Old Tank. Newbie Keep

[Re1axinmood]

My freind just move country and couldnt take his take with him. He didn't know half the fish and plants in the tank, can someone help ID the plants and the fish in it please, please see dropbox link if it worked.
 
https/www.dropbox.com/sh/2by5v0qmuwimynf/8yLv1NYL4I
 

 

[fluttermoth]

to the forum

I'm not that great on plants, but I can ID the fish for you (and a few of the plants!)

Ok; first pic; female guppies (the small gold-ish coloured ones), neon tetra (the red and blue one), powder blue dwarf gourami (the larger, plain blue one; almost certainly a male).

Not sure of the plant in the second pic, but the one in pic 3 is water lettuce.

In pic 5 there's a male guppy (the one with the blue tail) and an albino Chinese sucking loach (the yellow one)

Pic 6 is another dwarf gourami; possibly a female, if it's not the same fish as in pic 1!

Hope that helps. How big is the tank? You're probably going to have to rehome the sucking loach at some point. They can grow to nearly a foot long, and become quite aggressive as they get older.

 

[Re1axinmood]

I am not 100% sure. its 100cm Wide. 45cm from top to bottom and 30cm from back to front. think about 70 litres or 100.
 
He did say the loaches which there is 3 off were put in to control some algae growth round the filter and on the stone not so long ago. Will try and get a picture of the full tank and all the fish. I think there maybe to many in there, I have counted 12 neons. 1 dwarf Gourami, 3 of those loaches. Some sort of catfish, and 13 or 14 guppies (he told me guppies bread alot and when they give birth after the 3rd week try and take them out and take them to the nearest pet shop). some less then a cm, some about a inch long, Always wanted to keep fish so when he offered me the tank for free with the filter/fish/pump and stock i thought why not.

added some more pictures to that dropbox link
 
https/www.dropbox.com/sh/2by5v0qmuwimynf/8yLv1NYL4I

 

[Sophie]

The first picture
 
The plant which has a cream outside and a dark green inside is not actually an aquatic plant - it's a type of house plant that will eventually "drown" and begin to peel apart and melt in the tank. If you feel the leaves, it's a very rubbery, hard texture almost like a yucca plant - It's called Dracaena sanderiana. Looks like this in person:
 

 
Source: http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=4741
 
The dark green pile behind looks to me like Java Moss/Christmas Moss.

Pains me to think my company sells two types of non aquatic plants as fully submersible

  

 

[Re1axinmood]

If that is the case should I take that plant out now the leafs are stiff like rubber..he had this tank 3 years and I think those have been in maybe 6mths or more. He used to have a wide tank with loads of plants in but he found it to hard to do the up keep with his long hours

 

[snazy]

The plant on the 2nd, 4th and 5th picture looks like Ophiopogon, which is non-aquatic as well.
You should take these out and plant them on your window sill because no matter how long they survived under water, they'll rot and attract algae.
 
The floating plant on the third picture is water lettuce(Pistia stratiotes).
 
And on the 8th picture, the plant behind the Dracaena is a species of moss which I've no way of identifying exactly what type.

 

[Re1axinmood]

can someone tell me the best place online to buy some plants for this tank at all please?
 
As i said i got this free from a friend and everything with it. Plant//fish etc. hes had the plants in for some time. He empty half the tank into buckets and used that water to fill it and added some new water. He told me to use the old filter and not the new one he just brought because it will help get the tank back to normal quicker.

 

[fluttermoth]

In a very real sense, fishkeepers don't keep fish; we keep water and bacteria; they keep the fish!

We should have mentioned this earlier, really, but it essential that you don't overclean your filter media (that's all the stuff inside your filter; ceramic rings, porous rocks or sponges usually) and certainly only ever clean it in old tank water never under the tap (I hope you haven't done this!).

That's because it's inside the filter that nearly all the good bacteria live. They eat the poisonous, and invisible, substances (ammonia and nitrite) that fish produce, mostly in their poo and wee, but also as a by-product of respiration.

If you want to use the new filter, you can, but you must put all the media from your old filter in it, and then fill the space with new media.

There are loads of good online plant sellers; aquaessentials, Tropica and plantsalive are all very good

 

[Re1axinmood]

Thanks for the tip. No I havent touch the filter at all. Just put it in and turned it on like he told me to.. Will take alook at these sites and try and get some plants for the tank. Temp is set at 25 Took those plants outs and will find some online later.