Stocking New Aquarium

[mrpingu33]

Hi,
I'm relatively new to this, although I did have fish when I was younger (nothing serious) so I do now about cycling etc. and I've researched lots on the internet before doing anything.

I've recently been given a friends old tank - a Tropiquarium 68. I believe it's 72 litres but with an internal filter I guess that brings it down a bit. I've chosen sand substrate purely for the fact I like it more, I have 1 large rock, several small stones, some driftwood and around 6 live plants planted. (not sure what sort sorry)

Anyway, it's coming towards time to start putting fish in and I'm struggling to decide what to go for and what stocking level will be safe. Ideally I'd like a school of something nice, 1 or 2 centre piece type fish, and then I just love corys.

What I've been thinking is the following;
2 golden ram
1 dwarf gourami
8 harlequin rasboras
5 pygmy corys

Does this look ok, or do people think this would overstock my tank? I also read that it's useful when you have a sand substrate to chose something like malaysian trumpet snails to try and stop the sand compacting too much. Would adding trumpet snails in with these fish be ok? Or would that be way too much for my filter to cope with?

Any suggestions and help would be greatly appreciated. I'm willing to listen to any suggestions about other fish that might look nice in there instead, but just don't want to overstock and/or upset any fishies!

Many thanks,
Steve

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the forum! Sounds like your well on your way there with a lot of things

Not heard about that thing with the trumpet snails but it does sound like it should work. I think Im going to try it out my tank as I always worry about dead spots

Has the tank been dried out before you? And if its stood empty now how long has it been empty? Have you kept the any fish in it before you decide what you want to do?

Your stock list looks great but I would up the pygmy cories to 8 or 10 they are really tiny and I think the tank can handle it. Also with the rams I would go for Bolivian Rams as opposed to Gold, Blue or German rams as Bolivians are hardier than the others. The Golds etc also need a much higher temperature and the other fish you chose wont like the high temperatures. But Im not sure how rams and dwarf gourami will mix, I know there is a few members that keep honey gourami and bolivain rams together in a similar sized tank successful but dwarfs (like powder blue etc) can be a bit more aggressive sometimes but I can imagine it will be okay as the rams will stay low and the DG high. An other alternative could be to either go for the honey to be safe or rather than get the rams get a trio of dwarf gourami, so that would be 1 male and 2 females.

Wills

 

[mrpingu33]

Thank you Wills I'll have a look into honey gouramis and bolivian rams

The tank was sitting around for about 6 months in a mates garage with only gravel and a couple of inches of water in it (along with a lot of calcium/algae/muck etc). I cleaned it out using water and vinegar solution and a lot of hard work I read the vinegar part worked well for the calcium and wouldn't cause any problems, I then dried it all off and left it a couple of weeks to before I started adding sand water and cycling etc.
So it has had fish in before but not for a while.

Thanks again for your help

 

[Wills]

Ah right okay, with the tank being empty for so long you will need to cycle the filter again. This is a process of growing bacteria to support the fish you want to add to the tank, if you look in the begginers resource section, you will see a section on fishless cycling. This is the true way to fishless cycling with pure ammonia rather than the "bacteria in a bottle" stuff you get from shop. Its the best way to do this cycle because it uses a chemical to start the bacteria colony rather than relying on fish to create the chemical. Because we in effect bypass the fish in this process it means that there are going to be no fish put under stress in the cycling stages, this means that you will not have any risk of death or disease in the early stages of your tank.

Wills

 

[Deleted member 55926]

I have 2 German Blue Rams and 2 Dwarf Gouramis. They are absolutely fine together.

However, I thought I got Bolivian Rams initially, and everyone has told me since that the German Blue Rams are much harder to look after, so make sure you get Bolivian!

 

[mrpingu33]

Thank Mig, yes I don't want to start with anything too complicated!

Don't worry Wills, I forgot to mention about cycling - it's been cycling for approx 3 weeks now (fishlessly) it's not ready yet I don't think (I need to buy more testers) but I'm just planning ahead as to what I might get.
Thanks for all your help