New Stocking Idea

[Twinklecaz]

Hiya

Rights, I have a new possible stocking idea. This has come about because I really want some Corys and I don't seem to be able to get Pygmys. and I love Pandas (whichmy LFS does sell). So would this work in my officially 60l but actually 58/59l (thats 15.something US Gallons) tank:

1 x Honey Gourami
4 x Male Platty
6 x Neon Tetra
6 x Panda Cory.

Aqadvisor tells me my stocking is 102% but I know people say that some fish (such as neons) don't count so much towards the stocking as others.

Notice how Platys are the only original ones from my first list. Coz I love them!

:Edit: I should also mention that my PH (when it settles) is about 7.5 ish and my water is hard but I don't yet know how much.

 

[VaegaVic]

Sounds lovely apart from one thing. Generally, honey gouramis prefer to be in groups, so one by itself could make it very lonely. Perhaps change for another neon or 2?

 

[Twinklecaz]

Nooooo I love the Gouramis! They told me in the Gourmai forum they'd be alright on their own

 

[VaegaVic]

Well it differs between fish, but I've always found that gouramis live longer if they have a friend.

 

[Twinklecaz]

Bum. I'm gonna have to think about that then.

 

[Twinklecaz]

Oh and also, what is Neon Tetra disease and is it common?

 

[waterdrop]

What about going down one platy and down one cory and up to 2 gouramis?

Don't worry so much about the tetras, you won't be able to stock them initially anyway, since they require a 6-month tank, so if you have a little quarantine tank you can let them Q for 4 to 6 weeks and the ones that make it can be moved to your 60L. I've got 5 anxious ones just hitting 4 weeks now and they're all gonna make it. They are acting just as energetic as the main tank ones now.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Twinklecaz]

Gah quarantine tanks!

I thought Corys had to be in a group minimum of 6? I thought about dropping a Platy before yeah but then I got an idea that one might get bullied coz of the odd number.

 

[bravehart]

What about going down one platy and down one cory and up to 2 gouramis?

Don't worry so much about the tetras, you won't be able to stock them initially anyway, since they require a 6-month tank, so if you have a little quarantine tank you can let them Q for 4 to 6 weeks and the ones that make it can be moved to your 60L. I've got 5 anxious ones just hitting 4 weeks now and they're all gonna make it. They are acting just as energetic as the main tank ones now.

~~waterdrop~~

Sorry to hijack this thread (hope you don't mind Twinklecaz) but I have been pondering a quarantine tank and wondering how it works in terms of how you keep the bacteria alive. are you constantly feeding ammonia when the tank is empty or...do you keep some fish in there and then put them back in your main tank during the quarantine of the new fish or....?

 

[Twinklecaz]

Lol I don't mind coz:

1. I do it to people all the time

2. I'd actually like to know the deal with quarantine tanks too

 

[waterdrop]

Q-tanks are kind of a mess to mess with .. just to sound grumpy, as waterdrop sometimes does, lol. Its just like you think, you need to deal with keeping your bacteria alive, or growing it in the first place, just like you are learning to do now on your first main tank. I got grumpy about it because I'm more like you now, just my son's tank and now his little quarantine tank, rather than like years ago when I had a whole basement full of tanks and having extra tank space or filters was not a problem.

People do it all the ways you could dream up. One of the most popular for people with a really big main tank is to simply be running a small filter of some sort on the main tank all the time that is switched over to run the Qtank on demand. A simple sponge filter (airline to a punctured tube running through the middle of a sponge) is very common or a small Aquaclear AC20 (or AC mini as that model used to be called.) The next most common practice is to simply take half a tray of media out of one of your big external cannister filters (feeling left out yet? lol) and stuff it into your dry AC20 which has been sitting in your dry Qtank inside a plastic bag in the garage.. that sort of thing.

Then there is the matter of keeping the bacteria alive while you run it. This of course is just like your main tank and all the skills you've been learning apply to it. What I did was to actually put a small amount of my mature media into my little ACmini (tiny HOB filter) hanging on the little 5.5G Qtank and then proceed to fishless cycle it. Every chance I got I washed the big filter in the little Qtank, making a mess, but cycling it fairly quickly. I then planned out a series of small stocking additions.

The stocking additions have been on the order of either 5 tiny neons, 2 or 3 slightly larger but small type fish or I would do 1 fish only if it was a larger fish. I put them in for at least 4 weeks but (and here is the IDEA, that I think is key) their real stay is often determined by my visits to my LFSs and when I see good ones that I want as the NEXT batch of Qfish, so that they can go strait in the same day that the old Qfish are transferred to the main display tank. That way I don't even have to take the cap off my ammonia bottle (but I would if I had to.. if I had a gap without fish and wanted to keep the bacteria alive for the next batch. If the tank reached full stocking and I thought I would not need the Qtank for a long time I would just dismantle it.

A trap to not fall in to is the permanent use of your Qtank. You can't believe how tempting this is! You have had to buy all the trappings.. a heater, filter, gravel, lid (I don't buy lights but just use a cheap table lamp I turn on before I feed them so they learn to wake up and eat, lol!) ..and of course my son loved the chance to decorate this Qtank... but you DON'T make it a permanent home for anyone or else you'll lose your Qtank and start having tanks littering the house! Then it becomes a hobby and... and...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bravehart]

The next most common practice is to simply take half a tray of media out of one of your big external cannister filters (feeling left out yet? lol)
~~waterdrop~~

Lol...feeling left out big time. We rescued a 90l tank and stand from the local tip/recycling, its a bit scuzzy, but should clean up ok. Will defo get an external filter for that when the time comes.

So do you have to have your q-tank running for a while before putting neons or are you kind of winging it a bit?

Tim

 

[waterdrop]

I started out to do what we advise but (and I'm sure this would probably not surprise you) I still looked at the Qtank as another "opportunity" to watch some fishless cycling progression so did not add as much mature media as would have been needed. I just put a very small mesh bag of ceramic gravel over and then I proceed to wash my media from the big filter a couple of times in the Qtank. It did accelerate the fishless cycle some but I still fishless cycled it for a while before it qualified. Then it turned out after qualification that I was unhappy with the neon stock I was seeing so I ended up just feeding it ammonia for months on end until the right neons came along. Its performance as a biofilter was solid as a rock by that time and I had no trouble with them.

~~waterdrop~~