Substrate And General New Tank Q's

[nehpets81]

Hi there,

I'm sure you get lots of these total beginner posts on here so I hope someone doesn't mind giving me some advice. I have just purchased my first tank (125L) and have a (long) shortlist of some fish I wanted to include. I wanted some tetras (cardinal and rummy nosed I think are my fave's), some barbs (I was thinking maybe Cherry or Ruby), and some Kribs. Those are the main ones so far but my other half wants to include something with fancy tails - either a solitary Betta, a few guppys or some mollies - any pros and cons for those? I read that they tend to prefer higher ph levels than the tetras - is this a big problem?
Finally I wanted a bottom feeder to give the tank some depth. I think I like the idea of some bronze corys. The potential problem here, though, is that the substrate supplied with my tank is medium pea gravel. Would this be unsuitable for the corys due to their barbels, the guy I asked in the aquarium shop seemed to think that although they prefer sand, they should be ok - does this seem likely? I did have this (possibly daft) idea of having the pea gravel and sand as my sustrate. Would it be at all feasable to have an area of gravel and an area of sand for the Corys to play in??

Just remembered another question I had! My tank also came without a condensation plastic lid and there is nothing between the light and the water - is this normal?

Thanks!

 

[Skins]

Hi there,

I'm sure you get lots of these total beginner posts on here so I hope someone doesn't mind giving me some advice. I have just purchased my first tank (125L) and have a (long) shortlist of some fish I wanted to include. I wanted some tetras (cardinal and rummy nosed I think are my fave's), some barbs (I was thinking maybe Cherry or Ruby), and some Kribs. Those are the main ones so far but my other half wants to include something with fancy tails - either a solitary Betta, a few guppys or some mollies - any pros and cons for those? I read that they tend to prefer higher ph levels than the tetras - is this a big problem?
Finally I wanted a bottom feeder to give the tank some depth. I think I like the idea of some bronze corys. The potential problem here, though, is that the substrate supplied with my tank is medium pea gravel. Would this be unsuitable for the corys due to their barbels, the guy I asked in the aquarium shop seemed to think that although they prefer sand, they should be ok - does this seem likely? I did have this (possibly daft) idea of having the pea gravel and sand as my sustrate. Would it be at all feasable to have an area of gravel and an area of sand for the Corys to play in??

Just remembered another question I had! My tank also came without a condensation plastic lid and there is nothing between the light and the water - is this normal?

Thanks!

Sounds like a fluval roma 125.
How are you cycling your tank?

Keith.
P.S welcome to the forum.

 

[nehpets81]

Bingo! That's the one! Not done anything with it yet actually - it arrived without some bits to make the cabinet (still slightly concerned about putting something that heavy on a flat pack I made myself, but hey!) so have to wait for that before I think about cycles. Plan to put in the substrate, the bogwood I currently have soaking, some rocks just purchased today, some plants, some water and then cycle for a few weeks before adding the first fish.

 

[Skins]

Bingo! That's the one! Not done anything with it yet actually - it arrived without some bits to make the cabinet (still slightly concerned about putting something that heavy on a flat pack I made myself, but hey!) so have to wait for that before I think about cycles. Plan to put in the substrate, the bogwood I currently have soaking, some rocks just purchased today, some plants, some water and then cycle for a few weeks before adding the first fish.

With you having no fish yet you are in a great position to "fishless cycle", you will find a step by step guide to this method in the article in my signature at the bottom of this post.
I have a roma125 and the cabinet is very sturdy

Keith.

 

[twodoctors]

Answering your question then, if you gravel is round and smooth it's probably ok. Corys prefer sand and I can see why. I have also started out about 6 weeks ago. I had coarse gravel (I didn't know at the time) and I recently changed it to sand/fine gravel. I bought my corys 2 days ago and I can see how their barbels would be damaged by the coarse gravel. The other reason was I had worms (forgot the proper name for it) from dirty gravel. I didn't know how to feed the fishes properly and I tend to get a lot of food falling between the gravels. I didn't have a bottom feeder at the time. When I had worms I took nearly everything out and pushed the gravel to one side to clean the bottom of the tank. Couldn't believe how much stuff I have collected in only 2 weeks with fishes.

My advise would be if you go gravel, don't have too much so you can literally stick the gravel cleaner to the glass when you clean. Otherwise use fine gravel/sand and be careful with the gravel cleaner (otherwise you will suck out a lot of sand).

When choosing fish, the most important thing in my opinion is your tap water parameter. If you have alkaline water like me, then you would be limited to fishes that thrive in alkaline condition, unless you change it chemically or use reverse osmosis water. Both are expensive option and personally I can't afford it. So get your water testing kit out and check your pH.

Adrian

 

[Skins]

When the day arrives and your ready to stock your tank you will be surprised how many fish will be ok with your pH parameters, its when your keeping delicate species like discus or african cichlids where pH parameters have to be perfect. In my opinion the golden rule with pH is to keep it stable.

Keep us posted with your cycle, Keith.

 

[Aqua Tom]

+1 with keith.

My PH is mentaly high but fish do aclimatise, espesialy if bought localy.

 

[nehpets81]

Thanks for the replies - the gravel does look a bit rough actually and I certainly don't want worms so maybe I should ignore the gravel that came with the tank and buy some sand??

 

[waterdrop]

I often like to say that it is so lucky to happen upon a serious hobbyist site like TFF when you've just got your first hardware and are still -thinking- about fish, rather than -already caring- for fish!

Hi nehpets81 and welcome to our little beginner section and to the great TFF! We see dozens of new beginners each month and you have launched off just like the majority of them! You are already racing into the fine details of your "stocking plan" (as we call the fish species list) and are focused on those problems that are presenting themselves to you as obvious (no condensation tray!)

But one of the great things about TFF is that here you'll also have the chance not to reinvent the wheel. Dozens of us have planned and set up hundreds of tanks in our time and we've learned the hard way all sorts of things to think about. These can be yours for the taking if you're open to them.

The "stocking plan" is indeed a big deal and very important. I even think of it as a bit of a black art, with any number of layers to learn. There are considerations about how much "bioload" (3D volume of living fish body (and metabolism rate) tissue more or less) your tank volume and surface area can accomodate. There are considerations about which species will not just survive but thrive in your particular tap water mineral content and pH and how stable those can be kept at. There are considerations of the minimal shoal number of many of the species or other within-species numerical or sex considerations. There are considerations of aggression within-species and between species. There are considerations of how shallow or deep a species is used to or comfortable with and how much horizontal "running room" they need. And those are just gross generalizations on the topic of "stocking plans!"

But the bigger picture is that "stocking plans," while it's great to start on them immediately, as you are doing, are really, at least in my mind, several steps down the road of what an experienced aquarist ultimately likes to think about when involved in new tank startup. Ideally, the worry is first about all the hardware that might undo the plan if one had to backtrack and correct it, first (is the floor supportive enough, is the stand level, have I understood enough about filters and filter media... some things like that.) THEN, and most important, the plan for the "learning about creating and keeping good water" is of prime importance. This is because fishkeeping is really all about water keeping, after which the keeping of fish will follow with ease.

It turns out that the two big things, the learning of water keeping and the learning of how to be happy with your stocking list can dovetail together quite nicely. But it often comes as a shock to a first time tank owner how much "up front" time there really is before one can show off a bunch of obviously happy fish! Instead of the "week or two" that the world has probably led you to believe, it's often a "month or two" (!) to really do it right (although the truth is, it's highly unpredictable and different in each case.) What we often see in our ideal cases is that there is an opportunity to get a strong buildup of skill with biofilters (the "cycling" mentioned above) and that it takes about the same amount of time as the digging out of a good stocking plan from comments by various members who are good with various species and on stocking plan advice in general.

I hope that you will consider this sort of effort, as it's my observation that those who have the patience for it find in the end that they have had a special introduction to the hobby. It's not for everyone, as it's a real shift from our everyday world of fast communications and instant results, but it echos what good aquariums are all about, which, in my opinion, is to help us with the opposite of all that, to allow us to decompress when we come home, to stare into a different world...

~~waterdrop~~
and again, Welcome and I hope you have a good time

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Nehpets.
I see that WD has already stepped in on cycling so I will leave you in his able hands on that subject.
Let me take a look at your stocking plan instead. The mollies, some of my own favorite fish, will not thrive in the same water as your tetras will. In fact, if you have relatively soft water, the tetras will often do fine and mollies will be a constant disease problem. On the other hand, if you have fairly hard tap water, the mollies will thrive but the tetras will not at all be at home. In general the various cory species do great with low mineral content, soft, water. If you have soft water please stick to tetras and cories with maybe a few guppies.
If you have fairly hard water, forget the tetras and focus on things like guppies and mollies. I have kept lot of cories in my hard water and they have done well enough, but the water is not good enough for them to breed in my water. On the other hand mollies, guppies and plenty of similar fish absolutely thrive in my water.
A key to easy fish care that is quite rewarding and results in regular success is to focus on fish that will do well in your local tap water and ignore the rest of the fish out there. It limits the fish that you have in your tanks but means that all fish that are in your care are likely to do well, breed with success and be very satisfying to you as a keeper.
The kribs you are looking at are among the many that will thrive in hard water, as will things like rasboras. Betta splendens are very adaptable although they come from fairly soft water environments.
Side note: pea gravel that is somewhat round in shape can definitely be used with cories. Even with my high pH conditions, I have kept lots of cory species in my tanks. When I want to explore breeding of cories, I almost always need to consider adding lots of RO water to my tap water.

 

[nehpets81]

Thanks for all the welcomes and advice - as I'm still missing an essential part of my flat pack cabinet I have quite a bit of enforced thinking time - I'm glad I stimbled upon this forum as there seem to be a lot of things that aren't covered in the book I purchased on the subject! I still have a few questions, sorry if these (as they probably have) have come up numerous times before!

1. Fishless Cycling - the addition of ammonia is not mentioned at all in the book I have - is this intended to help the level of bacteria build up to a point that you can add all the fish together, rather than adding a few at a time as I was initially planning? Is this the main purpose of fishless cycling and is this generally though of being the best way forward?

2. Condensation try - sorry to bang on about this as it must be such a basic question but is it necessary to have one? Will it do the lighting system any good to have water condesing on it? If I do need one, where can I find one?

3. It is clear that my water conditions will determine what fish (yup, still thinking about the stocking plan, sorry!) I can have in the tank - is it fair to say that hardness will have more of a bearing on the fish I can accomodate than ph? If I test the ph of the water out of the tap, will it give a rough idea of what I'm dealing with and I assume it is not really feasable to add anything to the tank, such as certain kinds of rocks to change it?

4. Substrate - yup, still going on about substrate as this is something I'm going to have to make a decision on more quickly. I'm leaning towards sand at the moment - are there any disadvantages of sand other than accidentally sucking it up when cleaning the substrate? Also, has anyone tried to make an area of sand, and an area of gravel in the same tank or is it always destined to mix together?

Phew - that's it off the top of my head!

Thanks again!

 

[weezawoo]

Hi,

1. Most lfs or companies seem to advise 3 days then add the fish. The problem with this is it then makes it a 'fish-in' cycle. Most people don't like this as it can result in deaths and if you have an ammonia spike which is likely it causes harm to the fish. It is therefore recommended to use ammonia and do a 'fish-less' cucle. Less o a threat as no fish are hurt but also easier to change things as you need to. I would still recommend being cautious when adding the new fish and you would still need to monitor the levels.

2. I don't have one and have had no problems in either of my tanks

3. One thing I will say about stocking is you don't have to decide an exact list. I started out with one fish I liked, from then on I added a few every week or 2 by looking at another I liked and was compatible. I have only just got to my 'max' capacity after 6 months, now I am buying a bigger tank as I love adding new fish to my tank. I don't know much about hardness etc

4. I would reccomend sand, you should be able to get some pretty cheaply. Play sand is fine for in tanks. I am about to set up my new tank with 2 different substrate areas, I am going to use larger stones to seperate the areas to prevent mixing them. You can easily clean sand with a gravel vac if you hover far enough away from the sand.