General Questions Before I Get Fish.

[Osian]

I'm completely new to this, and I got a tank for x-mass and it was set up on the 18th of Dec, it's a small tank only 14 litres (40cm wide at front, 20cm wide at back, 22cm across at shortest point and 20cm high ish), has a 50W heater, as the room is quite cold, and a Hagen elite mini filter. I also have the API master test kit.

I was told by my LFS (pet at home) and in a leaflet I found to wait 3 days but I waited until the 24th and got some fish, which all died by the next morning. Unfortunately it all happened over night, so didn’t see any problems until it was two late.

Anyway since then I’ve done a fair bit of reading on the forums and on the internet, I’m currently cycling my tank with ammonia and it's going though 5ppm in less than 10 hours now, but the nitrite (NO2-) is still high so waiting for that to come down.

So I though now would be a good time to clear up some stuff I want sure of.

1st. question is as the tank has been there without anything for a month should I still clean the filter or will it be better to leave it?

2nd. When I clean the filter, I use the siphoned water from the tank to wash the foam, do I only shake it gently or do I do it fairly hard?

3rd. As the tank is fairly small I was thinking of just having 2 Endlers in there, both male. Would this cause any problems?

4th. Are there any major advantages with live plants over plastic?

5th. Do I need to do anything to the gravel except vacuum once a week?


I'm trying to keep things as simple as I can for now, until I have a firm grasp of the basics and this small tank is going well. I'm considering a larger tank later and someone has told me he has a 3 foot tank I can have, although haven’t seen it yet, but it would be a minimum of 3 months before I’d start thinking of setting that up.


thank you for any help in advance.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

sorry for the losses you had before, good to see your doing things the right way now.

1st. question is as the tank has been there without anything for a month should I still clean the filter or will it be better to leave it? - won't make any odds either way, just leave it.

2nd. When I clean the filter, I use the siphoned water from the tank to wash the foam, do I only shake it gently or do I do it fairly hard? - want you'll find is when you open the filter there's a load of mank collected in it, basically decomposed fish waste, bits of dead plants and leftover food, you want to get this out of the way so that the water can flow freely through the sponge. so just give it a bit of a squeeze in a bucket of water taken from the tank, get the worst of the mank off then put it back in. washing too hard can cause problems cos you can kill off your bacteria colony.

3rd. As the tank is fairly small I was thinking of just having 2 Endlers in there, both male. Would this cause any problems? depends if you get males, females and what combination. If you get a mix they'll breed so you won't have just 2 endlers which will inevitably lead to overcrowding. Try it with two males, if you experience agression between them you can put another 1/2 in to dissipate it between them. It is a v small tank but endlers are pretty small fish, I think up to 4 would be OK as long as you keep on top of maintenance

4th. Are there any major advantages with live plants over plastic? yes, but not drastic ones, it really comes down to personal preference re looks and maintenance. Live plants are harder work (but not nescessarily difficult, there's plenty of easy growing species) but most people prefer how they look to fake plants. you know how tree's absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen meaning if you're around loads and loads of tree's it clears the air a bit. well the same sort of thing happens under watere. The plants use up the ammonia produced by the fish helping to keep the water clean. This in turn inhibits algae growth so the tank looks nicer too.

5th. Do I need to do anything to the gravel except vacuum once a week? nope

 

[Osian]

Thank you, I think i'm nearly read now, just another question if you dont mind. As it's a small tank if i has a power cut and it's a cold ish room, the small tank would loose heat quicker than a larger tank, so should I invest in a UPS? and do other people use UPS with their fish tank?

 

[mark.w.jones]

What is a UPS? A small tank like that is certainly a risk during a powercut, especially if you are out at the time or asleep. All you can do in the event of a powercut is wrap the tank in towels and power water through the filter on a regular basis.

 

[Osian]

Sorry, UPS is a like battery they use on computer to stop them turning off in a power cut, They tend to last up to 20 mins with a computer, but as the filter i have is so small, and so is the heater, i reckon i could get perhaps up to 3 hours out of one, and their only £30. I live in a rural area thats on the coast so do get a power cut one every two years but they tend to last a few hours as it's a large area they need to cover over field and such.

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if you live in an area that is at risk from regular power cuts then i would say yes do invest in one.

there's been a number of topics about what to do in a power cut so do a search on the forum and you'll dig up some topics with general advice which it'd be good to prepare yourself with.

 

[Osian]

Been trawling though the forums a fair bit and notices that bettas seemed to be kept in fairly small tanks, would one betta be better in my tank than 2-4 Endlers?

 

[ollyhtafc]

Endlers will be likely to breed unless you get single sexed groups.Obviously.
Just something to think about...

 

[mark.w.jones]

One betta would be betta You may find that you can have a couple of shrimp in with it as well. See what it says in the betta forum. I'm sure i read somewhere that they are OK. Amano shrimp are most popular but bamboos and cherry shrimp are also available.