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jamesmacc

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morning guys and girls. im james and im new to fish keeping and this forum.im trying to learn as much as i can before my tank arrives next week. im building a new house and im having a 50x18x26 tank mounted flush into the wall. i plan to have it as a comunity tank with tetra's etc, i realy had my heart set on a few clown loaches and zebra loach but not sure if they will mix well with small fish.
now i have introduced myself im going to post up a quick question in the corect section for what bulbs will be best in my t5 lighting unit for a tank with a few easy to keep plants.
thanks, james
 
Hi James and congrats on finding this place before you actually bought a fish tank!

Firstly, please read about cycling before you proceed any further. Because of the size of the tank, a silent cycle might be your best option, as it would be a pain to fish-less cycle something that big.. ask me to elaborate closer to the time, if you are interested. If you go for fish-less, it would be great if you could try out a theory of mine (about the amount of ammonia to be dosed) as well ;)

Secondly, that is an excellent size, if you can get the tank in any longer or wider front to back, that would be even better, of course :)

Zebra loaches should be fine, although clown loaches grow too large to spend their whole life in a tank that size. The tank will hold about 340 litres, when full, so final stocking along the lines of..
* 15-20 zebra loaches
* 30-40 tetras or rasboras, of one or two species
* 5-6 gouramis of one species (Trichogaster trichopterus or Trichogaster leeri, for example) or 6 keyhole cichlids
..would work well. I recommend the zebra loaches, rasboras and gouramis because then all your fish will be from one part of the world.

You should aim to have sand for the loaches, for example play sand is quite nice.
 
Hi James and congrats on finding this place before you actually bought a fish tank!

Firstly, please read about cycling before you proceed any further. Because of the size of the tank, a silent cycle might be your best option, as it would be a pain to fish-less cycle something that big.. ask me to elaborate closer to the time, if you are interested. If you go for fish-less, it would be great if you could try out a theory of mine (about the amount of ammonia to be dosed) as well ;)

Secondly, that is an excellent size, if you can get the tank in any longer or wider front to back, that would be even better, of course :)

Zebra loaches should be fine, although clown loaches grow too large to spend their whole life in a tank that size. The tank will hold about 340 litres, when full, so final stocking along the lines of..
* 15-20 zebra loaches
* 30-40 tetras or rasboras, of one or two species
* 5-6 gouramis of one species (Trichogaster trichopterus or Trichogaster leeri, for example) or 6 keyhole cichlids
..would work well. I recommend the zebra loaches, rasboras and gouramis because then all your fish will be from one part of the world.

You should aim to have sand for the loaches, for example play sand is quite nice.

hi and thanks for the reply, i started doing my research about 10 weeks ago and then had the tank made, im in no rush to put fish in so i will learn as much as possible to make sure i have the right fish and that i will be able to keep them happy. i seen a photo of a blue rainbow fish that looked stunning, i will do a goodle image search of the gouramis too see what ones i would like, i have bought 100kg of play sand from b&Q so hopefully that will be enough. i have never heard of a silent cycle, if i do go with a fishless cycle then i would be happy to test your theory for you.
james
 
Hello and welcome to the forum. As kittykat said, clown loach would grow too big for your tank.

Gouramis are great fish! :good:
 
i bought a tropical fish book and read it 3 times over and i wrote down every fish i liked and what hardness and ph of water they needed to see if they were compatable and were not aggresive fish. i guess its best to ask you people with experience what is the best fish for me to keep rather than going from a book with just facts.
james
 
100 kg of play sand should be more than enough! I think something like 70 kg will give you a 10 cm substrate bed throughout, which is nice.

Blue rainbows.. you're probably talking about one of the Melanotaenia species? "Home of the rainbowfish" is probably the best resource I know of for rainbows. By the way, I have only rarely seen good aquarium related books, three of the best ones I can recommend are "Ecology of the planted aquarium", "Aquarium Atlas" series and "AquaLog" series. The first explains how some things inside an aquarium work, the later two are species references.

The rainbows would also work very well in a tank that size instead of the tetras or rasboras.. I say instead, because all of these mid-water fish are schoolers, which live in groups of 100s to 10000s in the wild and do better in larger groups in home aquaria. It is possible to have more than one species, but I recommend two mid-water schooler species as the maximum as in an aquarium that size, you should be aiming to have at least 15 fish per species.
 
thanks for the advise. clown loach is now off the list, i dont intend to get a bigger tank for a long time so i want to stock it with fish that will be happy in it, i think nearer the time i will maybe do a picture request of everyones fairly easy to manage fish and see what i like, the trouble is when some one tells me a fish's name im a novice and cant think what it looks like, other than the wee tetra's that i always see in pets at home.
james
 
That's what search engines are for :) If you use scientific names, I expect you'll get reliable results most of the time. Also, that's why the rainbowfish resource I suggested is good, there are photos for every or almost every species there… also keep in mind that the wee tetras can grow into big tetras with time and care ;)
 
kittykat could you please explain to me about a silent cycle, i did a quick search and it only came up with wee bits here and there
thanks, james
 
kittykat could you please explain to me about a silent cycle, i did a quick search and it only came up with wee bits here and there
It is generally not for beginners, because it can result in a fish-in cycle, but if you are careful and in a tank that large, you should not have any problems with one. This method relies on the plants helping with the ammonia until the filter can take over, so only works if one heavily plants from the start.

In short, heavily plant the tank, then add six 1 inch fish (for example 6 baby rainbows). The plants will use up any ammonium and they should also help introduce bacteria for the filter. If you can, also seed the filter. You should be feeding very little at this point because you will have only 6, very small fish.

About 3 weeks later, add another 2 small fish. 2 weeks later, another 2. After 8-12 weeks since the first fish, you can start adding 2 per week.

In short, you start with a planted tank and gradually add fish to it. It *only* works with the plants, otherwise it's a fish-in cycle which is a lot of work and not nice on the fish. Daily testing with a liquid test kit is a must, of course.

If you don't feel confident with going planted from the start, then you would be better off doing a fish-less cycle.
 
kittykat could you please explain to me about a silent cycle, i did a quick search and it only came up with wee bits here and there
It is generally not for beginners, because it can result in a fish-in cycle, but if you are careful and in a tank that large, you should not have any problems with one. This method relies on the plants helping with the ammonia until the filter can take over, so only works if one heavily plants from the start.

In short, heavily plant the tank, then add six 1 inch fish (for example 6 baby rainbows). The plants will use up any ammonium and they should also help introduce bacteria for the filter. If you can, also seed the filter. You should be feeding very little at this point because you will have only 6, very small fish.

About 3 weeks later, add another 2 small fish. 2 weeks later, another 2. After 8-12 weeks since the first fish, you can start adding 2 per week.

In short, you start with a planted tank and gradually add fish to it. It *only* works with the plants, otherwise it's a fish-in cycle which is a lot of work and not nice on the fish. Daily testing with a liquid test kit is a must, of course.

If you don't feel confident with going planted from the start, then you would be better off doing a fish-less cycle.

thats makes sence, i would like quite a heavily planted tank but i dont have a clue about what plants to get or how to look after them properly, i know some people use a d.i.y co2 kit injects it into the tank. am i best to go fish-less and then add some plants as i get to know about them, or could i quite easily go on peoples advise and take it from there. the other problem is my local pets at home is a 6 hour return journey, so adding 2 fish every week or so would prove very expensive.
james
 
Erm, personally, I would not recommend you get your fish from P@H, try to find a different LFS. From at least that point of view, fish-less is a much better idea. I assume you're somewhere in Scotland? Your best option may even be to order them online, as you are more likely to get the wide range of species which is normally available.

As I said, I don't think you will have a problem in a tank that size, even if it doesn't work out quite as planned. Generally, most undemanding plants will work well with your tank as it is now (two full length T5s over 2 ft deep water, I think you said?). Here's a list of some: http://www.tropica.com/plants/difficulty/easy.aspx

I personally don't use CO[sub]2[/sub] or fertilisers, but I don't see how using both would be a problem. The only one I do foresee is that some fertilisers are ammonium based, which can give a false ammonia reading with many test kits, which is far from ideal for a first tank.
 
my nearest one after pets at home that i know of is the falkirk aquarium in the central belt of scotland, its a nice shop and the guy realy seems to look after the fish and knows quite abit from what i hear, falkirk is a 500 mile round trip for me but i have family there that i can visit. i have seen loads of lovely fish for sale on ebay that i could have delivered to my door, delivery is quite expensive so it would be best to order quite a few at a time, but then i dont want to load my tank up too fast and cause stress to the fish or raise amonia. decisions decisions, what to do :) atleast i have a few weeks before it will be fully fitted
 
I'd be weary of ordering off eBay, but I have always had good experiences with Trimar (and the shop was quite nice, the only time I actually visited). A large consideration of fish-less cycling is that one can stock 50-100% of the fish immediately.

Have you looked for LFS at PFK and Think Fish? Also, ask FBAS for your closest club: I used to organise combined orders with mine, so that I only paid a fraction of the delivery cost from online retailers.
 

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