Hi, My Name Is Jen And I'm A Fishaholic

[thrujenseyes]

Just saying hi and introducing myself.
 
My name is Jen and I just purchased a little fluval edge 6 gallon with a couple live plants and a nice piece of driftwood.  
A cute little assassin snail must have stowed away in a plant because he's the sole inhabiter of my little aquarium.
 
I'm cycling and wondering what to put in it once everything is set.
 
I was considering a few little boraras brigittae, anyone have any experience with them?!
 
 
Years ago I had a large cichlid tank and it was my passion.  I took it all down when I moved and had no room for it here.  I've missed not having a tank desperately and figured this little guy can get me back some of my fishie love.
 
Can't wait to hear from you
 
 

 

[LyraGuppi]

 
Hi Jen! Welcome to TFF.
 
I have no experience with mosquito rasboras, but someone else on here may. What are the dimensions of the tank?

 

[thrujenseyes]

Hi LyraGuppi!
 
I'm not sold on these yet, it's just a thought.  I know I have to keep teeny fish and only a couple and maybe a shrimp or two.
I've tried a couple of times to post a pic of the tank but it won't let me.
It also won't let me add a profile pic...so for now I'm a weird faceless man.  
 
6-Gallon Fluval Edge
Filtration: 100 gph 3-stage mechanical, chemical and biological filtration.
Lighting: 21 LED lighting system (7600K high-luminosity LEDs with 18 White LEDS and 3 Blue LEDs).
Capacity: 6 gallons.
Dimensions: Total dimension measures 16.875" x 10.25" x 14.5" high. The Fluval Edge aquarium measures 16.875" x 10.25" x 8.75" high.

 

[gmc1]

Hi.welcome.great forum

 

[Akasha72]

hi and 

 

[fluttermoth]

You should find out the hardness of your water before you decide on stocking
 
You're right, you do need to stock these little tanks very carefully, and they can be hard working keeping the water stable, but you can do some nice things with them; my teenage son ran an Edge in his bedroom for three or four years, very successfully

 

[NickAu]

Hi and welcome.
 

 
A cute little assassin snail must have stowed away in a plant because he's the sole inhabiter of my little aquarium

Please remember to feed the assassin snail

 

[thrujenseyes]

Thanks for the welcomes!

I will def bring water samples of the tank and faucet when I go back to the fish store.

Oh...nickau, what do I fest the assassin?!

 

[Munroco]

they will eat fish food. pellets that drop to the bottom are easiest for them to find. I started with one assasin, now if have loads

 

[thrujenseyes]

I'll def get some pellets!
Another question... The people at the pet store told me I didn't need to add anything to the tank until I'm ready to add fish..?? Is that true? I do have three plants and of course my stow away assassin. No heater yet either, I was thinking of getting the fluval edge 25 watt

 

[fluttermoth]

On this forum, we always recommend a 'fishless cycle' before adding fish. This involves adding a source of ammonia to the tank for a few weeks, so that you have a colony of bacteria living in the filter ready to eat the fish's wastes and stop the water turning toxic.
 
If you're not adding anything to your tank, then you are not cycling; you're just wasting electricity running an empty tank!
 
There is loads of information on how to do a fishless cycle in our 'Cycle Your Tank' sub-forum, here; http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/forum/291-cycle-your-tank/
 
People in fish shops very, very rarely recommend this, as they are; scared it'll put people off the hobby, or that they'll lose sales to another shop if they refuse to sell fish or even, more cynically, that's it's more money for them if you're buying medicines and replacement fish

 

[Ch4rlie]

Hello and

 
A fluval edge is a neat little tank once you get to know what it is like for maintenace and access. I had one running for a while
 
And very correct, there are limited stocking options for this little tank, though chili barbs would be a decent choice, this is providing on your water parameters being suitable.
 
As fluttermoth already mentioned finding out the hardness / softness (gH as well as kH) of your water will help determine what would be suitable, ph will help as well.
You can test for these if you have the test kit, I would recommend you do get a test kit for at least ph, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate as pretty essential for cycling tanks. API freshwater master test kit is a popular choice amongst members of this forum .
Or you could take a sample of tank water to your LFS and ask them to test everything for you.
 
A free assassin snail is cool I am a fan of these, they will eradicate any pest snails you may get, but they can happily feed on leftover fish food as well as algae wafers (my assassins LOVE algae wafers) so they should be perfectly fine in that regard. They do breed but much slower than common / pest snails, though this depends if your snail is male or female obviously, impossible to tell imo until you see one of them laying eggs

 

[thrujenseyes]

On this forum, we always recommend a 'fishless cycle' before adding fish. This involves adding a source of ammonia to the tank for a few weeks, so that you have a colony of bacteria living in the filter ready to eat the fish's wastes and stop the water turning toxic.
 
If you're not adding anything to your tank, then you are not cycling; you're just wasting electricity running an empty tank!
 
There is loads of information on how to do a fishless cycle in our 'Cycle Your Tank' sub-forum, here; http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/forum/291-cycle-your-tank/
 
People in fish shops very, very rarely recommend this, as they are; scared it'll put people off the hobby, or that they'll lose sales to another shop if they refuse to sell fish or even, more cynically, that's it's more money for them if you're buying medicines and replacement fish

I did add something called "prime" just because I remembered from years before I needed something in there! But as mentioned I had a surprise assassin snail and also a few plants so I'm assuming I need to keep it all running to maintain these.

Oh and ch4rlie I will read all about cycling. I remember it confusing me a Lon time ago and it still does now.

 

[fluttermoth]

Prime is just a dechlorinator; definitely needed, for all water going into your tank, but won't help with a cycle.
 
Cycling is really not that confusing; let me see if I can explain it simply...
 
Fish excrete ammonia. Ammonia is toxic and will make fish very sick, or even kill them.
 
There are some bacteria that eat ammonia and turn it into nitrite. Nitrite is also toxic to fish. Luckily for us, there is another family of bacteria that eat nitrite and turn it into nitrate. Nitrate is only toxic to fish at relatively high levels.
 
'Cycling' just means growing a colony of those two families of bacteria in your filter.
 
Obviously, you can't grow any of those bacteria if there is no ammonia in the tank for them to eat.
 
In a 'fish-in' cycle, you add fish to the tank and let them produce the ammonia. The trouble with this is that, because you're still waiting for the bacteria to grow, the ammonia levels keep on getting higher and higher. To keep it low, you have to do a lot of water changes, and even then, the fish can be exposed to enough ammonia that they can get sick or die.
 
In a 'fishless cycle', you add an artificial source of ammonia (usually from a household cleaning ammonia/water solution) instead of using fish. Chemically it's exactly the same as fish waste, so you can use that to feed the bacteria while they're growing, instead of exposing fish to the toxins.

 

[thrujenseyes]

Prime is just a dechlorinator; definitely needed, for all water going into your tank, but won't help with a cycle.
 
Cycling is really not that confusing; let me see if I can explain it simply...
 
Fish excrete ammonia. Ammonia is toxic and will make fish very sick, or even kill them.
 
There are some bacteria that eat ammonia and turn it into nitrite. Nitrite is also toxic to fish. Luckily for us, there is another family of bacteria that eat nitrite and turn it into nitrate. Nitrate is only toxic to fish at relatively high levels.
 
'Cycling' just means growing a colony of those two families of bacteria in your filter.
 
Obviously, you can't grow any of those bacteria if there is no ammonia in the tank for them to eat.
 
In a 'fish-in' cycle, you add fish to the tank and let them produce the ammonia. The trouble with this is that, because you're still waiting for the bacteria to grow, the ammonia levels keep on getting higher and higher. To keep it low, you have to do a lot of water changes, and even then, the fish can be exposed to enough ammonia that they can get sick or die.
 
In a 'fishless cycle', you add an artificial source of ammonia (usually from a household cleaning ammonia/water solution) instead of using fish. Chemically it's exactly the same as fish waste, so you can use that to feed the bacteria while they're growing, instead of exposing fish to the toxins.

Wow....that was super helpful!  I really appreciate!! 
 
I do remeber doing my old tank years ago they told me to cycle using hardy danio fish. 
That seemed so mean...so I didn't...but it took forever to cycle.
 
And this time I just couldn't remeber what I did 20 years ago! 
 
So household ammonia is chemically the same as fish waste?!  That's so bizzare!!! 
I can/should use this?! 
 
and if so....how much for this set up?
6-Gallon Fluval Edge
Filtration: 100 gph 3-stage mechanical, chemical and biological filtration.
Lighting: 21 LED lighting system (7600K high-luminosity LEDs with 18 White LEDS and 3 Blue LEDs).
Capacity: 6 gallons.
Dimensions: Total dimension measures 16.875" x 10.25" x 14.5" high. The Fluval Edge aquarium measures 16.875" x 10.25" x 8.75" high.
 
sorry for so many questions!!