Newish Newbie

[superman1]

Hello

firstly would just like to say what a great place this forum is

ill start off with what got me into Fishes.

i used to have small tanks in the past as a kid but due to limited budget just had bog standard small tanks with goldfish

then after they died i never bothered with them untill about 2 yrs ago i got a small tropical tank of just 30l. after getting bored with the limits of a small tank i then upgraded in a larger 100 litre tank and had that beautifully set up with the help of wages.
but i will be upgrading that tank next week to a 180 litre tank and wanted some help with setting it up in terms of the possibilty of fishes.

preferably i would like to have some that swim around the top. some bottom feeders and some fishes that would basically be active alot while the bottom feeders cruise about the bottom. what fishes would be recommended. i will be running an aqua one 80 180l tank with an high quality external filter which cost about £70.

i would like the odd oddball in there. im pretty familiar with cycling the tank but have never had real plants in the tank n i would prefer to have alot of bogwood sand n real plants.

what do u guys suggest.

thanks

 

[waterdrop]

Hi superman1 and welcome to the TFF beginner section!

Fish stocking is a very personal thing and the way it works best usually is to be looking in the species sections at the pictures and descriptions and perhaps using google images and then give a list of fish you are interested in so that members can begin "supporting" or "shooting down" your ideas. Its excellent that you've started because it takes a long time and is an excellent activity to do over the time while your filter cycles after a new setup.

Just to toss out some common ideas I'll say that I really like the very hardy and common zebra danio as a very entertaining bunch of surface swimmers for any tank. The are very lively and don't just do the same thing every time you watch them. They are also one of the best "first fish" after a fishless cycle. In a tank like yours you could think of starting at the minimum shoal size of 6 or larger is even better, like 8, if it works out with your other stocking. (For smaller tanks I also think 3 or 4 can work out for people, even though the shoal people will fuss.)

For the bottom substrate areas you will no doubt be thinking of the all the wide and varied types of corys and I'd recomment you also check into the couple of pygmy species of cories that are very lively in a little shoal.

For the middle areas of your tank I recommend you study the many, many types of tetras out there. Seek out the ones that are not aggressive and then make the difficult decision to only have 2 or 3 types (or even only one!) so you can have larger shoal sizes for visual impact. Besides these shoals of course you will want a few centerpiece fish, perhaps slower moving fish originally from lakes rather than streams. Gouramis and cichlids and many other more unusual fish can fall into this category.

You sound like this will be your most serious entry into the hobby to date, so this is probably the time to slow down, do a lot of reading here (the pinned topics are great), watch other threads, discuss your filter media and generally do a good learning and setup job on your fishless cycle of this new tank.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[superman1]

hello waterdrop.

thanks for the info. will definately read up a bit more.

il give you a bit of info regarding my current tank.

at the moment i have a 100 litre tank currently stocked with

6x neon tetras
5x black phantom tetras
3x diamond tetras
1 cory
2 Algae Eater
Gyrinocheilos aymonieri
1 black molly,
1 silver shark which is farely small hence why ive got it and upgrading
1 neon gourami

i find with these they leave in perfect harmony never had any problems apart from a few months ago 1 of the black phantom tetra was nipped to death but dont know who the culprit is

ideally would like to keep some of these in the new tank.

btw would you say this is overstocked.

thanks

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, at a glance you're overstocked. The guideline we generally use is one inch of fully grown adult fish body (not fins) per US gallon of water volume. You have to look up the adult size the fish can grow to and use that. There are all sorts of problems with this guideline but its better than nothing as a starting point for beginners. It works the best for small fish and begins to break down for fish that are big and/or wide, they need still more space. It also doesn't account for individual species swimming needs which vary as you can imagine.

Experienced aquarists with overfiltration, plenty of experience and large tanks will often go beyond this guideline, all the way up to 2 inches of fish per gallon, but there are plenty of problems with doing this. It gives you less room for error. If you have a power outage, things can get bad really fast. If you have disease problems, they can be bigger problems.

~~waterdrop~~