Need another tank..?

@Lajos_Detari thank you for those - they are lovely ?.

NannaLou said:

Thank you for the list! I don’t sleep very well so I’ve been reading....?

I think I’m going to keep things simple and choose fish that suit the water I have...no RO setup (yet ?..?)

I’m thinking about having a 54 ltr tank

I’m now looking at the Endlers and Guppies.
I think I’ve read that a rule of thumb is 1cm of fish to 1 ltr of water (but as always there are lots of exceptions ...). On that basis, if an Endler is about 1 inch (2.5 cms) I could have 21...and guppy’s @ 3.5 cms 15.

My worry with both of these is the breeding rate...I don’t want the worry of 100s of babies and trying to get rid of them safely. Can you keep male only groups..? I think I only want one type of fish in the tank so I can have “lots”...

Further advice..?

Click to expand...

Hello!
Awesome! I recommend this to everyone. Here is what you need to know.

Tank:
You can use the following link to stock your tank. It is the most accurate, using your water chemistry and filter to calculate your stock.

https://aqadvisor.com/

Breeding:
Livebearers will breed. I have found that it is easier to take care of fry then it is to deal with the aggression that male livebearers put forward. If threatened, livebearer males can fight to the death. Sometimes this happens just because they don't like each other.

Advice:
Purchase lots of plants and a house that has a nice hole for them to hide in.
I would go with a ratio of 3(females):1(male) but the more females, the better.
Test your water a day after a water change, it will let the water settle and you will have accurate measures.
Observe your fish closely whenever you can. Watch behavior and physical wellness.

Good luck!

Ok, lots of reading and thinking...and I’m going to have a go at starting a journal (at the moment I’m at tank minus 6 days) ?

I’ve ordered a 54ltr (24 x 12 x 12 inch) tank and it’s going to be heavily planted as I‘m aiming for a low tech/Walstad style... I’m enjoying the reading and planning and it’s going to be a proper ‘project’!

The fish are going to be a good few months off yet but I’ve used the calculator recommended by @carligraceee and am thinking:
Does this sound about right? Will they get along? I know the shrimp like a mature tank so thought fish first - but not just yet...and only male fish or I‘ll be overwhelmed by babies....

My next thought is when I eventually get to adding the fish, do I do it in small batches..? If so, I think I’m going to need a quarantine tank too... is there a sticky/thread on what you need/how to set up a quarantine tank....?

As always, your advice is eagerly awaited ?

With silent cycling, it is advisable to add fish in small groups, and only get the next when you are sure ammonia and nitrite are remaining at zero. But in a male only group of endlers, it would be best to get them all at once. I think I would set up the tank, add the plants then wait a bit longer than usual before getting fish - the more the plants have grown, the more ammonia they'll be able to take up. Then get all the fish.
I quarantined 12 kuhli loaches in a 25 litre tank with two large water sprite plants and two bunches of elodea just left floating, and never saw any ammonia or nitrite. In a larger tank with more plants, 18 endlers shouldn't be a problem.

If you got all the fish at the same time from the same shop, there would be no need for quarantine. Even getting smaller batches spread over a couple of weeks, if they were all from the same shop it wouldn't be a problem. It's getting fish from different shops, or the same shop with a big gap between that you need a quarantine tank.

I've kept guppies for a long time and honestly I just let them do their thing. I've never been overwhelmed with babies because I don't do anything special, just make sure that there's finer bits of food for them to munch and provide shelter via plants. Most babies get eaten by the adults, sad but true... So they kind of just regulate themselves

I once had endlers, before I knew that they needed hard water

I bought mine from registered breeders so they were pure endler not the endler-guppy hybrids sold in shops. Mine did not eat their fry. But because they were pure endler, the offspring were easy to sell.
I don't know whether endler-guppy hybrids eat their fry or not.

I had red chest and yellow top sword endlers

NannaLou said:

Ok, lots of reading and thinking...and I’m going to have a go at starting a journal (at the moment I’m at tank minus 6 days) ?

I’ve ordered a 54ltr (24 x 12 x 12 inch) tank and it’s going to be heavily planted as I‘m aiming for a low tech/Walstad style... I’m enjoying the reading and planning and it’s going to be a proper ‘project’!

The fish are going to be a good few months off yet but I’ve used the calculator recommended by @carligraceee and am thinking:View attachment 135876
Does this sound about right? Will they get along? I know the shrimp like a mature tank so thought fish first - but not just yet...and only male fish or I‘ll be overwhelmed by babies....

My next thought is when I eventually get to adding the fish, do I do it in small batches..? If so, I think I’m going to need a quarantine tank too... is there a sticky/thread on what you need/how to set up a quarantine tank....?

As always, your advice is eagerly awaited ?

Click to expand...

Sorry this is so late!

I am glad you used the calculator, it is truly awesome.

Your stocking sounds alright, however, Endlers are livebearers and I have noticed shrimp do not do well with livebearers. Livebearers eat anything they can fit in their mouths and because of this, they poke at everything. This frightens shrimp and you probably will never see them in your tank.

If you want to do this successfully, you will need an abundance of plants, floating and planted.

carligraceee said:

Sorry this is so late!

I am glad you used the calculator, it is truly awesome.

Your stocking sounds alright, however, Endlers are livebearers and I have noticed shrimp do not do well with livebearers. Livebearers eat anything they can fit in their mouths and because of this, they poke at everything. This frightens shrimp and you probably will never see them in your tank.

If you want to do this successfully, you will need an abundance of plants, floating and planted.

Click to expand...

Please don’t apologise, I can’t even begin to work out time differences ?

Oh I wasn’t aware that being a live bearer would influence their eating habits... So many things to try and learn, no wonder so many of us newbies give up after a couple of months because of everything dying....

The plan is to have it heavily planted at the moment the tank and the plants are my main focus and the fish are sort of second place... But, I wasn’t going to collect the tank until Saturday ...couldn’t resist the urge to see what it would look like in real life so went and picked it up after work ???

I’m not 100% confident that I’m going to be happy with a very slow progress rate ?‍?‍

NannaLou said:

Please don’t apologise, I can’t even begin to work out time differences ?

Oh I wasn’t aware that being a live bearer would influence their eating habits... So many things to try and learn, no wonder so many of us newbies give up after a couple of months because of everything dying....

The plan is to have it heavily planted at the moment the tank and the plants are my main focus and the fish are sort of second place... But, I wasn’t going to collect the tank until Saturday ...couldn’t resist the urge to see what it would look like in real life so went and picked it up after work ???

I’m not 100% confident that I’m going to be happy with a very slow progress rate ?‍?‍

Click to expand...

Haha, it is true, it is a live and learn process with fish keeping.

Livebearers are like rats of the ocean, they eat everything. I am not saying they will eat the shrimp, but they will chase them and poke at them which means that you won't really ever see them.

Plants are definitely your main focus! I love that you are so dedicated to making your tank a healthy home for them. There is a thread somewhere around here that has good plant recs for floating and planted. For shrimp, I also recommend a carpet (which I will attempt soon) but it takes a bit of patience to grow one.