Beginner With A 15 Gallon Tank

[okoolo]

Hi I just started cycling a new 15 gallon tank (which isn't going too well)

would that combo of fish be ok after I'm done cycling?. I was told at the store that since I got a filter rated for 30 gallons(marineland penguin 150) I can have more fish.

4 rasberas
4 cherry barbs
2 dwarf gouramis

maybe few small bottom feeders down the road

any suggestions?
which ones should I get first?

edit: I have put in a bunch of sea shells I picked up over the years ( after boiling them) .. is that ok?
I'm also wondering what light to put in ... for the moment I use my "snake" light ( I keep a large snake in a 45 gallon tank)
I was told I need "double T5" lighting but that's like $80 Can.. are there any cheaper alternatives?

also I bough few plants but I'm not sure what they are; can anybody tell? ( the ones in the left corner and grass are fake)

 

[bowlfreak1215]

A pleco would fit in great!

 

[rami]

Take the shells out now, they will upset your PH. Thaat sounds like it could work, its getting a little crowded, but I think if you do fairly frequant water changes you should be okay. ( I have a similarly crowded tank, I do 40% change every two weeks)

 

[iffles]

I would suggest upping the schools to a minimum or 6 or just having 8 rasboras OR 8 cherry barbs. Upping the schools might overstock the tank tho. also, not sure a cherries, but i know tiger barbs are agressive in small groups
I went for harlequin rasboras- they'rs really cute and fun to watch

is the orange plant real? it doesnt look that healthy if it is

 

[iffles]

also, i wouldn't go for a plec, no offense meant to bowlfreak1215, just because they grow too big and produce more waste than they clean. If you want a sucking fish maybe an oto for a tank that size, but they like to be in groups if possible...hmm... i'm stumped. cories need bigger groups, kuhlii loaches need bigger groups... most catfish need to live in groups ? hopefully someone will come who can think of a catfish/bottom dweller for your tank...i'll be thinking... and will consult the great book of fish species lol

 

[indigoj]

15g is on the small size so think carefully about your fish.

I'd go for something like 6 cherry barbs, 6 dwarf cories, the dwarf gouramis (if you must, they tend to be weaker overbred fish) Personally I'd look for Honey Gouramis as an alternative. Then maybe 6 smaller tetras or harlequin rasboras later on.

Lighting is personal choice - you don't 'need' t5's they are just the better ones, any suitable lighting will do - obviously if you want live plants then lighting is more important. In a tank that size though you should find adequate lighting fairly cheaply.

I'd keep an eye on your ph with the shells - as previously stated they can raise it fairly significantly in a small tank. This could be affecting your cycle?

Oh and I would avoid plecs for now until you get a bigger tank, they are very messy and would limit your stocking capacity significantly - even with the bigger filter.

 

[Wills]

A pleco would fit in great!

15 gallons is far far to small for a plec. The only suitable form of plec would be a pitbull plec but this would limit your stock because of how messy they are. Agreed with the Idea of Honey gourami they are sometimes a bit tougher stock than dwarfs. I think if it were me I would go for 2 Honey, 6 Cherry barbs (2 males 4 females), then for a bit of difference and more activity go for maybe 10 Pygmy Rasbora (other common names are chilli or sparrow rasbora) these stay smaller than the other rasboras and are bright red with black. Also keeping these 3 groups of fish gives you a nice Asian biotope as well

Good Luck!

Wills

 

[okoolo]

hmm .. 10 pygmy rasberas , 2 Honey gourami and 6 cherry barbs sounds great .. but wouldn't that be too much?


I was also wondering if I should get a second filter pad ( I noticed ,my filter penguin 150 has a space for a 2nd pad)

do I have to get substrata for my live plants? all I have so far is gravel..



as for my cycle the problem was that I initially added way too much household ammonia (2 teaspoons) and had to do 2 50% water changes 24h apart to get it to a 5 ppm level ... now it seems to be ok .. also added superbac aquarium and nutrafin plant gro so meybe that will speed it up
(I just hope that the high level of ammonia didn't hurt my plants)

thanks

 

[iffles]

i just have gravel too for my plants. what do you mean by substrata? ferts? soil? sand? and i would add the filter pad in aswell to give some more filtering capacity

 

[OldMan47]

Okoolo, your gravel is the present substrate. If you have plants that require additional nutrients, usually only needed with fast growing plants, you could add in one of the fertile substrate types like fluorite but many of us do fine with a low tech gravel only substrate. The same goes for fertilizers for the water column. If you have high light and fast growing plants, they may outrun the naturally available ingredients in the decaying fish food and fish wastes that often are all that the low light plants need to thrive. The plant growth promoters, often nothing but water column type fertilizers, will do nothing to help or hurt your cycle but may give slightly better plant growth. I would avoid adding anything with a nitrogen component in it right now because it will mean you have far too much nitrogen for the plants. The plants will also use some of the ammonia and nitrates in your water as fertilizers for their own growth so they certainly don't need any more added. Be sure to mention the plants when asking about advice and giving us readings over a period of time. That way we can take the plants into account when trying to help you analyze your cycle progress.

 

[okoolo]

just came back from a local fish store where I bougt coraline aqualight dual linear T5 (24') lighting (pretty much the only thing they had) and one of the employees gave me a bag of about a gallon of water from an already established tank, saying that it will speed up my cycle ...

He also gave me a phone number of a person with a 200 gallon tank that can give me their old filter media ...
do I need it still or is the water from their tank enough?

He mentioned a built-in eletronic ballast on my lights.. what's that?


On the cycle note ..for ammonia I used Bicarbonate Ammonium from my gf's kitchen cabinet .. hope that's allright

ps
I was also told that whole cycle should take about a week
I bought an API ph test solution and my ph is 7.6 (highest on the chart)

 

[Curiosity101]

I'm not expert on lighting, so cant help in that respect.

But the cycle is done by bacteria, 99.9% of the bacteria grow in the filter, on the filter pads.

The water will not help to cycle your filter at all.

However some mature donated media should help speed it up considerably!

Oh and the tank is likely to take 6-8weeks to cycle (without any extra filter media from an established tank), with the filter media...it'll vary, but you'll hopefully be looking at more like 2weeks (possibly less).

By the sounds of it the person you spoke to at the fish shop doesn't entirely understand how cycling works. So I'm not about to say they don't know anything about fish, but it would make me think you will really need to do research before a trip to the local fish shop!

 

[okoolo]

I'm not expert on lighting, so cant help in that respect.

But the cycle is done by bacteria, 99.9% of the bacteria grow in the filter, on the filter pads.

The water will not help to cycle your filter at all.

However some mature donated media should help speed it up considerably!

Oh and the tank is likely to take 6-8weeks to cycle (without any extra filter media from an established tank), with the filter media...it'll vary, but you'll hopefully be looking at more like 2weeks (possibly less).

By the sounds of it the person you spoke to at the fish shop doesn't entirely understand how cycling works. So I'm not about to say they don't know anything about fish, but it would make me think you will really need to do research before a trip to the local fish shop!

how do I get the bacteria from their filter pad? do I take the filter or just squeeze it into a bag of water and take it home?

 

[Curiosity101]

You'd need a bit of filter media out of their filter.

Seeing as it's a 200gallon I would expect the person to have at least 2 external filters. In the case of externals it'd probably be some ceramic rings or similar as these are the bits most likely to have the highest percentage of bacteria living on them.

A squeezing into a back of water probably wouldn't be sufficient to make any real difference.

 

[OldMan47]

Actually, a sample of water from cleaning their filter would give you a big boost to cycling your tank Okoolo. As C101 said, the simple water sample that you have would not do much, but I have good results cleaning a filter in a new tank while the filter is left running. If you get that sample from the existing tank, either as a part of their filter media or as "filter squeezings" you should accelerate the cycle quite a bit by placing what you can of the material provided right into the inlet side of your new filter. It would act much like my filter cleaning approach in seeding the new filter with a generous sample of the right bacteria. After that it will be up to you to nurse the bacteria along until the filter is fully cycled. I like to treat my new clones as a fishless cycle in case something doesn't work out right. That way no fish are harmed if for some reason it doesn't cycle right away.