New Guy, Some Advice Needed

[Mr&Mrs Newb McFish]

Hi there, Not new to fish keeping due to keeping fantail goldfish for years but new to tropical for sure, i have some mollies and neon as they seemed a good point to start from seeing as they are good community fish and quite easy going. (not from experience but from LFS advice and book reading).

I have a 60 litre as my main tank with my Mollies and Neons in it, they seem quite happy and one molly gave birth to 9 little mollies. not quite what i wanted in the first 4 days of having them but hey ho go with the flow and all that kinda stuff. I took out the babies and popped them in a little tank out the way cos i'm a bit soft and didn't want them being eaten. a few died quite soon on but i'm not letting this worry me too much however one got stuck in the filter and died anybody got any general tips and advice for baby mollies?

My other problem is that we have found 3 neons stuck up next to the filter intake on my main tank over a period of 3 days, does this kind of thing happen a lot ? is there something i'm doing wrong maybe?

thanks, any tips tricks and advice are welcome

the close up isn't the intake, it's a shot of the babies

 

[juggernuts]

Hi there, Not new to fish keeping due to keeping fantail goldfish for years but new to tropical for sure, i have some mollies and neon as they seemed a good point to start from seeing as they are good community fish and quite easy going. (not from experience but from LFS advice and book reading).

I have a 60 litre as my main tank with my Mollies and Neons in it, they seem quite happy and one molly gave birth to 9 little mollies. not quite what i wanted in the first 4 days of having them but hey ho go with the flow and all that kinda stuff. I took out the babies and popped them in a little tank out the way cos i'm a bit soft and didn't want them being eaten. a few died quite soon on but i'm not letting this worry me too much however one got stuck in the filter and died anybody got any general tips and advice for baby mollies?

My other problem is that we have found 3 neons stuck up next to the filter intake on my main tank over a period of 3 days, does this kind of thing happen a lot ? is there something i'm doing wrong maybe?

thanks, any tips tricks and advice are welcome

erm never seen a filter intake like that but regardless, my girlfriend had the same problem with her filter once, all she did was purchase a small sponge and simply cut it to size and secure it over the intake.

This way your not imparing the flow into the intake and none of your fishys can get stuck as it just takes the edge of that pull, hopefully stopping them getting to close and get sucked onto it.

Hope this helps

 

[Mr&Mrs Newb McFish]

doing that had crossed my mind, thx

 

[Assaye]

Tanks look good!

One key question is whether or not you have liquid test kits that test for ammonia and nitrite. In a newly set up tank (i.e. under two months old) these chemicals "spike" and although you can't see or smell them, they can seriously harm your fish. Annoyingly, the fish might not show signs or stress or sickness until it is too late and fish shops rarely tell you about these chemicals or how to test for them/lower the levels of them properly.

Making sure your tank is free of these chemicals is key to keeping all your fish healthy and happy and definitely key to keeping the babies alive! You want to be testing daily for the first month to two months and only stop testing when you see the levels staying at zero for several days. Any time the levels are not zero (which could well be daily for the first few weeks), you need to do some large (50-90%) water changes to keep the levels low.

After several weeks, your tanks becomes "cycled" which means the filters have enough natural bacterial to keep your water clean at a chemical level. In short, you've grown a nice little eco-system just need to help your fish a long until your bacteria grow properly.

Have a read HERE

 

[Mr&Mrs Newb McFish]

thanks Assaye, picking up a testing kit soon!