Help Needed Please

[noodledudes]

Hello to you all,
I am new here and new to tropical fish too. I bought a complete set up with fish yesterday and the move seems to have gone ok. I bought a tank that was already established and took it all including the water so I did not upset or kill the fish. The tank is 62cm x 60cm x 48cm. I would like some advice to how many fish I am allowed. I would like to add to the tank as there are only 4 tiny fish in it, I do not know the names and I know from reading online some fish do not mix well.
Please can someone help me identify my fish? And let me know what not to get, I do not want any deaths or bullying.
I am trying to set this up for my son, he adores watching them (he is 3).
And lastly how long should I wait before I add my new fish, I only got the tank yesterday, they have been moved but the whole set up remains the same and all seem very well and lively.
Thank you very much in advance
Sally

 

[minxfishy]

Hi welcome to the forum.

Can I ask, was the filter and media (the stuff inside the filter) kept wet during transportation? If so, then you shouldnt have lost much bacteria (which you need to keep the tank and fish healthy).

The 1st and 3rd pictures are of platies (look a little like guppies too but more platies to me). The second pic is a honey gourami. Both of these fish are peaceful and I would advise you stick with peaceful fish.

How many of each do you have? Is it just the three? If so, I would get some more platies (they come in various colours) say another 3/4.

Something else peaceful like neon tetras are colourful and shoaling and make nice additions to small tanks, they like to be in groups say 6+ and then maybe a small shoal of corydoras, again they like to be in groups of 4+

Obviously you dont want to add all these fish in one go, as it will cause what is a called a mini-cycle, which means that your filter would be trying to catch up with the extra waste load that the extra fish produce. This could cause ammonia and nitrIte to rise an cause damage, even death to the fish.

The best option is to stock with more fish slowly. Say 2 at a time over a period of several weeks. Leaving maybe two weeks inbetween each new fish, this is long enough to let the filter bacteria catch up.

You might like to invest in a testing kit, which tests for ammonia, nitrIte, nitrAte and ph, a liquid based kit is best and is invaluable in knowing what is going on in your tank, especially if anything starts to go wrong, the first thing you do is check the water quality.

You might like also to read all the pinned topics in the NEW to the hobby section, these can help you understand more about keeping tropical fish, the nitrogen cycle doing weekly water changes as well.

Hope some of that info was helpful, welcome to the hobby