Newbie To The Forums

[Saedcantas]

Hiya everyone!

Well lets see... I'm Charlotte I'm from Trafford in Manchester and I've been working in the Aquatics (and Reptile) trade for nearly 6 and a half years now B)

I'm 20 and in my final year of a Biology and Geology degree at Manchester University, since moving into a shared house this year, I've been tinkering with the idea of having my own fishtank again (I havent had one at home since I was 14!!!) Then I visited a coursemates house and saw his 20g planted tank... and that was it I just knew it was time! heh.

So I've gotten myself a ViaAqua LV418, it's 11g has an overtank luminaire with 2x 18W compact fluorescent tubes (1 actinic blue, 1 daylight) it came with an undergravel filter and powerhead lol so I took that out for a start! I'm running it with a Hydor Prime10 external canister and things are going well, I have the advantage that I "borrowed" lots of mature media and bits and bobs from work

I intend to have it as a soft water pH 6.6 (easy with my local water ) heavily planted little setup. So far I have a Dwarf honey gourami (Gertrude ) and a dwarf Otocinclus (Frank) I have enough experience to know that although I've shortcut by having mature media transferred into my filter and setup, it still pays off to be cautious

My proposed stocking list is as follows;
2x Rams
1x Dwarf honey gourami
2x Cherry barbs
6x Cardinals
3x Dwarf Otocinclus
4x Dwarf Corydorus
Any comments on if that seems a reasonable stocking level for this tank?

Anyway, this forum looks lovely and busy, I'm sure I'm going to love it here since I thought it was also time I did more chatting about pretty little fishies
Here's a couple of pics for starters,
Lotte***

Some of Frank...

and finally some of Gertrude

Thanks for looking everyone!

 

[Weaver]

Hi Charlotte
Hope you enjoy it here.
It is amazing how different your tank looks in daylight and at night
Frank and Gertrude are a great start-lovely fish

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Be very careful with that stock list. Nothing there that isn't compatible but that's a LOT of fish for an 11 gallon tank. General rule of thumb is 1" of ADULT fish per gallon of water. I didn't do the calculations but I would estimate that list to be pushing 30". You are definitely overfiltered with the filter you may be albe to get away with that many fish as long as you keep a good maintanence program. If you don't know about fishless cycling, please click the link in my signature.

 

[Saedcantas]

Thanks for the welcome guys

Rdd, thank you for your input, I have just started a new topic on the stocking level in general chitchat as I thought it would generate more advice there sorry!

As to your concerns, you are correct, the sizes I have stated are all adult maximum lengths and work out to be a total of 30.4". Please see my other topic on the subject so we dont all get confused

Oh! and as for fishless cycling, a very informative link I actually read it earlier today and have been aware of fishless cycling for some time (I advocate it to all customers that are prepared to listen!) My tank was stocked with gravel, bogwood and slate from well matured tanks, while the majority of my filter media was also taken from very mature sumps

Lotte***