First Tropical Fish

[nmonks]

Sorry about that. The problem is a lot of popular fish aren't necessarily the easiest fish.

Livebearers are very nice. I have a great fondness for mollies, which are tremendously personable. While they do need slightly salty water, rainbowfish, other livebearers, gobies, and glassfish will all be fine about the salt so it's not that big an issue. Swordtails are nice too, very lively, and nicely coloured.

Don't worry about the fry. If you leave them in the main tank, most will get eaten by the other fish anyway. The ones that survive are easily taken back to the store and swapped for some new fish, some live food, or whatever. The trick is to keep just one kind of whatever, so the offspring are nicely coloured pure-breds rather than some mixed up thing.

Rainbows are wonderful. Neon (dwarf) rainbows are quite widely available now and not expensive. Nice colours. Get a decent sized group (at least four) and they are very playful.

Blind cave tetras are amazing. Almost worth their own tank, set up to look like a cave (dark gravel, a few rocks and slabs of slate, and minimal lighting). They bomb around the aquarium, and despite having no eyes they seem to be good at navigating and finding food. They're quite large when grown up, about 8 cm, and definitely a novelty fish. Keep in small groups for best effect. Add a plec or some other suckermouth and you're set.

Pufferfish are viable first fish, but they aren't easy. There's a little book called "Pufferfish" or something by Chris Ralph (£4) out; I'd suggest getting a copy before going down that path. In most cases you can't keep them with tankmates. You can with some (I keep a trio of South Americans in a community tank, and a pair of red-tailed puffers with some catfish and gobies). But mostly, they're awkward, aggressive little critters.

Cheers,

Neale

PS. If you're into gouramis, check out African climbing perch (such as Ctenopoma acutirostre). There are a bunch of differen species, from the very small Microctenopoma ansorgii through to some real bruisers. Anyway, most are hardy, and Ctenopoma acutirostre at least is easy to find. It's a bit big, but totally peaceful towards anything it cannot eat. Loves bloodworms. I gave away a specimen last year that was over eleven years old, so they really last a long time!

That just about shot down every idea I had!...

 

[Talz]

Good job nmonks, infornative as usual, I was getting worried no one was going to suggest rainbows

If you have hard water then rainbows in my opinion are hands down the best schooling fish for you. Also most livebearers I bealive can tolerate rather hard water so if you can get past the idea of loads of fry id recomend all of them exept guppy because they basically like neons have lost alot of their naturall hardiness due to over breeding. Also if you decide to go with swordtails DONT put to males together as they tend to be very aggressive towards eachother!

 

[bobs_da_rocker]

Thanks alot nmonks, Thats some really good info. I've still got lots of ideas. I think that I will get some mollies and let the fry stay in the tank. I'l definitely get some rainbowfish. They look and sound great! I'll look-up blind cave tetras. There is still alot to choose from.

How much salt do I need to use 4 da mollies?

Ty again!

 

[nmonks]

It's all here. You're aiming for about 3 to 5 grammes per litre. Note that while most livebearers will be happy with this, a lot of other fish won't. The cave tetras won't like it, for example. But rainbowfish, gobies, glassfish, halfbeaks as well as livebearers are definitely good choices in very slightly salty water. If you want to do without salt, mollies are a gamble. At a high pH (8.0) and high hardness, some mollies do fine without salt, but others not so well. So, if you're not using salt, it's best to stick with guppies, swordtails, and platies. As others have mentioned, guppies aren't nearly as hardy as they once were. Feeder guppies are pretty tough though, as are, generally, Endler guppies; just not the "fancy" guppies.

Cheers,

Neale

How much salt do I need to use 4 da mollies?

 

[bobs_da_rocker]

I'm not not sure if I want to have to use salt to ensure their health . What are platties like, I've read that they're just as good. That would give me a little more scope when I choose what types of fish to keep 'cause I wouldn't have to worry about them being OK with salt. Thanks 4 all this help, its great!

Edit: nmonks, I just downloaded that "can I keep it?" software from your website and its great! Really helpful. Whats is your avatar a pic of BTW? It looks weird. lol

 

[nmonks]

Thanks!

Platies are nice. Lots of colour, peaceful, and easy to keep. They're pretty mindless as fish go, but colourful. Probably best to read some of the pinned topics in the Common Livebearers section -- the people there are very expert and happy to help.

The avatar is Kosh, an alien from Babylon 5 (a TV show).

Cheers,

Neale

: nmonks, I just downloaded that "can I keep it?" software from your website and its great! Really helpful. Whats is your avatar a pic of BTW? It looks weird. lol

 

[bobs_da_rocker]

kl, I'l think about platys.
At the moment the fish that I'm thinking about keeping are:
-Gouramis (1male-2female)
-Shoal of Zebra/leopard Danios (8+)
-Platys (1male-2female)
-Shoal of Clown Loach (6+)
I want to build this up gradually.


Once again, comments are appreciated. Thnx!

 

[nmonks]

Okey dokey. Clown loaches. Yes, should be in a group (certainly at least three specimens). But, they are big. Easily get to 15 cm in captivity, and potentially much larger. For a group of, say, three, you will be thinking about a tank 120 cm long, if not larger.

Danios are an excellent choice. Can't really go wrong with them. They are fish from streams though, so don't neglect water current and make sure there's plenty of oxygen. The long-fin types are a bit more delicate and tend to get nipped by some other fish. Best stick with decent quality plain vanilla danios.

Platies, as said before, a good choice. Colourful, hardy. I happen to like the "variatus platy", which has a slightly different shape to the regular one, but they're both nice. I've found the very red varieties (like the coral platies) to be a bit less robust that those with more natural colours (green/yellow). But there isn't much in it. Do look out for deformed ones... the quality of a lot of platies is not high, so make 100% sure to look over the fish and have the guy in the store pull out ones you like.

Gouramis... depends on the type. I find the moonlights (all-silver) and the lace gouramis to be by far the easiest to manage. They are only a bit less forgiving that blue gouramis, but far more robust that dwarves or honey gouramis. Almost completely peaceful, particularly the lace gouramis, unless chronically overcrowded. Sexing them isn't as easy as some other gouramis, but the males of both species (if I recall correctly) have orange "feelers" while the females have pale ones. You might need to read up a little just to be sure. Dwarf gouramis, I say again, are horribly mistreated and the quality of much of the stuff imported is incredibly bad. Avoid like the plague.

The only things I'd add would be maybe a Siamese algae eater and a few Corydoras, perhaps Corydoras aeneus or one of the other hardy species. Peppered Corydoras are very widely sold, but they do prefer slightly cooler aquaria than most people provide, and hence don't do as well as they might. Alternatively, if you avoid fish with long fins (such as angels or veil-tail anything) dwarf Synodontis are a lot of fun. They're very hardy, and though somewhat nocturnal, they can become a bit more outgoing once settled in, especially in the evening if you feed them some bloodworms.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[bobs_da_rocker]

I've worked out that I have room in my tank for roughly 100" of fish, but I don't want to get as close to that mark as I can, I'd rather get as many as I need 4 it 2 look natural. I'm having great fun looking for fish I like! I'm thinking that I might get a shoal of bronze corydoras instead of clown loaches but nothings 4 sure at the mo' theres so much choice! .

 

[jayjay]

how did you work out, you could keep 100" of fish in a 120l tank? 110g maybe...

 

[bobs_da_rocker]

I worked out the surface area of water in " and divided it by 12, I got 100. I'm probrably way off.
:stupid:

I just reworked it out and its closer to 50" of fish. whoops!
Do u think I can get 50" of fish in there?

The tank I'm getting is a Rekord 120, its 120l (don't know how many gallons that is ). I want to put in live plants. The fish I'd like to keep are, 3 Pearl Gourami, 8 Zebra Danios, 3 PLaty and 6 Bronze Cories. I wont' put all the fish in at once, I'll put new ones in every so often. Is this Idea Ok? Thnx 4 help!

 

[basia]

Platys are quite fun, they quickly learn to do their food dance for you as soon as they see you and there are quite a lot of colours.
If you wanted a hardy cichlid you could try keyholes, they are quite shy but worth the effort I think.

 

[bobs_da_rocker]

Hello? anyone there??

 

[pieman]

Hey there are some really helpful pictures and price ideas on www.tropicalfish4u.co.uk

These are often overpriced and postage is heavy, it will be cheaper at your LFS but it's always a good idea to know what you want before you go, also make sure there are no dead fish in the tank, if there are there is a good chance that the other fish in the tank will be diseased.

Good luck

Have you thought about a group of Corys? I've heard they are very friendly fish

 

[mark.w.jones]

If you do a fishless cycle you can add fish almost immediatley after your tank is fully cycled. From things I have read you can add a fully stocked tank if you cycled your tank without fish (by using ammonia). However I would not recommend this for you, as you are just starting out. So I would add the gouramis like you said, and do research on other fish before adding more. I think you have a good idea to slowly build up your community, but while your tank is cycling you should look up different species and compatibility for your tank, because if you buy fish without knowing anything, it leads to disaster. I am sure if you gradually add fish to the tank (though the bioload is high), your fish will be happier. Hope this helps.

Im not sure I 100% agree with this advice. By fishless cycling you build up a huge colony of bacteria in your filter, far more than are needed to break down your fishes' waste. If when you finish fishless cycling you add say 3 fish and leave them for a few weeks then all your filter bacteria will begin to die until there is enough in there that can live off the waste of 3 fish. When you add some more fish after a few weeks you are likely to get an ammonia spike because there won't be enough bacteria to deal with the extra waste from your new fish. So you are almost back to square 1 and cycling with fish. I pretty much fully stocked 90% as soon as I'd finished fishless cycling and only suffered one loss. Maybe others think different but i'd say go for it. However many fish you add after fishless cycling your bacteria will surely die back until there is enough to live in balance with the amount of waste produced. Well that's what I think