Daize's First Tropical Fishtank

[daizeUK]

Hello all,
This is likely to be a long rambling post with some interspersed questions so my thanks to anyone who bears with me!

I finally talked the husband into letting us keep some fish (he hates seeing any animal 'caged') but I wanted us to have family pets in the house for the sake of our kids and he is allergic to anything with fur so fish are our only option!

I haven't kept fish since I was a little girl, I used to have a small tank of goldfish in my bedroom back in the 80's. We never dechlorinated the water and knew nothing about ammonia or nitrites back then. We just used to do a 100% water change and scrubbed the tank out every week or two, whenever the water started looking mucky. Somehow one of the goldfish managed to survive for 20 years but I don't think it had a very happy life.

This time I'm determined that my fish will be happy. I've tried to research everything thoroughly so that my kids will enjoy seeing happy, active fish swimming in the tank (and so my husband won't feel so guilty every time he looks at them)! I've learned a lot about proper fishkeeping in the last couple of weeks.

I initially assumed that goldfish would be easier to keep as kid's first pets, but after reading up it seems that they need too much space and tropical fish will be happier in the long run. So, I knew nothing about tropical fish and had to do some reading!

When we looked at the tropical fish in the pet store, my kids loved the neon tetras and I adored the harlequins. But after reading about them I realised that neither of those fish would be happy living in our hard tap water. So I did some research to find out which fish enjoy hard water conditions and took another trip to a specialised aquatic store. My kids were somewhat distracted by the tank of giant piranhas but they also liked the orange platies with Mickey Mouse on the tail and I spotted some golden guppies that I thought would go nicely with them.

So, my initial stocking will be four Mickey Mouse platies (1 male, 3 female) followed by six guppies a few weeks later. I'm sort of hoping they might breed and I might end up with a few more fish, although I don't know much about raising fish fry. And... this is a silly question but how do you pronounce platy? Is it platty, play-tee or plah-tee?!

I'd also like a pleco but I don't think there will be space in the tank – unless there is a dwarf variety of pleco?

Needless to say, I am not getting the piranhas. Even if my five year old won't shut up about them.

Okay, so I found some fish we like. I went ahead and bought a 60L Interpet tank and some decorations and filled it up with water (dechlorinated this time!). The filter and heater are running nicely. This is what it looks like right now:

I went for a sand substrate after experimenting with a mix of sand and gravel. The left side is brown aquarium sand and the right side is golden play sand pilfered from my kid's sandpit. I've read that dangerous gasses can become trapped under the sand, so I've tried not to make it too deep and I will have to disturb it periodically.

I think it already looks beautiful, even without any fish I often find myself gazing at it and watching the ripples cast shadows on the sand. I'm really looking forward to getting some fish in there and watching them swim around. First things first, though. I'm bracing myself for the whole thing to become an ugly algae soup when I start fishless cycling!

I got hold of some Bio-mature and I'm just waiting for my API water test kit to arrive before I start adding it (I couldn't find pure ammonia anywhere). I've also got some Filter Start that came with the tank that I hope might speed up the cycling.

I did a strip test on my tap water and these are the readings:
Nitrates 50mg/L
pH 7.8
GH 16 deg
KH 20 deg
Those are the maximum readings for hardness, it could be off the scale for all I know. Seems our tap water really is hard as nails!

I'm a bit concerned about the nitrates present in the tap water. The ambient nitrate level isn't far below the 'water change' mark. I guess this means I will be doing more frequent water changes to keep the nitrates down

unless there is some way of removing nitrates from the tap water before I add it to the tank?

The plants in the tank are just plastic for now to disguise the equipment. I'd like to get some live plants at some point. I've got my eye on hornwort, Beckett's water trumpet and a short variety of Vallisneria, though I know there's not much space in the tank but maybe I can replace the plastic plants someday if my live plants do well. I was going to plant the tank before cycling but my Bio-mature says it shouldn't be used with any fish or plants in the tank.

There are two 15W lights in the hood of the tank, which I'm not convinced is enough to grow anything green, but the tank situated right next to our glass patio doors and gets direct sunlight from mid-morning to midday so maybe it will get enough natural light to help the plants grow. (I'll have to keep an eye on the water temperature in summer).

Having said that, my only experience of live plants are the sorry-looking stems left after my old goldfish had finished devouring them, so I'm not holding out too much hope for a lush plant-scape

I'll also be washing any live plants in an anti-snail treatment before I put them in the tank. I have a tiny pond in the garden outside which is full to the brim with pond snails. I think they're very sweet outside but don't much like the thought of them multiplying in my house!

Okay I guess this was sort of my introduction and setup description. My appreciation to anyone who stuck with me this far! Now I do have one major question, regarding quarantine tanks which have left me a bit confused.

I don't have a lot of space to keep an additional tank and I don't want to leave a filter and heater running all the time if the tank is empty. So how do quarantine tanks work? Do I really need one? Is there any point having a filter in one if it hasn't been cycled?

 

[techen]

A spare tank is always good to have as back up, you don't really need a heater and filter running in it. Just store it away and bring it out when needed, you can use your fish tank water to start it then do daily water changes to keep things under control but I would recommened a spare tank if you can.

Am not entirely sure how limited you are for the fish your asking, Plecos grow quite big and even a bristlenose would shock some people at how big they can get.

I will however remind you to make sure to CYCLE the tank before you do anything. You can find threads about how to cycle fish tanks.

 

[#1 Fish Fan]

I was in the middle of putting that on this thread earlier!

+1

 

[fluttermoth]

First of all, welcome to the forum, and well done for choosing a fishless cycle!

We'll all be happy to help you through that.

A few points.

As you have fairly high nitrate in your tap water, I would go with live plants once you've finished your cycle. The plants (especially the fast growers, like hornwort) use the nitrate as food and help keep it down. They'll also provide hiding places for your fry, so you won't have to worry about breeding traps.

I would get only male guppies, if you're going to have livebearers (which are a good choice if you have harder water, you're quite right there). Two species of fish breeding would over-run your little tank very quickly.

If you can move the tank to somewhere it doesn't get so much direct sunlight, that would be good. If you really can't, insulate the back of the tank with some bubble wrap or foil.

There aren't any small plecos that would like hard water, but it might be nice to have some snails (zebra nerites are attractive and don't breed in freshwater; they're good algae eaters too) and shrimps. Cherry shrimp are easy to keep, and will help keep your sand clean; kids love shrimps too; fascinating little creatures. Cherries will breed (although a lot of the shrimplets get eaten by the fish), but there are other species which, like the nerite snails, only breed in saltwater, so you won't get over run. Ghost and amano shrimps are good examples.

I wouldn't worry about a quarantine tank at the moment. As you're doing a fishless cycle, you'll be able to add your fish all in one go anyway.

 

[daizeUK]

Thanks for the advice!

I spotted some small kid's tanks for about £15 so I could buy one of those and keep it in case of emergencies. Then at least I have a spare tank if I need it.

Fluttermoth, I appreciate the advice about nitrates and live plants and getting only male guppies, that makes good sense.

I do like the idea of getting shrimp, I think you're right, the kids would find them fascinating. I heard that shrimp are very sensitive to water quality so I guess I would wait until the fish have settled in and I can monitor the water stability first.

I know sitting in direct sunlight isn't an ideal location but the tank is sited right next to the breakfast table so the whole family can see the fish while we eat our meals. The only other space I have is behind the table where nobody would really be able to see it very well.

I'm not sure what you meant by insulating the back of the tank, wouldn't that just help to keep the heat in? The glass doors I mentionned are just to the side off the left of the photo I posted above so the tank receives sunlight through the front glass.

There's a net curtain which I can draw across for shade when it's too sunny and I was planning to keep an eye on the thermometer and perform cold water changes if it gets above 30 degrees Celsius. Does that sound okay?

Thanks very much!

 

[fluttermoth]

Insulation works both ways; same as a thermos keeps things cold as well as hot

Just try and keep the sunlight off the tank as much as possible and you should be alright; I have a similar situation with one of my tanks (although it's bigger, so the temperature stays more stable) and the only problem I get is a bit of algae in that corner. I wouldn't let the temp go much above 28°C; bottles of cold water stood in the tank are better than cold water changes (although they don't do any harm, as long as the cold water is added very slowly).

You are quite right about the shrimps, they do need to go in last, once you're certain everything is stable.

 

[KCB]

I think it's pronounced plah-tee or platty . And a lot of people don't have quarantine tanks but they can be quite important in preventing a new disease from entering an existing tank.

I think I have one of those £15 kids tank which I have set aside for sick fish. I originally planned to use it as a QT but realized I could only quarantine maybe 1 or 2 fish at a time so found a nice 25L for a QT. In my opinion, it's not absolutely essential but you could be heartbroken if an outbreak of disease wipes out your fish, and reading this forum put enough fear in me to buy a separate QT and hospital tank .

Also, you don't have to have the QT running all the time, just put the filter media in your big tanks filter and let it gather bacteria in there. Then when you get new fish, set-up the QT, bung some dechlorinated water in there, add your filter with the matured media and put the heater in. When you don't need it anymore, just empty it and pack it away in the cupboard or something and put the filter media back in the big tank .

 

[biohazard156]

Great that you're doing a fishless cycle its always refreshing to see people using the grey matter first!

One point I wanted to make was regarding any live plants you use... If you are going to use anti snail treatment, I wouldn't add shrimp or snails for a v long time, as I think it would indiscriminately kill all inverts. Best to just rinse them thoroughly and buy plants from well known European distributors like tropica who do not use pesticides which can leach out over time and kill all your shrimp!

I agree about the guppies too, I ended up overrun!!

 

[daizeUK]

Some great tips, thanks folks!

I will remember about putting cold water bottles in the tank, that should come in handy. And keeping the spare bio media in the main tank, that's a great idea, if I can figure out where to put it!

I forgot about snail treatments being bad for shrimps

, I will have to rethink my position on snails if I want to get shrimps in the future. I just ordered some hornwort which I planned on keeping in a vase on a windowsill until cycling is over. Went back and checked the description, it says it's both snail free and pesticide free so it should be okay, I hope.

 

[KCB]

I read online that soaking new plants in salty water can kill any snails present. It seemed to work for me but I don't know if I had any snails in the first place lol.

 

[daizeUK]

Test kit arrived today so cycling has begun!

I can confirm that the BioMature doesn't smell and is nice and easy to use with a graded cap for dosing - I must admit I'm rather glad to be handling it rather than pure nasty ammonia! It definitely does the job because after the first 2ml dose my test kit is now reading 1.5 ppm ammonia in the tank.

I also tested for ammonia in my tapwater, just in case, and relieved to see the result was yellow... not sure it's quite zero though. Somewhere between 0.0 and 0.25 ppm.

The pH test was interesting, something in my tank appears to be changing the pH of the water. The water straight out of my tap measures 7.4 or 7.5 pH but a test on the tank water came out as 8.3 pH! At first I thought the test hadn't worked because it came out a odd purply-brown colour. Then I realised it must be halfway between purple and brown on the test chart lol

I guess the pH will fluctuate quite a bit as the tank is now cycling so I won't worry too much about it yet... though I do wonder what I've got in my tank that raised it nearly a whole pH higher

 

[Essjay]

pH can go all over the place during fishless cycling.
But you should also leave a glass of water to stand for 24 hours then test the pH. You'll probably find it is not the same as freshly drawn tapwater. Mine goes up by 0.2.

 

[daizeUK]

Good point. I tried that last week with a strip test kit, but I'm getting different readings on my liquid kit now anyway so I'll try it again.

 

[joanne32]

Hi, we have a tropical fish tank that is now 6 weeks old and have put a few guppys in, now it has started to cycle, can't seem to get the water clear, doing water changes, can anyone help please x

 

[Jam Jam]

Looks great!