My 55 Gallon Tank!

[Betta_Shark5678]

Hello!

I haven't updated in a few months, but I'm very excited to say that my 55 Gallon tank is up and running, and now has fish in it!

My fishless cycle took a little over a month and a half. I did add a few sponges from my other tank, but when adding sponges from a 7 Gallon to a 55 Gallon you're limited on how much you can take. About three weeks after the cycle finished I was finally able to do a big water change to get rid of Nitrates. A few hours later I moved the nine fish from the 7 Gallon to the 55 Gallon, and they were very happy about it.

Today a friend of mine who is overrun with Guppies brought over a few for me. I asked for a male, and six females. What I got was two males, and six females, one of which is a baby, and still small enough to fit in my Gourami's mouth, or to get sucked up by the filter. Moving the baby (Pearl!) into a breeding box ASAP to keep her away from the Gourami, and the filter. Now all my beautiful Guppies are all set next I'm going to bring the number of Platys up to eight, the number I originally had. After that I'm going to add one more L444 Pleco and my stocking plan is complete!

Bad angle, I'll try to get a better one of the whole tank later.

Pretty soon I'm going to be adding a bunch of wood, and hopefully that'll help fill the empty space. I'd like to get more plants too, but I'm trying to find a store to buy them, ordering online is difficult for me, but I will if I have to.

Anyways I'm very excited as you can probably tell. Thanks to everybody who answered my questions, no matter how stupid, to help me get this tank set up!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Great stuff! Hopefully the gourami will enjoy the guppy fry that is undoubtedly coming your way! 6 females and 2 males! Yikes! Good thing the tank is so big. lol


I assume you are leaving the betta in the 7 gallon tank?

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

I'm sure he'll love it! I already had two male guppies, so now the male numbers are a little higher than I want, so I'm not sure what going to happen 4 males, 6 females. Lol with my Platys in there too I'll probably be overrun in a month or two.

Yup, Damien, my Betta, gets the 7 gallon. He's been in a 3.5 since I got him in October, but I've always planned on him getting the 7 when I moved the others. I'll have to see how he likes the extra space.

 

[snazy]

Great stuff! Hopefully the gourami will enjoy the guppy fry that is undoubtedly coming your way! 6 females and 2 males! Yikes! Good thing the tank is so big. lol


I assume you are leaving the betta in the 7 gallon tank?

Good luck with the tank. The fry that undoubtedly will be born may not survive anyway in a big tank regardless, as they may not find enough and nutritious food to grow and most will be eaten by the parents so the gourami may not be the biggest problem. I know most people consider livebearers second hand fish but I really love how playful the guppies are, constantly up to some twisting, playing in the filter flow or going grouped in circles, especially if you keep just males, very entertaining. And of course the highly friendly/constantly hungry, non-stop pooping platies Love them bunching up begging for food, even if I feed the tank next to them they come to the corner and look sorry for themselves not being able to jump over. I can't even take a picture of the tank or another fish without them blocking the view trying to figure if they can get a chunk out of the camera through the glass.

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

Thanks! Yeah one of the female guppies my friend gave me is only about 1/2 inch, and she's having a hard time. I was thinking about putting her with my Betta for a while until she's bigger. She's too big for his mouth, and as long as I give her plenty of places to hide hopefully she'll be alright with him. I love when the guppies play in the filter bubbles, my first males love bubbles!

Lol Platys, when I first got them, and my Pleco I couldn't believe Plecos were the ones famous for being messy!

I love all the different colors of guppies, and platys. I tried taking pictures of all my new guppies today, and I had at least three guppies each picture, and you still can't see the nicest colors on them!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I'm not denigrating guppies by any means. But, it can be overwhelming under the right circumstances. I grew up on livebearers. It was exciting to wake up in the morning and see the little fry and try to save them. It almost never worked, but it was an adventure I'll never forget.

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

My friend is completely overrun hundreds of guppies in a 10 gallon tank, she can't get rid of them fast enough, and there's too much cover for the babies so they don't get eaten. I'm hoping a big tank, strong filter, few plants, and my Gourami will keep them from getting out of hand. I've only had livebearers since July, and they're not for everyone. They're good for beginners, then some people go onto other fish, and some stick with livebearers, and add more fish.

That sounds like a lot of fun lol, finding the baby platys I've gotten so far gets me so excited, though I've never been able to catch them to save them, no matter how hard I tried.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

We were kids, and had no idea what we were doing. We tried the hang on the side nurseries. They failed. We tried a separate tank; we failed. I think we only ever got two platies to grow to adulthood. Sad, really looking back, but at the time it was fun trying. We were acting in ignorance, but tried everything we knew. Of course, this was back before the internet. And before we actually knew about the nitrogen cycle.

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

Well you could only do so much, while it was sad for the ones who died, the two who lived were victories! You should've seen me when I found my first baby platy, I just kept yelling at it not to go anywhere because I didn't have a breeding trap, or another tank to put it in. Ahh the internet, I'm not old enough to remember before internet, since I've been old enough to use it I have been. Though I didn't use it to find out anything about fish until I'd had my 1/2 gallon Betta "tank" for a few months, and my Mom convinced me to look into Betta breeding.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I didn't have internet access until I went to college.

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

Well, it's a great invention. I can't imagine not having internet that long, but I've had it all my life so I'm use to having it. It would be different if I never used it.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I didn't know what I was missing.

 

[Betta_Shark5678]

Lol yeah

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Of course, at that time, the internet was nothing like it is now. It was just starting up. Email was new, and most people still didn't have an address.