20 Gallon Setup/Stocking

[Jan Cavalieri]

Honey Gourami's only grow to about 3" in length - so they are more on the dwarf side. I usually buy two at a time based on a couple of books that recommended that - especially since you can't pick the sex. Tetras are good. Personally I'd skip the Rasboras since they are the dullest fish on the planet next to Cherry barbs. Get a couple more Gourami's - like the spectacular Dwarf Gourami - yes more susceptible to a particular virus but I have nearly 40 Gourami's and I've never caught the disease. I buy all my fish online (try liveaquaria.com and azgardens.com) - you'll pay a great deal for overnight or 2 day shipping but theses are the places that breed and get the fish first - seriously more professional than your local retail store. And are going to be the first to detect a disease - it's their entire livelihood at stake.

Also the sparkling Gourami - max size 1 1/2" but very pretty and sparkly - I have never owned one yet but saw them at the pet store yesterday and they were stunning for being so small.

I disagree that you need that many Cory's - I usually keep 3 at a time and it works out perfect. I don't know what the point is to having five unless you want to breed them. They stick together whether there are 2 or 16. I have the cutest group of 3 that sleep stacked on top of each other - too cute!

How about trying something more exotic like a peaceful Dojo Loach - get the yellow ones if you can - they have pink cheeks and are too fun. They swim amazingly fast. Gourami's lead such sedate lives I swear they LOVE to watch these zoom around the tank. They say minimum gallon tank as 50 gallons but I have no idea why - they zip around my 29 gallon tank with great joy as far as I can tell. Without too much stuff in their way - they'll zip around a 20 gallon just fine.

Another fun easy care fish to show off is the Bristlenose/Bush nose Pleco - I have the yellow with blue eyes but there are other colors. They grow to 4" but barely swim - they spend their lives bathing on rock and CONSTANTLY eating algae. They are serious algae eaters - they will even carefully eat the algae off the leaves of your plants without hurting the plant. Very shy at first but they come out into their own. None of my other fish bother them They require a 25 gallon tank - pretty close to what you have. LOVE these adorable fish.

I'm just saying - go to one of these online websites and you will be amazed at what is available out there. azgardens shipping is insane so unless it's a rare exotic or you're going to buy enough to get free shipping it is not worth paying $48 to ship. LiveAquaria is more like $18 and does a beautiful job packing in a Styrofoam cooler with either an ice pack or heat pack.

They also carry plants - every plant imaginable. If you buy a "messy" plant get some foam filters to cover the intake valve of your filter (or you will constantly be cleaning out smelly plant debris several times a day. I prefer bigger leaf plants just for that reason - but some of the "best" fish-wise plants are terribly messy - but it's all about the fish - right?

So skip the boring fish or high numbers of certain species and look for more exotic fish that are "easy" care - they may be $9.99 instead of $1.99 but you've probably already spent a fortune - don't skimp on the fish or you will be disappointed!

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

Oh 2-3" substrate for plants. Get some lead strips (not really lead) and wrap around your lighter plants to help keep them buried in the substrate get some floating plants but Gouramis need access to fresh air - the breath both air and water - I've untangled a few freaked out fish due to too much crap on the surface of the water.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

The instructions on the Seachem site for Flourish Comprehensive Supplement are to dose once or twice a week. Not every day, though in very large tanks you could work out the number of drops (divide the weekly dose by seven or whatever) and dose more frequently but with a smaller amount. But when we are considering low-tech or natural planted tanks where you are not adding a lot of fertilizer it becomes something of a mute point. And one needs to keep in mind that the product is a supplement, i.e., intended to add small amounts of nutrients that might otherwise be missing or insufficient. It is possible to provide all necessary nutrients from the fish feeding and water changes. But this depends upon the number of fish and the number and species of plants; you do not want to go beyond the balance of light/nutrients or algae will take advantage. And then there are the fish to consider...none of these plant additives are beneficial to fish, but rather the opposite, so fewer is always going to be better for the fish.

Flourish Comprehensive Supplement contains all necessary nutrients, macro and micro, but the macro are in smaller quantity because most will occur elsewhere. So using more of this fertilizer means overloading the micro nutrients. More is not better. Too much of some nutrients can cause plants to cease assimilation of other nutrients; it can also kill the plants. Some nutrients can be stored by plants, but this is quite limited when we are talking about overdosing fertilizers. And not all plants can store these nutrients. All of this gets back to the "balance" that has to be maintained both for the good of the plants and fish, and the disadvantage to algae, and the light is big part of this.

If you dose every day and there are not enough plants to use all the nutrients that are added each day, the nutrients will build up rapidly and could poison the fish.

If you want to add fertiliser every day or every second day, you should monitor the iron levels in the tank (and anything else you can test for), and make sure the levels are safe for fish. As a general rule, 1 mg/l (1ppm) is the maximum level of iron that fish can safely live with. Higher levels will harm the fish.

Sorry I spoke out of turn!

 

[Colin_T]

Sorry I spoke out of turn!

No need to apologise. Some companies do recommend dosing every day. And if you have a really heavily planted tank the plants could use all the nutrients as soon as they are added. But most tanks don't fall into this category so it's safer to either test the water before dosing, or just dose once or twice a week and do a big water change before dosing.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

No need to apologise. Some companies do recommend dosing every day. And if you have a really heavily planted tank the plants could use all the nutrients as soon as they are added. But most tanks don't fall into this category so it's safer to either test the water before dosing, or just dose once or twice a week and do a big water change before dosing.

Ok, it just seemed that I was giving out wrong information. Listen to the professionals people!