What To Stock?

[dbanner]

Hi everyone, since iv had my fish tank my daughter (who is only 7 yrs old) is becoming more and more interested. I'm now thinking of getting here a small tank of here own but don't really know what fish to stock it with. I want fish that are not very messy and are relatively small. So was thinking along the lines of cardinal tetras, rasboras, guppies, that sort of thing. Could anyone give me some ideas for a nice display of fish....

The tank itself will be 24 long x 15 high x 12 wide. I think this is around 70l but not sure so maybe someone could correct me on that so i know in future.

The tank will have a sand bottom, 150 litre heater, fluval u2 filter and then a bubbler (my daughter likes these lol).

Thanks

 

[Tizer]

bubbles make noise along with the air pump, if its in her room, it might interupt her sleep, which , will probably interupt yours

yeah its roughtly 70 litres, but once the sand is in and the "life support" you are talking about 60 litres.

go for a 100Wat heater, 150W is over kill.

Fish wise, you have a lot of choice, if you are talking small fish like neons, then a school of 10 would be nice. Keep it simple and keep it cheap. kids will be kids

 

[dbanner]

She is fine with the filter noise and so on. She has slept without any problems in my room til i have to move her to her room while she asleep lol my 55 gal is in my room so we both used to it now lol I jus double checked and the heater i have spare is 100 watt so that saves a bit of cash

Yes as for the fish i did want to keep it to a minimum with small fish. 10 neons sounds good to me thanks

 

[LilyRose Tank]

the only trouble with neons, is they like a mature tank, thats been running constant for 6 months.....you might want to try 2 platys, 2 mollys, 2 octolinius. get different coloured fish, as you know how little girls like to name things, and make sure they are all one sex, as platys and mollys give birth to live fishies ( sorry if you already knew this) another beautiful fish that sparkles really well for girlys, is a gold ram. a pair of them, with some pygmy corys/ norman lampeyes, glowlight danios, will offer her plenty of colour and fun to watch. then you can put ornaments in that she loves from telly...spongebob for example, or some such character. if you dont know or havent seen gold ram before ( sorry dont know what your experience is) its the gold "goldfish" looking fish in my signature...they are beautiful and sparkle....like a glittery goldfish but for a tropical tank. another option as a show fish, is a dwarf gourami. they stay around 5ck full grown, and come in many colours for added variety
hope that helps, good luck with her tank xx

 

[dbanner]

Thanks for the reply I had gold gouramis, apoline gouramis, and a few cory ( peppered, albino and sterbai, I still have the cories with 2 kribensis in a 110 litre) but i have no experience with dwarf gouramis or cory. This is something i could look into. There is obviously some thinking to do as there are a few options to choose from. As for ornaments, she has already been looking at spongebob so funny you used that one as an example and she looked at hello kitty and scooby doo lol her main thing was 1... Friendly colourful fish (her words) and 2... Sand lol she is rather easy to keep happy. She enjoys lookin at them and feeding them (obviously she doesn't feed my piranhas lol) but mainly she likes to show them off to her to her cousins lol only downside is that il have 3 tanks to clean then haha... children hey

 

[fluttermoth]

How about a betta? As colourful as is possible and very friendly; a great fish for kids, IMO.

 

[dbanner]

Would that have to be kept alone or can it be kept with any other fish. Iv heard its best to only have 1 per tank??

 

[Tizer]

the only trouble with neons, is they like a mature tank, thats been running constant for 6 months.....you might want to try 2 platys, 2 mollys, 2 octolinius. get different coloured fish, as you know how little girls like to name things, and make sure they are all one sex, as platys and mollys give birth to live fishies ( sorry if you already knew this) another beautiful fish that sparkles really well for girlys, is a gold ram. a pair of them, with some pygmy corys/ norman lampeyes, glowlight danios, will offer her plenty of colour and fun to watch. then you can put ornaments in that she loves from telly...spongebob for example, or some such character. if you dont know or havent seen gold ram before ( sorry dont know what your experience is) its the gold "goldfish" looking fish in my signature...they are beautiful and sparkle....like a glittery goldfish but for a tropical tank. another option as a show fish, is a dwarf gourami. they stay around 5ck full grown, and come in many colours for added variety
hope that helps, good luck with her tank xx

platys and mollys are a good suggestion, although they can reach quite a size and im not sure about some in the long term. But octo's in a new tank are also pretty bad since algae is a big part of their diet your going to have to take care of feeding them yourself with a substitute and these guys are pretty easy to knock off.

you can have a few female bettas, but they are quite...boring in my eyes, i might get shot for saying that on there though, there is a lot of betta love going around with the ladies.

 

[dbanner]

Lol i have noticed the huge amount of positive interest in bettas on this forum. Ideally i do want a nice little school of fish rather than 1 or 2 of various types. I think so far neons sounds the most appealing. Would these be ok with dwarf cories or would that be too much in the tank?

 

[fluttermoth]

Rasboras are good with bettas, or you could have one of the pygmy corydoras species wih a shoal of tetra.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

male betta must be kept singularly, dont want your darling princess being exposed to a "bloody" fight between two betta males.
male bettas can be housed with a few small corydoras (pygmy) as they are fast enough to kept out of the bettas reach, but the filter must have a stocking over it, as pygmys can get stuck in a 1/4 cm gap and die.
Bettas come in a wide variety of shapes and colours, and some have fantastic personalities, to the point that when your daughter goes upto the glass they will come to the glass to say hello.
as for sizes of platys and mollys ,i think they only reach 2 and a half inches ( 7cm) so two ( one of each) could be housed with smaller fish like rasboras, and there are some that have strong colours...glowlight ones are stunning. so yes, there is an amazing plethora of fish to choose from. gold rams are very sparkly pretty, especially in the right lightening. corydoras (pygmy) can be kept in shoals of up to 10 or more, (no less than 4) and are really amusing to watch. i literally spent hours gigling at the shoal I had. If you want to go for colours, you could go for one fish of each rainbow colour...with research and thinking this is possible for the size tank you choose.
for example, if you aim for an average of 2 inches per adult fish size you could have
1 red cherry barb............2.00 inch
1 yellow Honey guorami.......1.50 inch
1 orange gold ram............2.75 inc
1 blue Neon blue Guorami.....2.30 inch
1 purple emperor tetra.......2.00 inch
1 multicoloured platy........2.5 inch

just examples of course.
but if little princess wants pretty fish, there are plenty out there. good luck with your ideas
( and personnally...i love bettas too lol)

 

[dbanner]

Thanks for the reply lots to think about. Rasboras are a very likely choice. Hmm.. iv just been looking at the gold rams and they are very nice as well

 

[Tizer]

Gold rams are quite hard to look after if you dont have perfect water for them. Very prone to falling over dead in new tanks.

 

[dbanner]

Ok best leave them then lol don't think my daughter would be too happy with that lol

 

[Louiseness]

Would that have to be kept alone or can it be kept with any other fish. Iv heard its best to only have 1 per tank??

You can absolutely keep other fish with bettas, especially in a tank that size. It's a bit pot luck as to the personality of the betta (and his tankmates) but people have had varying levels of success with msot of the small, peaceful community fish - neons, cardinals, cories, micro and other types of rasbora, endlers, platies, etc. And also snails and shrimp can work.