Hi All, Another Newbie

[Modders]

Hi All, I'm Paul and I've recently caught the fish-keeping bug! I bought my nephew a 35l tank and a male betta in January hoping it would stop him from winding-up my puppy. It worked a little, but as I was the one taking care of the tank (and paying for everything) I kinda got into it!
 
Last month I upgraded to a Fluval Roma 240l, which is up and running with live plants and stocked with fish. I didn't want to look at an empty tank for a month so I did some prep by fitting an Eheim 2213 to the 35l for a month, then when I bought the new I transferred half the filter media, bog wood, plants and some sand to the new tank, which worked better than I expected.
 
I've been reading posts on here for a couple of weeks so I thought I'd introduce myself and maybe ask a couple of questions.
 
I've been using aqadvisor.com as a rough guide on stocking levels, but I didn't really give much thought to the fish breeding, so I think I maybe over-stocked a little.
 
I have...
6 False Julii cory
5 White Clouds (finding a new home for these)
9 Platy + 1 fry (only 1 male)
12 Guppy (all male)
19 Neon Tetra
plus snails and shrimp
 
One of the platy gave birth two days after purchasing her but I only found one fry, which is now in a floating breeder. I've also notice some (well two) tiny black fry on the bottom. I managed to catch one earlier today and I'm pretty sure it's a cory. I'm not sure whether there's any more as I only noticed them when they came off the gravel to the sand. Can anyone tell me whether I'm overstocked?
 
Ammonia and nitrite levels are always 0 and I do a water change every week when the nitrate is around 10.
 
The second problem, which might sound stupid is, I have lots of plants in there now with not much room between them and I don't know how to use the gravel cleaner without disturbing the plants!
 
Anyway, I'd better leave it at that. If you've read this far, thank you!

 

[LeahMay]

Hello and welcome!!!

Correct me if im wrong but i'm using the following information;
240Litre tank with the following

6 False Julii cory (+2 potential fry)
5 White Clouds 
9 Platy + 1 fry  
12 Guppy
19 Neon Tetra
plus snails and shrimp

With this list i would say you are pushing the very upper limit of your stocking limits, possibly a tiny fraction over stocked (but if the minnows are leaving soon this will be no problem)  though it sounds like you're on top of water changes and so you could easily keep this maintained. 
Not sure about you having all male guppy, i would have had a similar ratio to that of the platy but if it works then there's no problem!

As for the plants, not a silly question at all i spent many water changes trying to carefully vac around the plants with the thinnest nozzle. Now i leave my planted area well alone, many people who have carpets (gravel completely covered in plants, usually moss) will never vac their gravel!!!
In heavier planted aquaria i tend to have my vac at the ready and stir the gravel up between my plants using the other end of my net and catch the debris with the nearby vac!!!

Hope I was of assistance to you!  

 

[Modders]

Hi LeahMay,
 
Thanks for the reply! Yeah I thought that maybe the case. The guppy (should be 11 not 12) were an impulse buy as I made the mistake of taking my nephew to the LFS. He wanted some with black tails and some with yellow so I bought 4 of each. Then I ordered some RCS off ebay, when they arrived there were 3 fry in the container and they turned out to be guppy (all male). I may find new homes for some of them, although they are quite peaceful, the only aggression comes from the 3 fry who attack the adults even though they're less than half the size.
 
I bought 3 sunset platy at the same time as the guppy but one of the females kept hiding from the male and only came out to feed, which is why I bought 6 females last week hoping it would relax her a little.
 
The gravel seems to get very dirty in a week, although I think most of it comes from the bog wood. Its constantly got particles breaking off it so I may replace it and do as you suggest with the net and vac.
 
I'll try to get some photos of it later, hopefully someone will be willing to give me their opinion of the layout etc. I'm constantly moving things around and I'm still not happy with it yet!
 
Thanks again LeahMay, you've been a great help! 

 

 

[Modders]

Oh, one more thing. I thought I'd be fine with the cory because everything I've read says to breed them you place them in a tank on their own and do water changes, replacing with cold water to simulate the rainy season. I also read that they're likely to eat the eggs so didn't think they'd breed in the main tank.
 
The 35l is now a shrimp breeding tank with red cherry, bumble bee and green shrimp. I've put the cory fry I caught yesterday in there, will it be OK?  I put the platy fry in there when I fished it out of the main tank but it looked lost and I wasn't sure if it was eating so I took it out.
 
Managed to get a photo of half the tank, there was too much glare on the rest so I'll try again later.
 

 

[Mamashack]

 to TFF Modders! Lovely tank!!!
Am hoping to get some RCS soon - do they get on ok with the platies? I have platies in my 60L and could do with a decent clean up crew! lol

 

[Modders]

Hey Mamashack,
 
Thank you. Yeah the shrimp are doing fine with the platies. I only added 5 adult shrimp to the main tank just in case, but they're doing really well and they're actually breeding in there. Not sure how many young they've had but they're growing rather quickly, faster than the ones in the breeding tank for some reason!
 
The adults move around in the open and the platy don't pay any attention to them. Provide plenty of hiding places until they've settled in and I think you'll be fine. 

 

[Mamashack]

Thanks Modders got lots of hiding places for the platy fry so hopefully they'd be ok. Have bid on some RCS on Ebay so am hoping I will have some soon!

 

[Modders]

Great stuff Mamashack. they can actually be very entertaining as well as excellent cleaners. If you don't have any luck on ebay I could let you have some young ones for the price of postage. i hope I'm not breaking any rules by saying that?

 

[Mamashack]

Not sure, but I'm sure a mod will say so if it is. The ones I've bid on are local to me so I could collect them and the auction runs out in a couple of days, but if I fail on that bid I'll get in touch again if that's ok.

 

[Modders]

No problem