BobbyBray
Fish Fanatic
I've been trying to establish a tank over the past month, and so far I've had nothing but bad luck. Granted a good potion of it is my own fault, due mostly to a significant lack of information.
Background Info:
I killed my first two fish after doing a terrible water change, had another get sucked into filter intake, and the last two that I bought went belly up, ether from overfeeding, or the excess amount of copper that I found I've got in my water. Needless to say I've learned a lot of do's and don'ts, its too bad the little guys had to die for my mistakes.
I've found that using a brita filter pulls the copper out of my water, so while it takes about 10 times as long to prepare a water change when doing it that way, I see no alternative atm. I did a water change the other day, and pulled a lot of gunk out of the rocks, again probably from over feeding. This morning, my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels seem to be fine, so I think I may try to add another fish.
I bought the standard 29 gallon starter kit tank, so its about three feet long and two feet tall (not the longer shorter breeder tank variation). As of now the lone survivor of my mistakes is Edwardo, an Australian Rainbowfish. I was initially thinking about sticking to the lesser aggressive breeds of fish: Rainbows, Gourami's, Tetra's, Sharks etc. But I was chatting with a lady at the only LFS in my town, and she said that the rainbowfish tend to be slightly aggressive, and would do fine with any cichlads of the same size. Sooo....
Question:
Would you guys agree? I'm thinking with a 29 gallon I would prefer fish that are in the 4" or shorter range, with possibly 1 6" fish. Or should I stick to the original plan, and keep the 29 for docile fish? If I can get the hang of fish care, I think I'd look at getting a 55 gallon eventually, but that would be a year or more out with my current living situation and budget
Any advice you guys can offer is much appreciated, I've cruised around the forums here for a few days reading various articles, and there's definitely a wealth of knowledge.
Here's a photo of my tank setup as of today:
Background Info:
I killed my first two fish after doing a terrible water change, had another get sucked into filter intake, and the last two that I bought went belly up, ether from overfeeding, or the excess amount of copper that I found I've got in my water. Needless to say I've learned a lot of do's and don'ts, its too bad the little guys had to die for my mistakes.
I've found that using a brita filter pulls the copper out of my water, so while it takes about 10 times as long to prepare a water change when doing it that way, I see no alternative atm. I did a water change the other day, and pulled a lot of gunk out of the rocks, again probably from over feeding. This morning, my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels seem to be fine, so I think I may try to add another fish.
I bought the standard 29 gallon starter kit tank, so its about three feet long and two feet tall (not the longer shorter breeder tank variation). As of now the lone survivor of my mistakes is Edwardo, an Australian Rainbowfish. I was initially thinking about sticking to the lesser aggressive breeds of fish: Rainbows, Gourami's, Tetra's, Sharks etc. But I was chatting with a lady at the only LFS in my town, and she said that the rainbowfish tend to be slightly aggressive, and would do fine with any cichlads of the same size. Sooo....
Question:
Would you guys agree? I'm thinking with a 29 gallon I would prefer fish that are in the 4" or shorter range, with possibly 1 6" fish. Or should I stick to the original plan, and keep the 29 for docile fish? If I can get the hang of fish care, I think I'd look at getting a 55 gallon eventually, but that would be a year or more out with my current living situation and budget
Any advice you guys can offer is much appreciated, I've cruised around the forums here for a few days reading various articles, and there's definitely a wealth of knowledge.
Here's a photo of my tank setup as of today:
