Nedd Help On A Few Things

[barry&&neady]

Hiya i am new to the fish so i was just wondering if someone could help me. i want to no what is the best sand and rock to have in my tropical tank and if i could have live plants in there, also i would like some help with the best speciaes of fish to have in my tropical tank, any answers would help lol due to being new, i want to start on the tropical then move on to the marine just take it step y step basically?

my other half wants brightly colour fish but every fish she has senn online is for marine is der any possible brightly coloured fish to kepp her happy haha?

thankyou

 

[Assaye]

There are a lot of great tropical fish that are very brightly coloured

Read This for an excellent resource on preparing your tank for new fish. The most important sections right now are the bit on cycling your filter and setting up a new tank.

If you tell me what size your tank is I can recommend you some great starter fish

As for gravel vs sand - it depends what fish you have. A good idea is to have small, smooth gravel or sand as the larger, more jagged stuff can hurt fish. Gravel is easier to clean, IMO but if you have catfish, especially corys, sand is often better.

You could of course have live plants! Some hardy plants that don't need much care are java fern, elodea, cabomba and java moss. All plants need light and nutrients, but some need more than others so stick with hardy ones for now.

 

[barry&&neady]

thanks.
it's a 30gallon.
is there any fish that are a defiante no-no?

 

[Assaye]

thanks.
it's a 30gallon.
is there any fish that are a defiante no-no?

Quite a lot, actually. Many fish commonly sold get very large and would rapidly outgrow your tank.

What you are best off doing is browsing our species profiles and picking yourself some fish you like, then asking the members here about the fish you want to put in the tank. That way, we can tell you if the fish will get along OK and if any need special requirements (like bigger tanks, fussy feeders, very soft water, etc).

As I said, always do your research before getting any fish

A good idea for your tank would be:

10-15 small bottom feeders OR 6-10 small bottom feeders and small plec
15 small shoaling fish
2-4 larger fish (nothing that gets much bigger than 5 inches though)

Start small and then if you like the hobby, have plenty of time for your tank and have a real feel for things, you can always expand your fishy collection.

Remember, there are two ways to make your tank safe for fish - a fishless cycle (which requires you to add ammonia for around a month but is super safe for fish) and a fish-in cycle (which you can do once your tank has been set up a few days but it exposes your fish to some very nasty chemicals).

These processes grow essential, beneficial bacteria that will help keep your fish alive!

If you go down the fishless route and are patient, you can then add most of your fish all at once

If you do the fish-in route, you can only add a couple of fish a week and you have to do lots of BIG water changes.

All the details are in that link I gave you.

Have fun!

 

[fish_tank0311]

If your going cheap, dwarf gouramis have quite a bit of colour. If you have some money on your hands, discus are very nice fish. Some people say they arent for beginners, because they require a big tank, and they need excellent water quality, but if you put in the time to looking after discus, and read lots on the internet about them, its very rewarding, plus they apparently are quite the community fish, but i also am a BIT of a noob. Elephant nose fish are one of my favourites, and black mollies as well. And if you dont get anything too aggresive, a siamese fighter is a must.

Hope that helps!!!

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, hi there and welcome to the new tank section!

Good advice by Assaye up there so I will just go off on some different comments. What you are experiencing with your significant other in the house is something we see in the hobby a lot. If a person has only ever mostly seen aquariums at a distance, the marine ones are quite striking because, when they are done well, they need to be lit with much brighter light and there are many reef species of fish that have aspects of their defense mechanisms wrapped up in extemely bright colors that really get the attention of humans, even from across the room.

The problem however, as you've already acknowledged, is that the marine hobby -is- more expensive and involves even more skills layered on top of the kinds of skills you learn in freshwater. Freshwater is a good stepping stone to the salt hobby.

An interesting thing can happen though, along this path! Many people discover that once they spend some time looking at freshwater tanks and getting into the hobby a bit that the beauty of freshwater opens up to them in a new way. Its more subtle (the light is lower, to begin with, just like the underwater of streams, rivers and lakes would be out in the wild, and the greens are more varied and deeper) and one finds sometimes that freshwater actually can carry even more ability to draw a person into that restful removal from the stress of their day than perhaps a brighter reef setup might.

Perhaps when you find particularly nice pictures (they exist in our planted section and other places on TFF) of freshwater aquascapes and setups, you should be sure to share those with your significant other to help create a more shared experience in the freshwater journey you are about to embark on.

This ideally will help both of you cope with the necessary delays and patience required. A way that works particularly well (and we see it a lot here in the beginner section) is to just decide to get really involved and learn all the strange stuff about "cycling" your tank and learning all the odd stuff it takes to have good water and maintenance. It takes from 3 weeks to sometimes more than 2 months to "prepare the biofilter" and it turns out this is the perfect time to be learning startup and maintenance topics from the members and also the perfect time to be learning about stocking plans and revising your own fish stocking plan over and over. A couple of months down (see the patience it might take?) your new tank will finally burst alive with fish and the two of you will feel a strong sense of pride in providing such a good environment and having learned so much!

Its a very strange hobby in this day and age in that its "counter" to all the hustle and bustle and instant communication of our age.. just sitting in front of your tank one evening and "decompressing," but it turns out its a wonderful addition to our times and I hope you'll be able to get involved and find it rewarding!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Barry&&neady.
In your situation, with no real specific experience keeping fish, I would start with a note pad and a trip to a nice local fish shop. Bring the other half along and write down the names of fish that you really like. If you can come back with 6 or 8 that you both agree on, we can probably help you put together a nice balanced stocking using some of them. As far as plants, the suggestions that Assaye gave, along with Amazon swords and Anubias nana added in are some of the easiest low light plants. Unless you are ready to spend serious cash upgrading the lighting that comes with a tank, low light plants is all that will flourish. Most LFS have a tank or two devoted to plants so you can also check what is available locally and maybe we can help there too. There are some very savvy plant people here who could help more than I can in that area.
Meanwhile, WD is quite good at helping people get their tank's new filters cycled successfully, so I would definitely pay attention to what he has to say on the subject.

 

[barry&&neady]

HIYA HERE ARE SOME FISH ME AND MY OTHER HALF HAVE AGREED ON THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP !

1) BLACK WIDOW TETRA
2)SILVER PROCHILDUS
3)RED ZEBRA
4)FIGURE 8 PUFFER
5)INDIAN MUD SKIPPER
6)SILVER SCAT


ALSO I WOULD LIKE HELP ON IF THESE FISH WOULD BE OK TO ALL HAVE TOGETHER IN THE SAME TANK && WHAT OTHER FISH AE GOOD TO HAVE N LOOK THE PART, NEED CHOICES ON WHAT IS THE BEST SAND OTO GET OR GRAVEL WHICH IS BETTER

NEED CHOICES ON WHAT ROCK OR CORAL IF POSSIBLE I COULD HAVE IN THERE??? THANK YOU FOR HELP IS WELL APPRECIATED

 

[Assaye]

HIYA HERE ARE SOME FISH ME AND MY OTHER HALF HAVE AGREED ON THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP !

1) BLACK WIDOW TETRA
2)SILVER PROCHILDUS
3)RED ZEBRA
4)FIGURE 8 PUFFER
5)INDIAN MUD SKIPPER
6)SILVER SCAT


ALSO I WOULD LIKE HELP ON IF THESE FISH WOULD BE OK TO ALL HAVE TOGETHER IN THE SAME TANK && WHAT OTHER FISH AE GOOD TO HAVE N LOOK THE PART, NEED CHOICES ON WHAT IS THE BEST SAND OTO GET OR GRAVEL WHICH IS BETTER

NEED CHOICES ON WHAT ROCK OR CORAL IF POSSIBLE I COULD HAVE IN THERE??? THANK YOU FOR HELP IS WELL APPRECIATED

Hi again!

1) Black widows would be fine you'd want at least 6 and the more you have, the better they will look and the happier they will be. How about 10-15 of them?

2) Silver prochilodus - these guys get to about a foot long (maybe just under) and need really long tanks because they are fairly active. IMO, they are not suitable for your tank.

3) Red zebra - these cichlids are aggressive and terriatorial. They really need larger tanks with other aggressive tank mates (such as other Malawi cichlids)

4) Figure 8 puffer - lovely fish but need species own tanks. They can do real damage to fish much larger than themselves with those beaks!

5) Indian mud skipper - require very specialist tanks with sandy/muddy beach areas. They are also pretty terriatorial. Unless you want a highly specialised tank with just a couple of mud skippers then this isn't a good idea.

6) Silver scat - these are brackish fish (meaning they need salty water) and they get to well over a foot long. Far too big.

When you are looking at fish bare in mind how big your tank is. Unless you want to specialise in a specific species or type of fish, then you'll be looking at a community tank. In that case, you'll probably be looking at these kinds of fish:

small bottom feeders - max size 2-3 inches each
small plec - max about 6 or 7 inches
small shoaling fish - max size 2-3 inches
Larger fish - max size about 5 inches

On a crude estimate you have about 30-35 inches of adult fish to play with.

Read this for stocking advice.

 

[erk628]

HIYA HERE ARE SOME FISH ME AND MY OTHER HALF HAVE AGREED ON THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP !

1) BLACK WIDOW TETRA
2)SILVER PROCHILDUS
3)RED ZEBRA
4)FIGURE 8 PUFFER
5)INDIAN MUD SKIPPER
6)SILVER SCAT


ALSO I WOULD LIKE HELP ON IF THESE FISH WOULD BE OK TO ALL HAVE TOGETHER IN THE SAME TANK && WHAT OTHER FISH AE GOOD TO HAVE N LOOK THE PART, NEED CHOICES ON WHAT IS THE BEST SAND OTO GET OR GRAVEL WHICH IS BETTER

NEED CHOICES ON WHAT ROCK OR CORAL IF POSSIBLE I COULD HAVE IN THERE??? THANK YOU FOR HELP IS WELL APPRECIATED

Hi again!

1) Black widows would be fine you'd want at least 6 and the more you have, the better they will look and the happier they will be. How about 10-15 of them?

2) Silver prochilodus - these guys get to about a foot long (maybe just under) and need really long tanks because they are fairly active. IMO, they are not suitable for your tank.

3) Red zebra - these cichlids are aggressive and terriatorial. They really need larger tanks with other aggressive tank mates (such as other Malawi cichlids)

4) Figure 8 puffer - lovely fish but need species own tanks. They can do real damage to fish much larger than themselves with those beaks!

5) Indian mud skipper - require very specialist tanks with sandy/muddy beach areas. They are also pretty terriatorial. Unless you want a highly specialised tank with just a couple of mud skippers then this isn't a good idea.

6) Silver scat - these are brackish fish (meaning they need salty water) and they get to well over a foot long. Far too big.

When you are looking at fish bare in mind how big your tank is. Unless you want to specialise in a specific species or type of fish, then you'll be looking at a community tank. In that case, you'll probably be looking at these kinds of fish:

small bottom feeders - max size 2-3 inches each
small plec - max about 6 or 7 inches
small shoaling fish - max size 2-3 inches
Larger fish - max size about 5 inches

On a crude estimate you have about 30-35 inches of adult fish to play with.

Read this for stocking advice.

Very well done Assaye your stocking skills impress me. I wish you worked at my LFS!

 

[NinjaSmurf]

Another thing to ask yourself is, what exactly do you want FROM this tank? Do you want fish that are going to be active all the time, or do you want something a little more placid? Predatory or community? Fish with personality? Large groups of smaller fish, or a smaller number of bigger ones? There are brightly colored fish for almost every one of these setups.

I think a lot of times new people aren't sure what they want, and they just stock according to other peoples ideas only to find out later they just don't like that setup because it's just not one they are drawn to. If it's not something you'd be willing to sit down and just watch, you aren't going to like it.

 

[barry&&neady]

HIYA HERE ARE SOME FISH ME AND MY OTHER HALF HAVE AGREED ON THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP !

1) BLACK WIDOW TETRA
2)SILVER PROCHILDUS
3)RED ZEBRA
4)FIGURE 8 PUFFER
5)INDIAN MUD SKIPPER
6)SILVER SCAT


ALSO I WOULD LIKE HELP ON IF THESE FISH WOULD BE OK TO ALL HAVE TOGETHER IN THE SAME TANK && WHAT OTHER FISH AE GOOD TO HAVE N LOOK THE PART, NEED CHOICES ON WHAT IS THE BEST SAND OTO GET OR GRAVEL WHICH IS BETTER

NEED CHOICES ON WHAT ROCK OR CORAL IF POSSIBLE I COULD HAVE IN THERE??? THANK YOU FOR HELP IS WELL APPRECIATED

Hi again!

1) Black widows would be fine you'd want at least 6 and the more you have, the better they will look and the happier they will be. How about 10-15 of them?

2) Silver prochilodus - these guys get to about a foot long (maybe just under) and need really long tanks because they are fairly active. IMO, they are not suitable for your tank.

3) Red zebra - these cichlids are aggressive and terriatorial. They really need larger tanks with other aggressive tank mates (such as other Malawi cichlids)

4) Figure 8 puffer - lovely fish but need species own tanks. They can do real damage to fish much larger than themselves with those beaks!

5) Indian mud skipper - require very specialist tanks with sandy/muddy beach areas. They are also pretty terriatorial. Unless you want a highly specialised tank with just a couple of mud skippers then this isn't a good idea.

6) Silver scat - these are brackish fish (meaning they need salty water) and they get to well over a foot long. Far too big.

When you are looking at fish bare in mind how big your tank is. Unless you want to specialise in a specific species or type of fish, then you'll be looking at a community tank. In that case, you'll probably be looking at these kinds of fish:

small bottom feeders - max size 2-3 inches each
small plec - max about 6 or 7 inches
small shoaling fish - max size 2-3 inches
Larger fish - max size about 5 inches

On a crude estimate you have about 30-35 inches of adult fish to play with.

Read this for stocking advice.

Very well done Assaye your stocking skills impress me. I wish you worked at my LFS!

 

[barry&&neady]

thankyou for your help would u name some fish for me what will be the best to have and dont look cheap, i set up my tank today i used black sand with lava and rose quart, tank has started to look the part i am going to upload a picture tomorrow, does anything need adding to the water to help it settle better

 

[barry&&neady]

hiya i have have got a few fish for my tank

1) angel fish

2)2 neons

3) 2 torpedos

4) 6 guppies

5) 1 glass shrimp

6) a suker fish ha


the one i am worried abwt is a blue claw lobster i want to no if that will harm my other fish it seems scared of them and it keeps letting the shrimp climb on his bak it quality to watch!!!