My first fish tank

[elephantnose3334]

This is my first fish tank (i'm a beginner who accidentally overcrowded the tank of fish). I used a Petworx Nano 45 40 litre tank for the setup. Includes fake plants and a barrel as a hiding place. The livestock are a dwarf gourami and 6 silvertip and cardinal tetras each. Brought the silvertips first from my local Petbarn then the rest from Vebas. When aggression broke out from the silvertips against the cardinals, I had to add in a dwarf gourami to stop the aggression. He is the bigger fish after all. It mostly worked, but the aggression may happen occasionally between the silvertips and cardinal tetras. I will improve my fishkeeping skills when I add my future second fish tank in the same cabinet as the first one.

 

[Colin_T]

The aggression is from insufficient numbers and a small tank. It would be less likely to occur in a bigger tank and if you had more of each tetra (10 minimum per species).

If you don't have any live plants in the tank, just have the light on for a few hours in the afternoon/ evening otherwise you will get lots of algae. Some floating plants like Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides/ cornuta) will provide shade and shelter for the gourami and tetras and encourage them to show better colours. The floating plants will also reduce algae and help keep the water cleaner.

 

[elephantnose3334]

The aggression is from insufficient numbers and a small tank. It would be less likely to occur in a bigger tank and if you had more of each tetra (10 minimum per species).

If you don't have any live plants in the tank, just have the light on for a few hours in the afternoon/ evening otherwise Some floating plants like Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides/ cornuta) will provide shade and shelter for the gourami and tetras and encourage them to show better colours.

I never had algae in my tank, but the water sprite will grow quickly and overwhelm the tank. Plus, it's hard to control their growth. And I think it is a bad idea. Both Vebas and good online sources say that 6 fish is the minimum number of tetras for a 40 litre tall tank. Sometimes you have to ditch some live plants because of their quick growth rate. I would prefer slow growing plants opposed to faster growing ones. I know that silvertips can be agro to smaller fish or fish at their size.

 

[Essjay]

It used to be thought that 6 was the minimum number, then recently a study was done using identical tanks with different numbers of fish, and that showed that the smaller the number, the more the behaviour was changed - usually the fish were more aggressive than in larger numbers. As a result of that study, it is now realised that shoaling fish need at least 10 of the same species with nippy species needing more.

 

[emeraldking]

Well, yes,,, these fish do fit in that tank. But it doesn't meet their needs. They do need a bigger (more wide) tank than this one. I do get it when being a novice that one just looks at the the size of the fish and the size of the tank instead of the needs of those fish. But that's what we're here for to give you the proper advice to work with. Keep in mind that you're not the only one who's dealing with beginners mistakes. Also we had our fair share of them.