Next Fish

[steveb14]

I have had my present tank and fish population as it is now for about 3 weeks. All the water readings are ok and i want to introduce a few more fish to my 300 ltr tank. I have 8 neons , 3 rummey nosed tetras , 3 giant danios , 4 platys and a couple of small suckers . They all get along fine and i want to introduce a few more but dont want to disrupt the tank.

I was thinking of perhaps 6 cardinals, a couple more rummeys or a guppy or 2 . Has anyone got any suggestions please. would cardinals be ok for example.

I think all my platys are female, should i put a couple of male platys in as i believe these livebearers soon bread which i would like to have a go at.

Regards Steve

 

[Miss Wiggle]

can you give us the actual readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph, OK for one fish is not nescessarily ok for another so we need the actual numbers please.

i'd definately recommend upping your shoal of rummy noses, they do so much better in big groups and you've plenty of room for them. get 6 minimum but 10-12 would be much better

if you want to breed platys go for it, but be warned they are the rabbits of the fish world and it's very easy to get overrun, stick to 1m for every 2 females

 

[lilfishie]

300l is approx 79/70 US gal, any idea on what suckers they are? some grow very big so best fo find out now rather than later, for the platy sexing use this

you should always have 2/3 females to each male, if you are looking to breed them then you really should know what your letting yourself in for, from a single mating females can store enough sperm for up to 7 broods of fry, they give birth usually around every 4 weeks so you quickly become over run, then theres the issue of what to do with the others when they grow, its best to sperate the 2 sexes to stop inbreeding occuring. cardinals would be fine should shoal with the neons, maybe up the rummies and danios to around 8 of each

 

[restricted_alchemy]

You should probably wait till the tank has been up and running for 2/3 months before adding cardinals as they are quite sensitive. I didn't know this when I bought my tank and cycled it with them in, two survived and the others didn't! Also cardinals require soft water to be healthy. I get R/O water from my LFS which is setup to be exactly right for these kinds of fish.

Always go for peaceful and non fin-nipping varieties of fish if you want an easy life. Back phantom tetras are attractive and have proven to be hardy for me. One thing i've discovered recently when adding fish is that they sometimes bring diseases in with them and you can loose a lot of your fish in one go if that happens. I think the recommendation in that respect is to us a quarantine tank or to treat the tank with medication when you add new fish e.g. esha 2000 and a whitespot/velvet treatment.

I intend to get a quarantine tank soon.

 

[lilfishie]

yes if possible get a quarantine tank up and running, you'll be very greatful of it in the long run, most diseases like whitespot tend to remain hiden for upto a month but by the time you notice it its already effecting your other fish, i recently lost my whole tank stock due to my carelessness of not quarantining some neon tetras, and in my experience i have found that it is neons that aren't very hardy, cardinals i have kept for as long as 8 years neons only half that

 

[Colonel Mustard]

Cardinals are quite sensitive so either wait or get 8-10 glowlight tetra which are great fish the same size as neons just orange. never rush into getting more fish no matter how large the temptation can get, the rule is that if in doubt wait a little longer

 

[vinylman]

If you have a 300l tank, the most important thing is to up the numbers of some of the fish you already have. I'd add another 6 Rummynoses and if it's Otos you have on the bottom (if you'll pardon the expression), then add another three or four. A well-stocked tank with good sized groups of fish will look a lot better than a tank with a dozen different types of fish with maybe two or three of each kind. They'll behave a lot more naturally, too.
BTW, I keep Cardinals in a ph of 7.2 and moderately hard water. Give it AT LEAST another month before you add any. As with all sensitive fish, you can improve their chances by acclimatising them slowly, taking maybe an hour to do so using a bucket instead of the bag you get them in.

 

[steveb14]

Thank you all very much for your help. Went to get some Rummeys but the were being quarentined so i will leave it a week or two. I did how erver getting some black widow tetras and i have added some Cycle to the water. They all are doing well and seem very happy.
Thanks
Regards Steve

 

[vinylman]

You're wasting your time and money with 'Cycle', unfortunately.