My New Nano(Ish) Tank

[daryl1]

Hi,
i'm new to this to this site so i thought i'd gt stuck in and show u my new tank.
I picked the tank up a week ago, £35 came with light, filter and heater.
I already have a tank setup but fancyed something a lillte different.
tank messures (L)29cm-(W)-23cm(H)-23cm......15L capasity.
Got home and got staight to work.
washed tank and gravel. Then placed gravel, plants and small piece of bog wood in tank and added water from my other tank to get the cycle started quicker.

http/img696.imageshack.us/img696/9517/img00005201001101634.jpg

After a week went and got some fish.
I decided to go for flame tetra six of them and a small shimp.

so this is the result so far

http/img163.imageshack.us/img163/5410/img00006201001102131.jpg

http/img686.imageshack.us/img686/5443/img00007201001102131.jpg

http/img163.imageshack.us/img163/8062/img00011201001102133.jpg

http/img42.imageshack.us/img42/8415/img00010201001102133.jpg

let me know what you think and also addvise.

cheers
Daryl

 

[Bebobb]

Wow. I love the way you set it up. Are those live plants? If so, did you leave them in the pots when you planted them? If you left them in the pots, then you should remove them fro the pots, and plant them in the gravel without the pots. What kind of fish are those? And how many do you have? There isn't much that you can keep in a 15L tank...

Also, did you cycle the tank? If not, then I am afraid that you might be stuck in the middle of a fish in cycle...

 

[Wills]

Hi there welcome to the forum!

Flame tetras are a very cool fish! And you have a good number of them, but unfortunately that tanks is just too small for most fish.

At 15 liters that works out at about a 3 gallon tank. Although your gravel is taking up quite a lot of space as well and in such a small tank that can count for quite a lot. The general rule to work things out by is going by an inch per gallon and all of those fish reach just under 2 inches though because of their small size in a larger tank I would probably count as 1 gallon per fish.

In all seriousness I think that tank is only suitable for shrimps and snails. If you want fish maybe look at a tank called the Arc 35 which is just under 10 US gallons. As a rule always try and go as big as you can because the bigger the tank the more options you have and the more you enjoy it.

Also if you only added the fish a week after the tank was set up, your tank wont be cycled if you look in the begginers resource center you will find articles on how to do a fish in cycle which is what you have now, though I think in such a small tank you might need to do twice a day water changes to keep the fish healthy and alive til the filter is stable. Though like I say I would advice a bigger tank or swapping fish for shrimp and snails.

Wills

 

[daryl1]

Hi there welcome to the forum!

Flame tetras are a very cool fish! And you have a good number of them, but unfortunately that tanks is just too small for most fish.

At 15 liters that works out at about a 3 gallon tank. Although your gravel is taking up quite a lot of space as well and in such a small tank that can count for quite a lot. The general rule to work things out by is going by an inch per gallon and all of those fish reach just under 2 inches though because of their small size in a larger tank I would probably count as 1 gallon per fish.

In all seriousness I think that tank is only suitable for shrimps and snails. If you want fish maybe look at a tank called the Arc 35 which is just under 10 US gallons. As a rule always try and go as big as you can because the bigger the tank the more options you have and the more you enjoy it.

Also if you only added the fish a week after the tank was set up, your tank wont be cycled if you look in the begginers resource center you will find articles on how to do a fish in cycle which is what you have now, though I think in such a small tank you might need to do twice a day water changes to keep the fish healthy and alive til the filter is stable. Though like I say I would advice a bigger tank or swapping fish for shrimp and snails.

Wills

Thanks for the advise. I think the measurements might be wrong.
I also have a bigger tank so when the fish do get bigger they will be moved.
The tank was filled with water from my bigger tank and cycled for a week before the fish were added.
But again very happy for advise as it is all taken onboard.

 

[Wills]

when you say cycled for a week do you mean adding products like stress zyme and/or bactozyme? Afraid while some stores will say that is cycled all it has done is get the bacteria slightly started.

Cycling a tank usually take somewhere in the region of 6 weeks and its when ammonia and nitrite are being processed 100% if you test your water at the moment there is a good chance you will have ammonia readings and or nitrite readings, if this is the case your in what is called a fish in cycle, like i said in the beginners section there is a good article about how to get through it

Good news about the bigger tank, the flame tetras really do look good in a big tank

Wills

 

[daryl1]

when you say cycled for a week do you mean adding products like stress zyme and/or bactozyme? Afraid while some stores will say that is cycled all it has done is get the bacteria slightly started.

Cycling a tank usually take somewhere in the region of 6 weeks and its when ammonia and nitrite are being processed 100% if you test your water at the moment there is a good chance you will have ammonia readings and or nitrite readings, if this is the case your in what is called a fish in cycle, like i said in the beginners section there is a good article about how to get through it

Good news about the bigger tank, the flame tetras really do look good in a big tank

Wills

Oh right, i'll move the fish over tonight n let it cycle some more. Nice one. Ill get some pics of my bigger tank up
Soon just ordered some plants so wanna get it sorted first.

Does anyone know how big pea puffers get cos the shop said I could put a couple of those in there.

 

[Wills]

If you take the fish out you need to get some raw ammonia to cycle your tank. Basically, fish live in their own toilet when they poop it creates ammonia, ammonia is highly toxic to fish as you would expect a room full of poop would be to us. That is why we have the filters to create whats called the nitrogen cycle, this is where your filter develops bacteria that processes the ammonia into a different chemical called nitrite which is less toxic than ammonia but still toxic to fish so once again our filters develop more bacteria to process the nitrite and turn it into nitrate. Nitrate is still toxic but only in high doses ideally you want to keep it at around 20ppm or less, thats parts per million.

Now in a mature tank your fishes poo and the pump turning the water around keep the bacteria alive without either the flowing water or a source of ammonia (the poo) the bacteria have nothing to eat and start to die off.

A lot of fish keepers in the past have cycled tanks with fish in, you have probably heard of people using danios and goldfish for their first fish then develop other fish after that? Well now there is a way where you can just do this without the fish.

We simply bypass the fish and their poo and get pure ammonia from a hardware store like homebase in the UK and add small amounts of this to replicate the ammonia created by the poo. This way no fish has to suffer ammonia or nitrite poisoning and you dont risk an outbreak of disease in a tank which is a common problem in new tanks because people dont know how to cycle a tank like this before they come on the net.

This is a link to the beginners resource center http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/ even if you have been keeping fish for a while you would be surprised how much you can learn from there. I was keeping fish for a few years before I came here and read through it and honestly I would do things no other way now.


With regards to the pea puffer, they do stay small but make great pets when keeping multiple ones you need 5 gallons per fish because they can be quite aggressive. They also have beaks and do a lot of damage if they bite stuff. I think one would be okay in there but you should keep it alone with regards to treating it like a wet pet They need snails to eat so that they can grind down their beaks otherwise they get dental problems.

I guess the other option for that tank is a male betta (siamese fighting fish) or you could try a trio of male endlers like guppies but even smaller and a bit more pretty IMO. Or actually thinking about it but these are quite rare you could try any of the badis species the most common of them is Badis Badis which is a really really small bright red fish, if you went with this I would get one male and get some cherry shrimp or similarly small shrimp to keep with him.

Wills

 

[AdamM]

WOAH!!! Gravel much?

 

[daryl1]

lol.....I've taken alot out now. but thanks

 

[omega59]

Very nice but small. You said you moved water from the other tank to this one, why don't you just seed the mature media in the other tank, into the small one? Also it's not the water that is cycled it's the spondge filter. Pea puffers won't do well in there try google it. I agree that 2inch per gallon is good to go bye. Have you thought about dwarf fish that are not agressive, or a betta?