Kind Of New Tank, And Some Questions...

[MatthewWebb]

Hello everyone, I'm Matthew and am new to the forum hoping to increase my knowledge of the fish keeping hobby.

I am relatively new to the hobby I have had my first fish tank now for about 5 months now, but I still feel really uneasy about the hole thing, and I am not sure if the advice from my local fish store is reliable.

My tank is a juwel rekord 600 (63litres), with live plants and gravel. My stock include:

6 Harlequin rasbora
6 Neon tetra
3 male guppies and 2 females (bad I know)
3 Endler's live-bearers (even worse in combination with above)
1 Pleco (it's one that doesn't grow more than a couple of inches)
and 2 Electric Blue Rams. (These guys I am panicking over, not because they are acting weird, but because of the issue below)

I have a couple of concerns, and any advice will be greatly received.

1) When I got the Endler's, I was unaware that they were like a sub species of guppie and as such would also chase the females about. Because of this, nearly all female guppies I have had have perished due to stress (I originally had more females and 1 other male that also died). This is an issue that persists and I am worried about the remaining 2 females in the tank.

2) I have a funny feeling that my tank is overstocked. The guy at the pet store said I could get 30 fish max for the rekord 600, but I have a funny feeling that the guys at the pet shop are not giving me the best advice.

3) I bought 2 Electric Blue Rams yesterday on the advice that they are more resistant than guppies and are easy to keep (not to mention they are absolutely stunning, however, doing some research I have discovered that they are a variant of the German blue ram (my favourite tropical fish), a fish that I thought was not very easy to keep AT ALL! And are definitely not for beginners like me. Any information on these fish would be greatly appreciated

4) Finally, I have a constant nitrate problem in my tank, always seeming to be at 80ppm. In addition to this, I measured the nitrate in my tap water and that is just under! Is this as big a problem as I am making it?

Sorry if there is a lot of writing above; I am new to the forum and I think have just dumped all my concerns onto the one page. If there is anything wrong the where I have placed this in the forum or for how much information I am allowed to place, please forgive me.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Hi Matthew - and welcome!

A few things:


1) When getting livebearers, try to stick to single gender, unless you are trying to breed them. Males generally have better color, so they are the best option. Endlers are hardier than guppies (at least males) these days.

2) Fish stores are notoriously bad at giving proper advice. There are some very good ones, but most often, they aren't very good. A 63L tank is fairly small. 15 gallons - so yes, your tank is grossly overstocked. That means that nitrates will build up fast and that will be a potential issue. You are going to need frequent and larger volume water changes to keep the nitrates under control.

3) GBRs are notoriously hard to keep. First, they need higher temps than the rest of the fish, and are very sensitive to nitrates. (See above comment.) This is bad. If you are really a GBR fan, then you have no option but to return these fish to the LFS. They won't survive long at the lower temps and the higher nitrates of your tank.

4) Nitrate is the end product of the nitrogen cycle in your tank. How high is the tap water's nitrate level? If you have high levels of nitrate, GBRs will never be an option using straight tap water. You'll need to use RO water, or similar in the future.

Specifically which pleco is it? While there are some that stay relatively small, even a BN (5 inches) is too big for that size tank, in my opinion.

No worries about the questions, that's why everyone comes here to learn, chat and help out.


If this was my tank, here's what I would do:

1) Return the GBRs, because they just won't work in this set-up. They need a bigger tank, the nitrates are too high, and the tank is already overstocked.

2) Return the female guppies. Better to have a single gender than mixed. And this will also help to lower the nitrate build-up by lowering the stock of the tank.

3) I would get some live plants. Live plants will help keep the nitrates a bit (and just a bit) lower by using some of them in their growth. It certainly won't be able to do a lot, but every little bit helps.

 

[MatthewWebb]

Hi eaglesaquarium and thanks for the reply.

Your advice confirms my suspicions, however my mother is giving me grief about me being obsessively worried and over concerned for the well-being for my fish.

Various arguments she presents to contradict my concerns are:

1) The pet shop owner has never put me wrong; e.g "he never said get 50 fish for the tank to star off".
2) my mother is saying that the fish look fine, so what would be the logic of taking them back.
3) She wonders what you would think would be the limit to the number of fish for a 63 litre tank.

She is actually really getting to me, arrghh! She also thinks I should take the advice of the owners over some 'stranger' over the net. She also says that I shouldn't take the blue rams back, because the owner said that they have been 'tank bread' and 'hardier than guppies', in addition she says that they will just wind up in another home for them to die anyway, and there is a chance they might survive.

I have live plants in the tank already, so that is covered, being slightly overgrown. I'm also not sure what pleco it is, sorry.

If anyone else agrees with what eaglesaquarium has suggested please give a shout out, it would be very helpful in convincing her that my worries are not premature.

Thanks again eaglesaquarium.

 

[msasa19]

If anyone else agrees with what eaglesaquarium has suggested please give a shout out, it would be very helpful in convincing her that my worries are not premature.

i agree!

never listen to pet shop owner, do your own research, they just want you to buy fish from them, which you will, when all the ones they tell you are a great buy die! your not the first to make that mistake, i also listened to the pet shop, then found this forum and discovered i was being lied to!

as for how many fish, it all depends which fish you want!

 

[snazy]

Hi eaglesaquarium and thanks for the reply.

Your advice confirms my suspicions, however my mother is giving me grief about me being obsessively worried and over concerned for the well-being for my fish.

Various arguments she presents to contradict my concerns are:

1) The pet shop owner has never put me wrong; e.g "he never said get 50 fish for the tank to star off".
2) my mother is saying that the fish look fine, so what would be the logic of taking them back.
3) She wonders what you would think would be the limit to the number of fish for a 63 litre tank.

She is actually really getting to me, arrghh! She also thinks I should take the advice of the owners over some 'stranger' over the net. She also says that I shouldn't take the blue rams back, because the owner said that they have been 'tank bread' and 'hardier than guppies', in addition she says that they will just wind up in another home for them to die anyway, and there is a chance they might survive.

I have live plants in the tank already, so that is covered, being slightly overgrown. I'm also not sure what pleco it is, sorry.

If anyone else agrees with what eaglesaquarium has suggested please give a shout out, it would be very helpful in convincing her that my worries are not premature.

Thanks again eaglesaquarium.

eaglesaquarium gave you already the best advise possible. But to further answer your questions:

Male guppies/endlers will always chase the females. This is natural. If you insist keeping them, a ratio of 1 male to 3 females is advisable. It's possible your females died from something else/stress from overstocking rather than the males chasing them.
Your tank is heavily overstocked. Even if you didn't have high nitrAtes in the tap water, your tank's bioload is too high to actually keep the nitrAtes under control easily. The plants should help with that to a cetain extent but they can't cope with such a bioload.

As for how many fish to keep in a tank, if a tank looks overstocked, then it is overstocked. Fish can't scream, bark or growl, so be honest with yourself. A dog chained to a corner will survive, to some people the dog may seem fine too.
The general rule is one inch of fish per gallon but this only applies to small fish. A 10cm pleco will not poop double the amount a 5cm fish will, but probably 10 times more, so the rule can't apply to anything bigger than 2-3 inch fish.

So let's calculate:

6 Harlequin rasbora X 1.75 inches=10.5 inches
6 Neon tetra X 1.5 inches=9 inches
3 male guppies and 2 females (bad I know) X 2.5 inches=12.5 inches
3 Endler's live-bearers (even worse in combination with above) X 1.25=3.75 inches
1 Pleco (it's one that doesn't grow more than a couple of inches)=This one is a good idea to identify because most grow too big for this tank size, the most common will grow nearly the lenght of your tank.
and 2 Electric Blue Rams. (These guys I am panicking over, not because they are acting weird, but because of the issue below) X 3"=6 inch

The sum of these is: 41.75 inches plus an identified pleco.
Your tank is 16.5 gallons not taking into consideration the substrate and decoration but even at that the one inch per gallon rule we are talking about a 50 gallon tank to keep this amount of fish.

 

[CezzaXV]

eaglesaquarium has given you some good advice there. If I were you I'd get rid of the female guppies and just keep the males.

The trouble with fish are that while there are some diseases which have visible symptoms, there is so much that can be wrong with a fish that doesn't show. It looking fine doesn't mean it is necessarily okay.

And we most definitely are strangers on the internet. Whether you take our advice or not makes no difference to us ultimately. When you take the advice of the shop owner, they're probably getting money out of you. Our only interest is the welfare of fish everywhere.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

A 15 gallon tank (63L) like that should really only have about 15 inches of the fish you have. So, really just the two shoals of the rasboras and neons would fully stock that tank. You can get away with a bit more than that with extra water changes and larger ones.


As far as taking the advice of the store keeper over someone like me over the internet:
What do I have to gain in the advice I am giving?
What does the shopkeeper have to gain? The shop keeper needs folks to buy things in order to turn a profit, whether they live or die isn't really his concern... it is the concern of the person who buys them. If they die, what happens? You go back and buy another fish. If they don't, you stay happy with the fish you currently have. Many times LFS lose sight of long-term sales in order to turn over their current overhead.

Regardless of what the shopkeeper says regarding the GBR, they require larger tanks than that.
http/www.aquaticcommunity.com/cichlid/germanblueram.php
http/www.tropicalfishandaquariums.com/DwarfCichlids/RamGermanBlue.asp
http/www.fishlore.com/aquariummagazine/dec07/blue-ram-cichlid.htm

(Each source above references the minimum tank size as 20 gallons, and established tanks, which yours is starting to be at 5 months.)


The biggest concern I would have with the GBRs is the temperature, it requires far more heat than do the rest of the fish in that tank. The 2nd issue is the nitrates - regardless of how many fish are in your tank, your water has higher nitrates than they will really tolerate. While they may seem fine for a while, that's just it. Its a slow death, and will slowly die, far premature of what they could quite feasibly live if kept properly, in excess of 3 years. While it being tank bred may, in his mind, increase the hardiness of the species, ask him why the guppies are so sensitive... its because they were selectively bred in aquariums to bring out certain colors - exactly the same as the Rams.


With the rasboras, tetras, guppies/endlers you have plus the pleco, you are already pushing the limits of that tank. I'm sorry your mother is giving you a hard time. I would suspect that you would want you to be successful at this. While she may believe that the shopkeeper is offering good advice, the real question is who is the advice he's giving really good for? Him or you? I love German Blue Rams as well, but given my situation, I can't keep them right now either. Many fish shops give good advice, while many more do not. You could try contacting a local fish club... they may be more reputable in your mother's eyes.

 

[MatthewWebb]

Wow, it just hit me how big a deal this is. I wish I came to this forum before I decided to even get the tank. All this time I have been enjoying the beauty of the fish, whilst all the time it has been overstocked. I am so ashamed!

Thanks for that calculation snazy, that really slapped me round the face and woke me up! (and my mother too!)

What is there to do then? I can only this of two options: 1) Return the majority of my stock to the locals, or 2 get a bigger tank for them. Will the pet shop take back fish that I have had for quite a while? I doubt I will get my money back.

I think getting a bigger tank is out of the option at the moment, for now that I am aware of the problem I am determined to do what I can as quickly as possible, and new tank takes time.

I will return the majority of them, whilst probably keeping the harlequins, tomorrow when I'm back from collage. Also on that note, there is a female guppy that was born in my tank but is kind of, deformed... Would the pet store take that or would it be more humane to terminate it?

Thanks everyone, it's so amazing the information I have gained in such a short time on this forum. I will get my advice on here from now on.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

You're welcome. Getting a larger tank would be a good idea. You can steal a bit of filter media from the old tank, and let that help the process along. As the first tank is 5 months old, you'll be able to steal the media without a major spike in ammonia/nitrite. Just watch it for a few days. If you are going for an additional tank, go for the largest you can afford and fit into your home.


The fish you have are all good companions (temperment-wise) for the GBRs - thinking long term. Just make sure any tankmates can handle the higher temperatures.