New to tropical fish keeping have a few questions

[leslie1986]

Hi guys
I am new to keeping tropical fish I have bought / rescued a tank and fish when we got the tank there was no pump/filter in it or light it had a air pipe blowing in the water we have now got a pump light and a new heater, the main reason for this thread is to get some info along the lines of how much food should the fish have and we have a pleco he is quite large but not sure if he is ok for the size of the tank. also we would like to know what fish we have in the tank as well we have been told that some of the fish probably shouldn't be together. Any advice would be greatly apricated. I will attach some pictures I have of the fish so far.

 

[Naughts]

@Wills?
Wow! Some amazing fish, are you keeping them?
What is the tank size/ dimensions? Have you got a test kit for the water? If yes, can you post the results.

 

[leslie1986]

@Wills?
Wow! Some amazing fish, are you keeping them?
What is the tank size/ dimensions? Have you got a test kit for the water? If yes, can you post the results.

Hello
im not 100% sure if we will be keeping them all yet as been told that some shouldn't be kept together,
A friend of mine come round the other day with a test strip and the water tested fine i am waiting for a test kit to come. the tank size is 5ft wide 1.5ft deep and 2ft tall.
can you tell what the fish are at all from the pictures?

Thanks Lez

 

[Essjay]

Photos 6 and 7 are a blood red parrot, a hybrid fish that no-one is sure what the parent fish were.

 

[leslie1986]

Photos 6 and 7 are a blood red parrot, a hybrid fish that no-one is sure what the parent fish were.

ok that helps that one keeps getting chased around the tank by the fish in picture 9 not sure if it attacking in a nasty way or what it doesn't seem to be hurting the other one but does chase it a lot.

 

[Naughts]

I've tagged Wills as I think he will know, but I don't. There is a blood parrot, and some cichlids. The silver ones may be silver dollars but I'm not sure about the redness in their tails - could be something else! Sorry!

 

[leslie1986]

I've tagged Wills as I think he will know, but I don't. There is a blood parrot, and some cichlids. The silver ones may be silver dollars but I'm not sure about the redness in their tails - could be something else! Sorry!

no need to be sorry you have been a great help any help is good to me as i am so new to it.

 

[Naughts]

Hello
im not 100% sure if we will be keeping them all yet as been told that some shouldn't be kept together,
A friend of mine come round the other day with a test strip and the water tested fine i am waiting for a test kit to come. the tank size is 5ft wide 1.5ft deep and 2ft tall.
can you tell what the fish are at all from the pictures?

Thanks Lez

Did your friend recommend daily water changes? How long had you had the tank when they tested the water? As you have a new filter I'm concerned that there may not be enough beneficial bacteria to break down the ammonia and nitrite. Did you add the stones or did they come with the tank?

 

[leslie1986]

Did your friend recommend daily water changes? How long had you had the tank when they tested the water? As you have a new filter I'm concerned that there may not be enough beneficial bacteria to break down the ammonia and nitrite. Did you add the stones or did they come with the tank?

to be honest we haven't been advised on water changes much when we took the tank we got it with all the stones and plants, we also took half the tank of water with it as well. The tank was in a poor state really when we got it what i did was use the water that we took out of it and put some in a bucket to clean the stones before putting them back so they wasn't cleaned in fresh water. the fish seem to be alot happier than when i went to look at the originally i am going the take a sample of water to the local fish place this week coming to get it tested.

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the forum Very noble of you to rescue these fish and the tank hopefully you we will be able to get you on the right track.

Pic 1 - I think the pleco is a Gibbiceps, which is a real monster 18-24 inches
Pic 2 - I think the striped one is some kind of barred midas cichlid but not sure which type, could be a hybrid?
Pic 3 - Jewel cichlid - quite a feisty fish but beautiful in the right tank
Pic 4 and 5 - African cichlid - I’m not fully up on African cichlids but 4, 5 and 10 are all african cichlids and I would imagine they have been bought from a tank labeled “Malawi Cichlids” which would cover a broad range of species and tank bred hybrids for their colours
Pic 6 and 7 - As mentioned parrot cichlids
Pic 8 - I think they are silver dollar but are they the same fish as in pic 1 under the pleco? The deeper red tail makes me worry they are Pacu?
Pic 10 - I think this is called a Blue Dolphin Cichlid.

If these fish have been living in unfiltered water for a sustained period of time - they are all a good size so I would imagine we are talking 12 months + they will likely have shortened lifespans so its just something to bear in mind as you raise them.

You already mentioned that there are a real mix of fish that won’t really work together long term, you can see in the pics there are a lot of torn fins and you mentioned some bullying issues so it may be a good idea to look at rehoming some of them.

Using the measurements you gave if it was filled to the brim it would work out at 112 US Gallons or 425 litres. I would guess the fill level is around 400 litres which is a good sized tank for some of these fish but not all.

Do you know how hard your water is? If you don’t have a test kit you can get the info from your local water company on their website there will be an area you can put your postcode in. If you post the results here someone will be able to work out what you are working with.

Wills

 

[leslie1986]

@Wills
Thank you so much for your help i will try and find out the water info now if i find it i will get back to you,
The fish have lived like it for at least 7 months as far as i am aware that is how long the previous owner had the tank if they had filter before that im not sure. it is the same fish in picture 8 as the one in the pleco picture. we have rehomed one of the plecs that we had there was 3 in there. i do like the bigger one but worried he is to big for the tank he is roughly 16" at the moment.

Thanks Lez

 

[leslie1986]

@Wills

The water in your area is very hard.

To help set your domestic appliances, the water hardness in different units is:
	310 mg/l (or parts per million)	:Calcium Carbonate
	124 mg/l (or parts per million)	:Calcium
	21.576 °C	egrees Clark
	31 °F	egrees French
	17.608 °dH	egrees German
	3.1 mmol/l	:Millimoles

I found this info not sure if that is what you needed or if it helps at all?

Thanks Lez

 

[Essjay]

There are several units of measurement for hardness but only two are used in fishkeeping. These are dH also called German degrees, and ppm also called mg/l calcium carbonate.

Looking at your table, the numbers you need are:
310 ppm
17.6 dH.

You have hard water.

 

[Wills]

I think that looks like you have pretty hard water but not hard enough for the Africans without adding something like crushed coral or ocean rock to raise it even further. The 'others' would all probably be ok, most of them need to be around neutral but are generally very flexible, the Silver Dollars are probably the ones that would do the best in softer water but they are found as invasive fish all over the world (as are the plecs and cichlids) so I'm not overly concerned, just not something I would recommend if you were building the tank from scratch.

I dont think your tank is too small for any of the fish you have in there but its a choice between the Africans or the 'others' If you went down the african route it would be good to get an ID on which you have and work out what numbers they need to be kept in. It may be that between the orange ones and the blue dolphins you just have those 2 species but in bigger numbers maybe 1 or 2 other species but it would take a bit of research. If you liked the others the rest could work together but with a few tweaks, the parrots and the striped cichlid would work with the silver dollars (pretty sure they are just silver dollars and not pacu now).

There are 2 outliers to these two groupings the first is the Jewel Cichlid in pic 3 which are so hard to keep because they are so aggressive and unpredictable so I would probably say on balance in either set up I would rehome this one too. The other one is the plecos. They are big, they are messy but so few will end up in a 5 foot tank because of how common they are so I sort of dont want to say rehome them because I'm not 100% they would end up in a better tank.