Some will even laugh at you if you say you won't add them to a small tank
This is why every fish you want should be carefully researched and I'm so glad you found this forum so we can help you along. We're forever seeing people misinformed by pet shops and ending up with miserable, sick or dead pets as a result.
4. When doing a water change do I need to get an exact match in the water temp? And do I have to wait after adding the liquid that takes the chlorine out, or can the change be done as soon as I add the drops of the treatment liquid?
For a beginner with a small tank, we recommend you roughly match the temperature. You don't need it to be exact, just use the back of your hand to see if it's close in temperature. With most water conditioners you can add it, mix it in and pop it straight into the tank, but remember to always read the bottle. The exception to this is that many people recommend using around 1.5-2x the recommended dosage just to be sure it's handled all the nasties in the tap water. Whether you do this is up to you.
When buying water conditioners, make sure you get a good brand. Some of the cheaper stuff is quite bad and doesn't actually make the water all that safe. You get what you pay for. A good water conditioner will do the following as a minimum: remove chlorine, remove heavy metals, remove chloramine and remove ammonia associated with chloramine (chloramine is just ammonia + chlorine so you want to get rid of both bits).
5. Do I need to clean out the gravel stones on the base, and how often?
Whenever you do a small water change, get a gravel cleaner in there and have a good suck around. Some of the lower stones are actually extra spaces for the bacteria to live so you don't want to disturb them too much but a good hoover with a gravel cleaner is fine. Details of all your tank maintainence can be found in the links I posted further up!
Sorry to be cheeky and ask so many questions but I want to get it right. I'm totally new to this and naively thought it was just a case of choosing a tank and then some fish. I'm so glad I did my own research rather than just reading the instructions, even though it has left me more confused and worried I'm going to do it all wrong!
Any replied will be greatly appreciated.
Jo
Don't apologise! We're here to help.
For any further problems, check
here first and ask any questions you need.
Good luck!!
)
