Help Setting My New Tank

[symon_say]

Hi

I have been learning a lot in the past month about fishes and fish tanks, and now i'm ready to start this, i'll be getting a 55 gls aqueon deluxe kit, it comes with filter, heater, thermometer, and a some other accessories, i'll be getting another filter cause i prefer to have more filtration, i bought the test kit, the decor of the tank will be with fake plants, but will have driftwoods half of the tank will be heavily planted and the other half will be open water with a bunch of rocks and small hidding spots.

I'll overstock the tank by about 10-20%, but the stock will be added in a 6-12 month period i'm trying to make a calender with the dates of fish adding, i'll cycle with fish, the tank will be a community tank with small fishes, the specied i want are:

- Neon tetra
- Red wag platy
- Glo fish
- Bronze cory
- Female betta
- Guppy

Not sure about bettas and guppies together, but this up to discussion yet, and both species will be added in the basis of the individual fish i like, given than guppies and bettas differ from one fish to another.

Now the question:

- Suggest me some filters, i was thinking about aqua clear 70, but i'm open to any other brand??
- Witch of those species is better to cycle the tank?? (i have read that corys are good for this)
- In what order should i put the fishes in??
- How much time between one species and the other??

 

[AstonN24vantage]

i have an aquaclear 70, kinda loud, works ok. if your willing to spend a little more money i would get a fluval 305 canister.
i would reccomend a fishless cycle, i've never done one, but everyone here will tell you to. if you want to add fish immediately, i would reccomend a neon tetra, but life expectancy will drop.
i would give atleast a week or so (i go to the LFS every weekend with my dad) between getting fish, and i would only get 1-4 at a time, don't stock your whole tank in a single trip.

 

[TiffanyJayne]

Personally i have always done fish-in cycles, it's a personal prefrence.
But for this you want to go to your LFS and pick the cheapest fish off your list, because 9/10 times you lose one if not all of them (i did with my first tank but haven't since) so you could go for the betta but that'd be a good £5 down the drain, but if the cheapest is also the smallest your cycle would take longer because there is only so much waste a few tiny fish can produce.

If your getting male and female platys/guppies i wouldn't bother overstocking you'll have 50 babies in a few weeks after setting it up anyway.

There are certain fish on your list i wouldn't mix together or buy at all so i can't give an answer on which to put in which order.

I would personally recommend at least 2 weeks for every 4 fish.

Good luck.

 

[symon_say]

Thanks, that's why i'm asking about, i know aqua clear are good filters, but i want something as quiet as possible. I won't do the fishless cycle, but i'll let the tank run for a week or two before adding any fish, and then i'll put some fishes in to start the cycle, and won't add any fish until the cycle is complete.

For the rest of the fish they will be put in after the cycle is complete and one specie at the time, then wait until the cycle is restore again.

Personally i have always done fish-in cycles, it's a personal prefrence.
But for this you want to go to your LFS and pick the cheapest fish off your list, because 9/10 times you lose one if not all of them (i did with my first tank but haven't since) so you could go for the betta but that'd be a good £5 down the drain, but if the cheapest is also the smallest your cycle would take longer because there is only so much waste a few tiny fish can produce.

If your getting male and female platys/guppies i wouldn't bother overstocking you'll have 50 babies in a few weeks after setting it up anyway.

There are certain fish on your list i wouldn't mix together or buy at all so i can't give an answer on which to put in which order.

I would personally recommend at least 2 weeks for every 4 fish.

Good luck.

What fish you would mix or buy, and why

 

[AstonN24vantage]

Personally i have always done fish-in cycles, it's a personal prefrence.
But for this you want to go to your LFS and pick the cheapest fish off your list, because 9/10 times you lose one if not all of them (i did with my first tank but haven't since) so you could go for the betta but that'd be a good £5 down the drain, but if the cheapest is also the smallest your cycle would take longer because there is only so much waste a few tiny fish can produce.

If your getting male and female platys/guppies i wouldn't bother overstocking you'll have 50 babies in a few weeks after setting it up anyway.

There are certain fish on your list i wouldn't mix together or buy at all so i can't give an answer on which to put in which order.

I would personally recommend at least 2 weeks for every 4 fish.

Good luck.

maybe one of those whisper filters, i have one for my turtles but im not sure they make one for a 55g. i guess the aquaclear works, but its LOUD!

 

[TiffanyJayne]

I wouldn't mix a guppy with a betta....in my experience if the guppy is too pretty it's asking for trouble and i don't agree with glo fish but that's just me if you like them then please don't let me put you off.

I'd rather go for pair of dwarf gourami's as a 'centre peice' than bother with either guppy or betta or even a pretty plec like a gold nugget or a snowball again personal prefrence, i couldn't make my mind up so bought 30 tanks to make sure i had one of everything i wanted lol

Good luck.

 

[symon_say]

Jajajajajajajajaja, i don't have the space to put more tanks right now, that's why i'm getting the biggest i can put, about betta and guppys, if i have to chose i'll get bettas i have always like then.

Another problem i have is the fish supply here, some fish are really hard to get, and about the glo fish, i know a lot of people disagree with then about the way they were created, but if you see deeply enough most of the fish we can get at LFS are almost the same, they are far away from their wild versions.

I'll love that someone can take the aggressive gem of male bettas that way i can have a tank full of male bettas that should be the ultimate freshwater entertainment

But then again i'm open to suggestions that's why i'm here, i have to keep looking for fish yet, to see what else i can get. And dwarf gourami is a pretty fish that i'm starting to consider now.

 

[moochy13]

unless youre putting ammonia or fish food in the tank while youre letting it sit for couple of weeks, it wont make a blind bit of difference. assuming your idea is to let the tank get a headstart, without putting something in to replicate fish waste (ammonia/fish food), your filter will be the same as when you brought it.

dont cycle with neons like somebody else mentioned, people only suggest puttng them in a tank thats been running healthy for 6 months, as they're not overly hardy. putting them in an uncycled tank is a death warrant for your fish.

99% of the time, you can only have 1 male betta. and generally theyre kept on their own in small tanks as the flowing fins make great targets for nippy fish. im not sure but i think you realise this. dunno bout glofish, aren't they danio derived ? danios are suggested for cycling as they can put up with a lot of hassle. i did a fish in cycle with 2 red eye tetra and a small angel fish, as setting the tank up was an emergency to remove the angel from another tank. those fish are all still alive.

 

[symon_say]

Thanks, i will drop some food to help producing some ammonia in the first weeks were the tank wil be fishless, the neon are one of the last fish i'll add, and bettas are only female, cause male is a lot of problem generally.

Glofish is a mutant danio, i can use the glofish to cycle the tank, how many will be a good number to do this and don't affect then too much??? (tank is gonna be 55 US gallons)

I'm gonna have about 10 glofish but don't know if this is to much to start...

 

[simonas]

was going to suggest danios to cycle with as well thats what I have always used

I wouldn;t be so scientific with everything but just remember that the tanks are generally successful if you add slowly, don;t feed too much and make regular water changes.

As time goes by you;ll get a feel for how well your tank is doing. Just don;t fall into the trap of stocking too quickly.. everyone I know who buys a tank falls into that trap and they lose so many fish. This surely must dampen the enthusiasm and endanger the long term enjoyment

 

[symon_say]

I have already been in that trap, the last unsuccessful tank i had was a small 3 gallons tank, and i put in 2 goldfish and a common pleco, about 10 goldfish and the pleco later, a frustrated noob (me), 8 years, and lot of reading lately i know what i was doing wrong, this time i'm not even asking to my friends with tanks, cause must of then have never read a book about fish i have read 3 already, this time i'll do it right and my fish will be happy and healthy.

That's why i'm here learning from you people, i know most of you have really nice fish tanks and i'm really excited about this new project. I'll try to do a photo log of the complete project so noob can see it a help some other like you are doing with me.

 

[waterdrop]

I think of fish as just the delightful finishing touch you add to a successfully cycled tank. As a student of freshwater fishkeeping, success comes when you understand how to keep good water. The innocent, colorful fish added to your pristine accomplishment are the reward, in my book.

I started keeping freshwater fish in the late 1950's and 1960's and have done my hundreds of fish-in cycles. Fish-In cycles give poor feedback about how the cycle is progressing and in my opinion are a poor learning tool for a beginner. I just don't do them anymore. I want to be part of the new methodology that is slowly making it's way across the hobby since the 1980's, called Fishless Cycling.

Fishless Cycling gives you dramatic and direct hands-on experience with what a biofilter is really all about in a way most beginners will never forget and in a way which will help them apply this crucial skill (biofilters are such a core aspect of becoming an experienced fishkeeper) more flexibly in problem situations. During a Fish-In cycle you focus on what it takes to grow the two specific species of chemolithoautotrophic bacteria (Nitrosomonas spp. (the "A-Bacs") and Nitrospira spp. (the "N-Bacs")) and you learn how to know when they are there and not there and to what extent. By contrast, in a fish-in situation, you get little feedback about your bacteria because you are so busy trying to keep the poor subjects alive and you have no idea to what extent their gills have received permanent damage from the ammonia or their nerves and blood cells from the ntrite(NO2).

The time period for cycle tries nearly everyone's patience, but when the time is spent learning other startup knowledge, more about hardwater and especially in the black art of creating a good stocking plan, the timing is really usually about right for many beginners.

Regardless, a good liquid-reagent based test kit will be about the most important initial piece of equipment for learning. Most of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit, but there are others that can work too.

Just my 2 cents,
~~waterdrop~~

 

[symon_say]

Thanks for that advice, i already have the API freshwater test kit, i bought as soon as i knew about it, i was set on the fish-In cycle, but i'm learning and all advice are welcome.

 

[symon_say]

What about the filter, i don't trus much on the filter that comes in the kit, is rated for 55 gallons with 325GPH,
- should i get another filter to add to the one that comes with the kit??
- Should i get 1 bigger filter??
- what filter should i get??

 

[waterdrop]

A common problem with many kit filters is that a lot of the design of the filter is intent not on solving the major problems of filtration but on locking you in to a system of little filter materials that are fixed on to plastic frames or other devices so that you feel locked in to buying your replacement media only from the original manufacturer. In other words, they are more focused on making money. This is not always true, just something to look for and a lot of times beginners don't quite what to look for yet. Filtration is a rather big topic (and other members will probably be better help as I have a problem getting too detailed .)

Perhaps the most fundamental filter parameter is not flow rate but media volume. How big is the box, in other words. Eventually one day, most intermediate hobbyists have a moment when the light bulb goes on and they realize that most little filters are just that, little! And the filters in the gear pictures occasionally seen on forums can be, well, huge! Then later, as they advance more, they might run across a discussion of how some very experienced aquarists can get by just fine with little filters. How confusing! In the end it just takes time and some personal experience after you've just jumped in and done it. A bigger volume does buy you some extra leeway, particularly for missed cleanings, as it can hold more debris (not that you'd want to do this!)

325g/h would put your 55 US gallon tank somewhat above 5 complete turnovers per hour (what we'd term "5x turnover" as the shorthand way we dicuss it) and that would be good, since real turnover is never as good as the numbers they give you. People use all sorts of combos on a 55G. Some use 2 HOBs, some use an HOB and an EC, some use two small ECs and many use one large EC. You can do searches in the hardware section for many, many huge dicussion threads of the features, pros and cons of different filters.

Another basic thing is to plan to leave the carbon (aka activated charcoal) -out- of the filter. It is a chemical media and best left for special needs. It should be replaced with more biological media.

~~waterdrop~~