My First Tank

[neo83]

Hello Everyone

I have finally bought myself a fish tank and i always wanted one since i was a kid. It is a 125 Litre (33 US gallons) Fluval Roma 125.



- Fluval U3 Internal Filter
- Fluval M150 Heater
- Interpet AV3 airpump connected to two air stones
- Aqua Glo lighting

Decor:

- some ornaments, fake plants
- Two live plants, Java Fern and Java Moss
- Dorset Pea Gravel

I have set the tank up and just started the nitrogen cycle with ammonia level of 2ppm. Also, i have added Tetra SafeStart as I have heard good things about it and although the recommended way for using TSS is with fish, I'm using household ammonia as the ammonia source rather than fish and hence the reason for having only 2ppm of ammonia in the tank. I thought even if TSS fails to make the cycle faster, natural cycle will happen anyways. (Only added TSS to make the cycle faster but will go through the entire fishless cycle)

My Readings:

Tap Water:

NH3: 0
NO2:0
NO3: 40-80 (Is this ok? )

Tank Water:

NH3: 2ppm
NO2:0
NO3: 40-80 (from tap water )
pH: 7.6

Temperature: 27 C ( to aid the bacteria growth)

I came to know today that Anubias is similar to Java Fern and Moss as it hangs on to driftwood, so might be adding that to the tank in future. I do not want to add any other plants as i dont have any substrate in the gravel and also me being a newbie, dont want to mess around with plants.


Stocking:

Can anyone advise me on what fish I can have based on different areas of the tank. I wanted to have Platys, Guppies, Mollies, Swordtails and a medium sized fish such as Dwarf Gourami or Angelfish or Betta. My wife likes the Red Cherry Shrimp and I have heard they are algae eaters and any other suggestions for algae eaters please? I understand that I can only have one medium sized fish among the three i listed and would appreciate your opinion on which will be the best to mix with the other livebearers. in case i'm missing any fish, please also suggest any medium sized colourful fish. I would also be very grateful if you can suggest on the basis of their tank occupancy.

I also want to add that i'm not going to breed any fish, so will probably get the same sex fish from any species.

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there neo, welcome to TFF and congrats on getting your new tank. that's a nice size tank to start out with - big enough to be stable but not so big as to be hard work.

glad you're fishless cycling with ammonia, the bacteria in a bottle products like safestart get mixed reviews, some people report success but others are cynical as to how the bacteria survive with no food source or oxygen. however it won't hurt at all so feel free to add it alongside the ammonia and you never know, it might just work. have you read the fishless cycling link on this forum, it's in my signature if not. it gives pretty good instructions on how to do the cycle so read it through if you haven't already, we recommend using 5ppm of ammonia not the 2ppm that you have said you're using. you can crank the temperature up to about 29oC too, that helps to speed things along. also have you tested your pH yet?

don't panic about the nitrate in your tap water, it's fairly common for people to have a similar level to this so don't worry about it too much. all but the most delicate of fish will be absolutely fine with that level of nitrate.

the general rule of thumb for stocking for beginners is 1" of fish per US Gallon of water, your tank is around 26 gallons so you need to find out the adult size of the fish that you want and add them all together and you're aiming at around 26" in total. it's by no means a hard and fast rule but it's a good sensible guideline when you are just learning the hobby.

the platys, guppys, mollys and swordies you have mentioned are all prolific breeders and so you should keep only single sex groups if you don't want to be over-run with babies. best to go for an all male group as if they are in a mix sexed group in the fish shop then the females might already be pregnant when you got them.

the angelsfish will be too big for your tank so avoid them and the betta is best kept in a small tank by themselves not a community tank (they don't call them fighting fish for nothing you know!), dwarf gourami's are a little disease prone but if you get healthy ones then they can be a nice centerpiece fish. another suggestion that's a similar size, colourful and a little bit hardier is rams, do a little bit of research and see if you like them.

don't feel that you need to have algae eating fish, that's what an algae cleaning sponge is there for - it's your job to maintain the tank not the fishes. however if your wife likes shrimp then go for it, you'd have to be careful about which large fish you choose though as the red cherrys are so small as to be a tasty snack for some fish!!

my personal preference is to have less species in a tank and larger shoals, it looks more dramatic - and remember you've the rest of your life to keep every fish that you want so you can always get the other ones later. so I'd maybe do something like

6 x platys - 2" each = 12" total
6 x guppys - 1" each = 6" total
3 x rams (1m, 2f) - 3" each = 9" total
6 x cherry shrimp - 0.5" each = 3" total

so that's 30" total which should be OK in your tank, it's a touch over the recommended level for beginners but not significantly so.

 

[neo83]

Hi MW

Thanks very much for the detailed reply.

glad you're fishless cycling with ammonia, the bacteria in a bottle products like safestart get mixed reviews, some people report success but others are cynical as to how the bacteria survive with no food source or oxygen. however it won't hurt at all so feel free to add it alongside the ammonia and you never know, it might just work. have you read the fishless cycling link on this forum, it's in my signature if not. it gives pretty good instructions on how to do the cycle so read it through if you haven't already, we recommend using 5ppm of ammonia not the 2ppm that you have said you're using. you can crank the temperature up to about 29oC too, that helps to speed things along. also have you tested your pH yet?

Yes, i have read the fishless cycle post actually many times on various forums that my head is going to explode . The only reason i kept the level at 2ppm is for the TSS bacteria to not get killed as when i was researching on it and according to TSS instructions, it is supposed to be introduced with fish, but since i'm experimenting with pure ammonia (instead of ammonia from fish), I read that ammonia level of more than 4ppm will definitely kill the TSS bacteria. Many people who have had success had like 0.25ppm of ammonia when they put in TSS. So i figured, 2ppm should hopefully not kill the TSS bacteria and hopefully make the cycle faster. If it doesn't work, I will continue with the normal fishless cycle (Please work ) Btw, pH is currently 7.6, is this bad for the fish list we made up?

don't panic about the nitrate in your tap water, it's fairly common for people to have a similar level to this so don't worry about it too much. all but the most delicate of fish will be absolutely fine with that level of nitrate.

Good to know as it was bothering me a bit. I was also recommended on another forum that since I have more nitrates in tap water, it would be better to use Prime to not cause any spike in nitrates/nitrites during water changes. What do you think?

the general rule of thumb for stocking for beginners is 1" of fish per US Gallon of water, your tank is around 26 gallons so you need to find out the adult size of the fish that you want and add them all together and you're aiming at around 26" in total. it's by no means a hard and fast rule but it's a good sensible guideline when you are just learning the hobby.

Yes, came across that rule many times and thanks for reminding me again. You know, I have a small tank compared to many of you in here, so please dont make it more smaller . My tank is 125l which is 33 US gallons (27.5 UK gallons) and not 26 gallons hehe

the platys, guppys, mollys and swordies you have mentioned are all prolific breeders and so you should keep only single sex groups if you don't want to be over-run with babies. best to go for an all male group as if they are in a mix sexed group in the fish shop then the females might already be pregnant when you got them.

Yep definitely going to get all male group

the angelsfish will be too big for your tank so avoid them and the betta is best kept in a small tank by themselves not a community tank (they don't call them fighting fish for nothing you know!), dwarf gourami's are a little disease prone but if you get healthy ones then they can be a nice centerpiece fish. another suggestion that's a similar size, colourful and a little bit hardier is rams, do a little bit of research and see if you like them.

Wow, thank you very much for introducing me to 'rams'. While i was doing the newbie reading, i quite often saw cichilds are kept in seperate tanks and read they are aggressive and so never even looked at those species. I would take rams anytime over gouramis actually . Which one do you recommend? I like the German Blue Ram. I read they need to be kept in pairs, so will 2 or 3 males be ok?

don't feel that you need to have algae eating fish, that's what an algae cleaning sponge is there for - it's your job to maintain the tank not the fishes. however if your wife likes shrimp then go for it, you'd have to be careful about which large fish you choose though as the red cherrys are so small as to be a tasty snack for some fish!!

hehe, ofcourse i'm going to . I should have asked for bottom dwellers rather than algae eaters, as if they are going to effectively clean up the tank . how are corys. Since we are reaching the size limit, suggest me any small corys please as my wife hates any black plecs and they are big for my tank anyways.

my personal preference is to have less species in a tank and larger shoals, it looks more dramatic - and remember you've the rest of your life to keep every fish that you want so you can always get the other ones later. so I'd maybe do something like

6 x platys - 2" each = 12" total
6 x guppys - 1" each = 6" total
3 x rams (1m, 2f) - 3" each = 9" total
6 x cherry shrimp - 0.5" each = 3" total

so that's 30" total which should be OK in your tank, it's a touch over the recommended level for beginners but not significantly so

I'm just imagining my tank with all these fish, i cant take this anymore . Is it ok to have different types of guppies and platys and not having the same type? I might cancel the cherry shrimp, if we can fit any bottom dwelling algae eating small fish , just so that we can balance out the aquarium.

Once again thank you very much

 

[Miss Wiggle]

ha ha oops dodgy maths - sorry!! you know i did think it sounded smaller than i remember that tank as

that sounds sensible with the TSS, I have to say I'm in the skeptical camp on that one but if you want to try it then it won't do any harm.

pH of 7.6 is fine when you have fish in, none of the ones we've mentioned should mind that. keep an eye on the pH during the cycling process as a pH crash is the most common thing to go wrong during the cycle. ideally during the cycle it would be a little bit higher and you can buffer it up if you feel you want to. my gut instinct would be to leave it alone for now but think about buffering it if it does start to drop during the cycle.

I don't think you need to do anything special due to that level of nitrate, prime is a good quality declor so by all means use it but if you already have a different declor then don't feel the need to go buy something different. i'll try and dig out some sciency stuff about how much nitrate fish can actually take, i remember someone showing me a study a while back saying most common aquarium fish won't have a problem until you get to something like 400ppm so you've some way to go yet before you need to worry.

yeah the german blue rams are lovely - cichlids are one of the bigger fish families and there is everything from small community friendly ones like the rams or the various apistogramma species through to big 12" brutes that need specialist tanks. don't write off the family altogether, there are definitely some you can't have but also some you can. while the rams and other small cichlids are not worryingly aggressive they can be a little bit fiesty with each other so you either want one male with 2/3 females or a group of 3 or more males. if there's just two fish the the more dominant one may well pick on the other so better to have 3 and then any aggression is spread around a bit and no-one really suffers. don't be scared off when i say they're aggressive though, it's more like they have a bit of matey banter than having a full on scrap in the vast majority of cases and they're unlikely to pick on any other fish

there are a few species of small corys that would be suitable. there are panda cories which are a 'regular' cory but quite small, they're one of my favourite but they are a little delicate so probably not something to put in straight away - give it a few months until the tank matures. alternatively there are three species of dwarf cory's c pygmaeus, c habrosus (probably not spelt like that) and another one i've forgotten the name of.... any of these would be suitable. i prefer cories to shrimp for some bottom dwelling fish, they're really active and playful fish - very charming to watch.

 

[neo83]

Sorry about the late reply, i'm kind of having a bad day with my car breaking down and getting a bill of £270 . Anyways back to fish.

pH of 7.6 is fine when you have fish in, none of the ones we've mentioned should mind that. keep an eye on the pH during the cycling process as a pH crash is the most common thing to go wrong during the cycle. ideally during the cycle it would be a little bit higher and you can buffer it up if you feel you want to. my gut instinct would be to leave it alone for now but think about buffering it if it does start to drop during the cycle.

Cool, will keep an eye on it. How do I buffer it if pH falls?

I don't think you need to do anything special due to that level of nitrate, prime is a good quality declor so by all means use it but if you already have a different declor then don't feel the need to go buy something different. i'll try and dig out some sciency stuff about how much nitrate fish can actually take, i remember someone showing me a study a while back saying most common aquarium fish won't have a problem until you get to something like 400ppm so you've some way to go yet before you need to worry.

Thank you, good to know as it was bothering me and seems like endless purchases .

yeah the german blue rams are lovely - cichlids are one of the bigger fish families and there is everything from small community friendly ones like the rams or the various apistogramma species through to big 12" brutes that need specialist tanks. don't write off the family altogether, there are definitely some you can't have but also some you can. while the rams and other small cichlids are not worryingly aggressive they can be a little bit fiesty with each other so you either want one male with 2/3 females or a group of 3 or more males. if there's just two fish the the more dominant one may well pick on the other so better to have 3 and then any aggression is spread around a bit and no-one really suffers. don't be scared off when i say they're aggressive though, it's more like they have a bit of matey banter than having a full on scrap in the vast majority of cases and they're unlikely to pick on any other fish

Fantastic! Thanks again for the info on rams. Btw, i read that GBR prefer soft and slightly acidic water while my current pH level is 7.6. Am i still ok for GBR? I'll be gutted if i cant have them

there are a few species of small corys that would be suitable. there are panda cories which are a 'regular' cory but quite small, they're one of my favourite but they are a little delicate so probably not something to put in straight away - give it a few months until the tank matures. alternatively there are three species of dwarf cory's c pygmaeus, c habrosus (probably not spelt like that) and another one i've forgotten the name of.... any of these would be suitable. i prefer cories to shrimp for some bottom dwelling fish, they're really active and playful fish - very charming to watch.

How many of these dwarf cories do you recommend to keep?

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

cories are best in groups of 6 or more.

if you can find locally bred rams you'll be fine, most fish are much less pH sensitive than people make out.

 

[waterdrop]

Very nice thread and nice advice from MW. Welcome to TFF neo83!

Only a couple of comments. If buffering becomes necessary during the fishless cycle we usually recommend some baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and we can advise about amounts when and if a pH crash occurs. It is a thing that is limited to the cycling and not recommended once there are fish.

My other comment is that it could be that GBRs are indeed one of the few sensitive fish that MW first mentions way back during her initial response to your mention of your elevated nitrate(NO3) levels coming from the tap. I would actually be a little hesitant about GBRs in water that has a built-in nitrate problem and is of a higher pH. Now that's not to say it might work out, its just a subtle worry and would possibly make me continue to explore the several other types of smaller rams. The others may not initially or ultimately be quite as striking as the GBRs but fish are a funny thing in your tank - they have much more subtle colorings that come out better than in a store and you also grow attached to your own fish and their personalities, rendering striking colors somewhat less important over time.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i think it's worth a look for some locally bred ones if you can find them, if they've been bred in your local water they'll be used to it and you should be OK with them.

if not have a look at apistogramma as they're a bit hardier and equally pretty.

 

[neo83]

Thanks WD. I have looked at the bolivian rams, which as i have read so far are supposed to be hardier than GBRs. I'm in love with rams anyways, but would 3 bolivian rams (males) be too much for my 125 litre in terms of controlling their aggression towards each other?

MW - Apistogramma, it is different to bolivian ram, isn't it? Wow, there seem to be 100 varieties in this type. Could you recommend as to which one's i can consider based on my setup and the other fish (guppies, platys, corys, mollies) i'm going to have. MW, you keep throwing me into more world of fascination just when i thought i'm in love with rams and have made a choice (thank you though and keep them coming please)

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes, apistogramma is a different species to rams, they are also dwarf cichlids though so similar in terms of behaviour etc. i can't think of any apistogramma that you couldn't have, they are all very similar species but with different colourings etc. in terms of behaviour and requirements they are largely the same so just pick one you like.

in general it's not that hard to get apisto's but can be tricky to track down one particular species so it's probably worth a chat with your LFS to see what they might be able to get before you get your heart set on something and then find out it's rare and you'll never find it. although of course that depends how determined you are to get them - if you're prepared to wait and shop around I'm sure you could find most of them.

 

[neo83]

Thanks MW. I'll check them out and would be wary before I fall in love with them , especially if its rare it should be costly as well as i need to keep a check on the spending. BTW, as i noted in my opening post, I'm experimenting a little bit with tetra safestart to see if pure ammonia would work as its source rather than fish and hence starting only with 2ppm ammonia. Two days back (2/10), i got my first nitrite reading of 1ppm and NH3 reduced to 1ppm from 2. So i have brought NH3 back to 2ppm on 2/10 and today when i checked (4/10), NH3 is 0 and NO2 is 5ppm. If i understand correctly based on what i have been reading on peoples' experiences, its the NO2 to NO3 conversion bacteria that takes approx double the time. I'm hoping TSS will help, provided that TSS bacteria did not die and get the second part of the cycle completed quickly as well. i'll wait and see. I'll slowly increase the NH3 level to 4 and then 5. What do you say? or leave it at 3 for now since TSS bacteria might die. I know i'm the one experimenting , but what do you reckon based on the situation?

Also, apologies if its already been explained, but why is the 5ppm value so important. Is it that no matter how many fish you have in the tank, they could only generate a max of 5ppm of NH3 or is it based on something else?

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the 5ppm of ammonia is deemed to be equivalent to a heavier stocking that any beginner should sensibly attempt which means you should have a nice cushion of bacteria by the time the cycle is finished. technically you could probably get away with cycling at 3/4ppm instead but 5 just gives that nice safe cushion which is best in a brand new tank for obvious reasons.

i would gradually ramp up to 5ppm of ammonia, all the TSS will do (if anything) is kick start your bacteria colony, they should be the same species as you would grow if doing a completely normal cycle. the 5ppm should be safe for them.

i find it quite easy to find apisto's in general but much harder to track down a particular species, that being said i love pretty much all of them so I'm not too picky about which ones i get!

 

[waterdrop]

The 5ppm thing is the result of more than 20 years of people fiddling with the different amounts and patterns. The initial dosing being a little higher seems to get the process off to a slightly faster start but can then be dropped to something low like 2 or 3ppm for the middle part of the process during the nitrite spike. During the third phase its important to ease the dose back up to a final amount of 5ppm to achieve the colony sizes that have structural integrity and robustness such that they will not mini-cycle after the final water change and first weeks of fish. Fishless cycles that are finished on 2-3ppm are more likely to mini-cycle on you in the first weeks even if the bioload is small - its more about colony robustness than bioload sizes I feel. The 4-5ppm maximums are also limited because among the potentially hundreds of species of bacteria that are present in the tank, there are some that will be enouraged if the dose is up at about 8ppm for an extended period. These "wrong" autotrophs grow pretty well and will coat the surfaces with their colonies and then die when the average concentrations fall, causing a wait period before the surfaces clear and allow the biofilms of Nitrosomonas spp. and Nitrospira spp. to rebuild in the same spots.

The extremely rare reports of anything positive coming from any of the bottled bacteria products seem mostly to be wishful thinking. I think the bottled bacteria are the same as the LFSs sending beginners home with fish at the same time as their new tanks, a way to ring a higher total on the cash register receipt, which is the main business focus at all times.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[neo83]

Thanks MW and WD. I'll go through the varieties of apistogrammes and see what i can find in my LFS.

WD - I have been reading a lot about these bacteria products and their "claims" since i started this hobby (is less than a month , which in no means is a match to your experience or for that point anyone else's in this forum), and the only thing i read to have the "correct" bacteria and with an expiry date from peoples' experience that worked is Tetra SafeStart (TSS) under certain conditions. Well, thats what i have heard, so i thought about it for 3 or 4 days and finally decided i'll experiment with it as a part of the regular fishless cycle . Well, you know how the newbies are about seeing the fish in the tank as fast as they can . Anyways, i figured since i'm going through the regular process itself, even if the TSS doesn't work, i'll still have a cycled tank *fingers crossed*. The only thing i need to be careful is not let my wife know that i wasted £15 on an experiment, if it doesnt work

Btw, i currently have one Java Fern and Java Moss in the tank and it was suggested to me to use Seachem Flourish to provide nutrients to the plants. I did not initially wanted to put any more live plants than I have as I did not want to get into plant care, me still being a newbie in fish care. Also i did not put any special substrate in the tank, just gravel. But i was advised that i do not need any specific substrate generally except for seachem flourish which should provide enough nutrients for the plants and their growth. So, can i using seachem flourish during the cycle or should i wait until the cycle is finished and also noting that i only have a couple of hardy live plants? I'm thinking about putting some more live plants but have to see how many i can fit in

Thanks

 

[waterdrop]

Its fine to use the Seachem Flourish during the cycle but let me suggest how to go about it. Look at the bottle and figure out what amount they are suggesting for your tank size, then use only maybe 1/3 of that, no more than 1/2. Additionaly I think you should also purchase a similar bottle of Seachem Excel. This is actually more important than the Flourish and I would get a bigger bottle than your Flourish as you will use a full dose of this daily (you can decide, I wouldn't get a giant bottle unless you have some smaller one to use for pouring, you get the idea) Finally, I would probably only turn the light(s) on for 4 hours (do a full 4 hours but not lots more until you know you are not getting hit with algae.) WD