Hi, And Some Help/advice

[twiki]

Hello - 1st time poster, relative new fish keeper!

I currently have a 60L tank - and it's been running for 3 years. It's currently got 2 angels and 2 Bolivian ram. They are all happy as larry, although now they've all grown up they need more space!

So I've been looking to get them a new home and hopefully some new playmates.

I've decided on something c.200L/55 US Gallons - either a Fluval Roma or Aqua One Evo 100. I'll be getting it this weekend.

So... big questions

I currently don't have live plants - but in the new one would prefer proper plants - but having never had live plants I'm blissfully unaware of what would be best. I'm guessing something to keep with the South American feel?

Once planted and cycled, is it best to just add my old fish to the tank together? I'm guessing these 4 in a big tank should be fine?

Then the next question - what fish can I add to the tank along with my angles and rams? Any real good fellows they'll get along with, any which will be a total clash of personalities or will pretty much anything be OK provided they're big enough to survive what have turned into pretty ravenous and gutsy angels!?

 

[Colin_T]

If you want live plants then you should check the tanks and see how many light globes they can hold. If they only have one light fitting then you will be limited to the plants you can keep. Two globes is better and three or four globes is better again. However, more light globes will cost more and not necessarily make much difference to the plants unless you add lots of fertiliser to feed them. Most good tanks will come with a double light unit to hold 2 globes that run the full length of the tank. These are generally fine.
If you can get a light unit that holds high output T5 globes then you will get more light from that compared to normal T8 fluoros.

If you have an established power filter on the 60litre tank, you can simply set up the new tank with fresh water, plants & conditioner. Then run the tank for a day or two. After that you can move the fish and filter from the old tank straight into the new tank and you have an instant tank. The filter will continue running and keep the water clean. If you have another filter on the new tank, that can be run as well and over time it will develop some beneficial bacteria.

The 2 angels and 2 Bolivian rams will be fine in a bigger tank.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with all of Colin's advice there. Both of your current species will appreciate the additional space. The angels in particular need at least 17" of height in a tank and no doubt the 55 will give you that.

Your current filter by now has grown colonies of the two beneficial bacteria species in sizes to balance the load of the 4 fish. When you move that filter to the new tank the correct bacterial load moves along with your fish. After about a month the new filter (if you are getting one) will be seeded and will have probably balanced colonies with the old filter and you could probably remove the old filter without mini-spikes in ammonia and nitrite(NO2.) Or you could take media from the old one and tranfer some of it to the new one to help things. After its clear the new one is now handling the new load you could begin adding, say, 2 or 3 fish at a time, depending on size.

Think about using one of the new enriched substrates like eco-complete or flourite or one of the fancy ones that goes underneath a sand or gravel top. An enriched substrate helps the plants along at times when your water column fertilizer dosing fails. Plants can seem complicated as there are a number of approaches to take but they are well worth the effort and you can have modest success without too much overkill. The skills to focus on might be divided up into light, fertilization, CO2 (because its the most difficult nutrient) and algae. You can read pinned articles in the planted section.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there and welcome,

great news that you're getting a nice big tank, your angels will certainly appreciate it and all the advice about moving the existing filter is spot on

on the plant front, i don't profess to be a planted tank expert but one of the things I have picked up is it is far easier to set up a new tank for good plant growth than to try and convert one, so I would do some serious reading into keeping plants alive before you buy the new tank and everything with it, then you can tailor make the set up to the plants that you want to keep and the whole process will be much much easier. If you hop over to the planted tank section of the forum you'll find lots of helpful pinned topics there

Fish wise both angels and rams are really lovely feature fish, I would complement them with a large group of shoaling fish and a large group of corydoras, another tip I've found is if you stick to just a few species but have much bigger groups of them teh overall asthetic effect is much more pleasing and dramatic than if you get the minimum shoal numbers of more species.

I'd think about a large group of cardinal tetras or if you want something a bit larger a group of melatonia praecox. The blue stands out brilliantly against the lush green of live plants and as such makes a big impact visually. They are also compatible with the angels and rams.

You could also look to a group of otto's or a bristlenose plec or two firstly because they are great little fish but they will also help with algae control.

Really all you should avoid is anything territorial (as both angels and rams can be so putting more territorial fish into the mix is a bit much) or anything particularly nippy which will go for the angels long fins. Rams can be sensitive to water quality so avoid any heavy waste producers like large plecs or large cichlids.

Other than that stocking is really very subjective as we all have different tastes so it's best to just pick some species that you like personally and post them up here, we'll then advise if they are compatible or not and explain why.

 

[twiki]

Thanks for the replies people - much appreciated and I will look into the fish suggestion Miss Wiggle.

The glaring omission in the first post was the fact the current tank is a BiOrb (Please don't mock me, it was a present and treated me very well for the years I've had it!) and as such doesn't use a "normal" filter. I've been doing a bit of research and it seems I can transfer some of the ceramic media from this into the new filter to speed up a fishless cycle?

Re the planted aquarium - I'll get reading this week and make some decisions - maybe getting used to 101 new things isn't the best idea, not sure yet - I was kinda hoping I'd be OK just chucking some plants in! (I kept a live plant very well in the BiOrb belive it or not when I was keeping tiger barbs)

I have decided on the Aqua One Evo 100 though, but will probably upgrade the filter stright away for the 1250, as this has 3 areas for media, so hopefully I can use 1 of them to house some of my current BiOrb Media.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Right OK, that makes things a little bit trickier, because if you take the media out of the existing tank and put it into the new one and do a fishless cycle then the existing tank will effectively be without a filter for the 6 weeks or so that it takes to do a fishless cycle.

so you've a few choices

1 - only take a very small amount of the media from the bi-orb which will leave enough to give filtration in your existing tank, it will hopefully kick start the fishless cycle but because it's not a huge amount it might not have a big impact on the cycle time.

2 - move all the media over to the new tank and move the fish the same day, because you have enough existing bacteria to support the bio load that you have the new tank should be instantly cycled, however because the new filter will be using the media differently to how the bi-orb used it I'd say this is a little bit risky and you may find yourself with some fish-in cycling to do.

Because of this I'd go with option 1, it puts maybe a few more weeks onto the transfer time but really i think it's worth it to mitigate the risks of fish in cycling.

 

[twiki]

Miss Wiggle - Yes I agree, it was always my original thinking anyway. I have quite a lot of media in the BiOrb so i should be able to spare some without too many issues. If it speeds things up, great - if it doesn't then I figure it's no real loss either. I'm in no major hurry (apart from having a new toy and needing to play!) to transfer the fish so shouldn't be an issue.

I now just have to break the news to the OH that the dining table will have to go to make room for the new tank!