New Tank Questions

[hagzo]

Hi there

newbie here who's just bought a tank and am looking for some advice before buying fishies.
Great site by the way. and thanks to the members who contribute to the beginners resource centre.

I bought a fish tank coffee table from a chap on ebay. Like this

http/www.clearseal.com/images/table.jpg

I've been told that adding a heater would be a bad idea due to condensation forming on the glass.
I recon that if heat it to only 19c/66f (the same as the room the tank is in) it would prevent condensation - has anyone
out there had an open tank in a room and tried to solve the same problem?

Considering the heater issue i was hoping to stock the tank with temperate/subtropical fish. I had a search around and have came up with following
potential candidates -

zebra & pearl Danio
red phantom & blood fin tetra
white cloud mountain minnow
gold dwarf barb
weather or hillstream loach
peppered cory
dwarf gourami
black band sunfish (although i think theyre only available in the u.s.)

Is there any owners out there who can confirm these fish are happy at 19c or maybe suggest other fish?

Another question is - I've found two ways of calculating the total fish length for the tank but they give me two vastly different results.

The tank is 1x1m by 150mm deep and holds 40us gallons. The calculator tells me i can either have 40" of fish (based on volume) or 129" (based on surface area). Which is correct? I'm tempted to go an average of about 85".

I found a potential plant supplier on ebay. Has anyone bought from ebay before?

Many Thanks

Keith

 

[Phage]

An open tank in a room? A tank with no lid you mean? My tank has no cover and evaporates pretty quickly so every few days I have to add water. There is potential for fish suicide as well :\
My tank is in my bedroom, in the basement where the basement can drop to 60-65F in winter. The heater was set to 76F in the tank. No condensation occurred. I have a covered tank in the same room, not much evaporation, tank is about 78F, no condensation.
Is that what you meant?

I know white cloud mountain minnows, danios, prefer cooler water. Tetras possibly. Dwarf barb yes.
Hillstream loach like cool water but live in rivers so they need a high current to do good as well a great supply of algae, and I don't think you would like to present algae in a table :\
Peppered cory, perhaps.
Gourami, no.
Sunfish, yes but I read they can be sensitive to water quality.

For plants, I'm not sure how it would work in there. Some types prefer alot of light, some can survive low light but grow slow. If you find low light plants, I think you might be ok.
Java moss, java fern, anubias barteri, moss balls, various cryptocoryne species all do well in low light. I bought plants off of ebay and they took a month to get here since I didn't do rush shipping. Most lived.


Edit: How does a filter work in that table tank?

 

[hagzo]

cheers for the reply phage

I've got a pic of the filter but haven't sussed how to attach it yet!

The filter pulls the water in through a gap in the corner, across two compartments with ceramic media and pumps it out at water level.
I guess the pump is powerfull cause it creates quite a current when putting the cleaned water back in.

The tank has a glass top suspended about 10mm above the tank by four plastic spacers.
I was told condensation will happen under the glass top if i try to heat the water for tropical fish.

Im glad you suggested some low light plants because i doubt the 15W flourescent that attaches to the corner
will provide enough light.

Why do you say no to gourami? I've read that some of them don't mind lower temps but also that they will eat smaller fish.