Hey! Cycling 75 Gallon Tank!

[xxCrysDawn]

Hello everyone! So we just moved and very sadly our poor Koi fish did not make it. I suppose the stress was too much though we tried to make it as stress free as possible. Our new landlords were very helpful in the situation but we failed our Koi.

To begin our fish history, As beginners to having fish we made a mistake by purchasing 3 Koi fish to be kept in our 75 gallon tank. The mistake being Koi are typically kept in ponds; however, we made it work and over the last 7-8 months we watched our Koi grow and frankly fell in love with them. Since they are normally kept in ponds we had to do a lot of extra maintenance but it was worth it. Through the months we also had purchased a dwarf algae Eater ( apologies their name escaped me ) and 4 snails.
Thankfully our new and old landlords allotted us time to get the tank moved and set up so that the tank could get ready for the fish again. My mom allowed us to keep our Koi in her little fish pond. Once the tank was ready we moved our Koi back in and everything seemed okay enough. They chose the remain at the bottom hidden in all the fake plants. The next morning we woke up and my husband went to check on them and found all three dead.

Now we are fishless (except the algae Eater and our snails). We are hoping to get more fish but are unsure of exactly what we want. We have researched the discus fish and love it's beauty but because if the temp of water it requires not too many other fish are comfy in that degree. So any ideas or suggestions?
Sorry if this seemed too long

 

[Ninjouzata]

to TFF! Hope you enjoy yourself here.
 
I'm really sorry your kois died. I would not advise getting any more because as you say they are pond fish and unfortunately a 75g just isn't big enough. I bet they were beautiful!
 
Your algae eater, is it a plecostomus? If so, is it a bristlenose? If not you may want to post a pic so someone can ID it for you and make sure it won't outgrow the tank or have compatibility issues with future fish.
You can post a picture by going to 'More Reply Options' at the bottom and attaching file or you can upload the pictures to a photo sharing website such as photobucket and link them there.
 
When you moved, did you keep the filter media? Just wanting to check.
 
I don't really know much about Discus except like you say they like very warm, clean water.
There are fish that can go with them though, perhaps have a look through the journals on here and find the ones with Discus and see what people have put with them.
 
I personally don't like Discus so my recommendation would be go to go with Angelfish. It's really up to you though.
Or you can do lots of smaller fish like rams, apistogrammas, peacock gudgeons along with cories, tetras, and rasboras.
 
Or..if you still want to do cold water fish, perhaps look into fancy goldfish?
 
Sorry for the long reply

 

[CSnyder00]

Rams and dither fish are good tank mates for discus. The tank should be heavily planted with taller plants. They love hiding in the taller plants.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Agree with the above, just make sure the other fish can handle the higher temps the discus require.

 

[xxCrysDawn]

Thank you Ninjouzata and yes they were beautiful . This is my lil guy, I want to say plecostomus but not entirely sure.

Yes we did keep our filter media were we correct in doing so or is that where we went wrong?

My husband has a particular interest in angelfish. He also said maybe glofish? Personally I don't like the glofish. As for goldfish I'm not too interested in those either.


Thank you CSnyder00 and eaglesaquarium. This may sound like a ridiculous question but how can I grow plants for an aquarium? I've never done it and honestly hadn't thought of it until I got on this site and scrolled through the top tanks forum. The tanks I saw were gorgeous! I would love to learn how to do that!

 

[xxCrysDawn]

Sorry I guess pic is too large tried resizing it on a couple things Instagram photo pro and photo collage but still too large. I will have to try again later.

 

[Ninjouzata]

Have you tried uploading it to something like photobucket and linking here? You can use photobucket to resize it too.
 
You were correct to keep your filter media, I just wanted to check that you did.

 
I don't personally like glofish either as their natural colors are much more beautiful.
Does he know they're genetically altered to look like that? It doesn't harm them AFAIK it's just unnatural. There are some colored fish though that are dyed and those are awful, would never support those.
 
The three most commonly sold glofish are zebra danios, skirt tetras, and tiger barbs, I think.
The only ones that I would suggest putting with the angels (or other tropical fish) are the skirt tetras as the barbs can be quite nippy and the zebra danios prefer more temperate water.
 
Plants, to start out you may want to do low light hardy ones such as..
 
Planted: Amazon sword, cryptocorynes, certain aponogetons, water sprite (can also float)
Attach to driftwood/rock: Anubias, java fern, bolbitis, java moss
Floating: Anacharis/Elodea (can also be planted), hornwort, dwarf water lettuce
 
There are more that I'm not thinking of right now. What is your lighting like?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I'd disagree on putting skirt tetras with angels as well, they too can be quite nippy - not to the same extent as tiger barbs, but are one of the nippier tetras.