New To The Hobby. Need Advice.

[thehugdemon]

My boyfriend and I just bought our first 5 gallon tank today and our first fish, a creamsicle lyretail molly. The woman at the store said it was a female, but I'd like to be certain. And we don't want babies, so what other fish would you guys suggest? We were thinking about a frog as well. I'm really at a loss here, I've never had fish before.

Help?

 

[helterskelter]

5 gallons is very small to be honest and if you do not want babies you should have gotten a male. This coz females can store sperm from males for several months so it's possible for her to still produce babies for many month's.

Do u have a filter at all?
Also have you added anything to added the good bacteria to the new tank.

You need these good bacteria to remove toxins produced by the fish.
Fish produce ammonia as a wast produce and even at very low levels this is lethal to fish. Mollies suffer very quickly to this so getting the water cycled is very important.
This ammonia is bracken down by this good bacteria to nitrite and then again down to nitrates, with no help this normally takes a month for the bacteria to grow enough.
You can buy the bacteria to help get things running but again the ammonia may to a lethal level before it all kicks in.

To be honest all shops should advise this, and not just sell a new tank and first fish on the same day.

 

[lilfishie]

This should help with the sexing

Female:
RED: shows the gravid spot, this is where the fry develop inside mum.
PURPLE: shows the female’s anal fin, notice the shape, very ‘fan’ shaped.

Male:
BLUE: shows the gonopodium (male sex organ) notice the shape is small and pointed.

and if you added the fish the same day you set the tank up you'll need to be reading through THIS

 

[ally86ozzy]

i agree w/ the above post about sexing. the molly is about the only thing u can fit in that tank right now. and if the 5gal isnt cycled, ur gonna either hav to rehome the molly or do a fish in cycle, which is hard, but possible. u could also take some mature filter media from a frend or family members filter (if ur frends or family members keep fish) and put it in ur own filter 2 speed up the proccess. ive ALSO heard that there is this bacteria in a bottle stuff that will cycle ur tank, i think u can usually buy it from your LFS or LPS. And, i think LFS's sometimes will sell ppl mature filter media from the filters on their tanks. so u could do any of those. but i would do something quickly, otherwise that molly wont last very long. good luck! -heart , ally86ozzy

P.S. i understand where ur comin from when u said u dont want fry. i hav mosquito fish, which BTW is (one of) the smallest livebearers, lol. sry im bragging. but anyways, mine started having kids last night for the third time since i got her. i got her in June, she popped in July, August, and NOW! so instead of rescuing the fry, ima do survival of the fittist, that way, if and when some get bigger, ill hav the best fry. Good Luck w/ ur molly. Theyre cuties

 

[thehugdemon]

i agree w/ the above post about sexing. the molly is about the only thing u can fit in that tank right now. and if the 5gal isnt cycled, ur gonna either hav to rehome the molly or do a fish in cycle, which is hard, but possible. u could also take some mature filter media from a frend or family members filter (if ur frends or family members keep fish) and put it in ur own filter 2 speed up the proccess. ive ALSO heard that there is this bacteria in a bottle stuff that will cycle ur tank, i think u can usually buy it from your LFS or LPS. And, i think LFS's sometimes will sell ppl mature filter media from the filters on their tanks. so u could do any of those. but i would do something quickly, otherwise that molly wont last very long. good luck! -heart , ally86ozzy

P.S. i understand where ur comin from when u said u dont want fry. i hav mosquito fish, which BTW is (one of) the smallest livebearers, lol. sry im bragging. but anyways, mine started having kids last night for the third time since i got her. i got her in June, she popped in July, August, and NOW! so instead of rescuing the fry, ima do survival of the fittist, that way, if and when some get bigger, ill hav the best fry. Good Luck w/ ur molly. Theyre cuties

Thanks. We're figuring out the hard way about cycling and all that..

For now Sushi, our molly, is doing ok. See mwood2's posts for the more detailed info.

 

[thehugdemon]

5 gallons is very small to be honest and if you do not want babies you should have gotten a male. This coz females can store sperm from males for several months so it's possible for her to still produce babies for many month's.

Do u have a filter at all?
Also have you added anything to added the good bacteria to the new tank.

You need these good bacteria to remove toxins produced by the fish.
Fish produce ammonia as a wast produce and even at very low levels this is lethal to fish. Mollies suffer very quickly to this so getting the water cycled is very important.
This ammonia is bracken down by this good bacteria to nitrite and then again down to nitrates, with no help this normally takes a month for the bacteria to grow enough.
You can buy the bacteria to help get things running but again the ammonia may to a lethal level before it all kicks in.

To be honest all shops should advise this, and not just sell a new tank and first fish on the same day.

they really really should. it's not fair that our fish should be suffering at all because of our naivety, and the store's need for a quick sale..

 

[helterskelter]

5 gallons is very small to be honest and if you do not want babies you should have gotten a male. This coz females can store sperm from males for several months so it's possible for her to still produce babies for many month's.

Do u have a filter at all?
Also have you added anything to added the good bacteria to the new tank.

You need these good bacteria to remove toxins produced by the fish.
Fish produce ammonia as a wast produce and even at very low levels this is lethal to fish. Mollies suffer very quickly to this so getting the water cycled is very important.
This ammonia is bracken down by this good bacteria to nitrite and then again down to nitrates, with no help this normally takes a month for the bacteria to grow enough.
You can buy the bacteria to help get things running but again the ammonia may to a lethal level before it all kicks in.

To be honest all shops should advise this, and not just sell a new tank and first fish on the same day.

they really really should. it's not fair that our fish should be suffering at all because of our naivety, and the store's need for a quick sale..

Sorry but this is the practice in most shop's as they know that most people will then go back in 2 weeks and spend more on treatments that they would of not needed if told what to do in the first place!!!!!!

The thing to do though is not to worry just yet, do a small water change each day or every other day of only 15-20% and this will help you.

The go find a shop which give better advice and spend your money there.