A few newby questions

[millym]

hi crookedfish
got your q about the shrimps. we have caridina japonica aka algae eating shrimp. we live in W4 london & got ours from maidenhead aquatics in syon park isleworth. i know maidenhead aq have loads of barnches so you may be able to find one closer to you. i think they cost about 65p & they wer'nt the ones outside the shop sold as food (river shrimp) but were inside. great little characters & fascinating to watch.....hillarious to see them having a tug of war with our pakistani loaches & barbs(100 times bigger) over an algae tab or pea(shrimps love em)............just keep your lid secure though we had a kamikazi who exited our tank on about his second night searching forwho knows & unfortunately wasnt found till the next day ...deceased
another shop tropicals& marines (mortlake/richmond) also had a couple last time we were there- brilliant shop well worth a visit all their tanks even the ones with fish in them for sale are lovely - have plants etc in them. they have a web site(as do maidenhead aquatics.
theres also some good web sites on the shrimps - try google.
ive pm'd you this info as well
cheers

 

[luxum]

By the way, if you do a fishless cycle, you can fully stock the tank afterwards. If you fishless cycle and only add a few fish, they won't produce enough waste to sustain the large bacterial colony you have built and when you eventually add more you'll have a mini cycle. This ~only~ applies to fishless cycling, if you are cycling with fish you must add them slowly and allow the tank to adjust before adding more.

Regarding stocking, i personally don't like the 1" per gallon rule because it is not gallons of water that determines your stocking limit, it is surface area. More surface area = more opportunity for air exchange = more fish, and the opposite is also true, less surface area = less fish. So a long tank can stock more fish safely than a high tank. This calculator can help you determine your ~maximum~ fishload as a beginner a little more accurately than the 1" per gallon.

 

[crookedfish]

Thanks for the info millym. I had a look on the web last night and found that they have a couple of shops a bit closer, so I will visit these.

Thanks for the info luxum, I did wonder how you stocked the tank after a fishless cycle with regard to keeping the bacteria collonies fed!

Another question for you peep's. What are platys like? A guy that I work with has got lots of platy fry (orang with the black tail type) that he is looking for a new home for. Do they get on with neon tetra, dwarf gourami, zebra danios and guppys (these are the fish I am thinking of stocking the tank with)?

Thanks for the help.

Si

 

[tstenback]

Platies get along with everything. They just go about their business (which is making babies and eating) and leave evrything else alone. Make sure you get a ratio of at least 2 females per male. HTH