Cycling New Tank With Old Tank?

[Miss Wiggle]

great news! thanks for the update

it's a common misconception that any fish will clean the tank for you, some do eat algae but if you want to remove waste from the floor of the tank use a gravel vac, if you want to clean off algae then get a sponge! you won't find any fish in the tropical aquarium trade which will eat fish waste, they may eat any uneaten food but things like plecs and catfish need their own food and won't eat the other fishes poo.

so my advice would be if you want these fish on their own merits then by all means get them, but don't get them to clean up the tank for you, it doesn't work like that!!

there's a link in my sig 'guide to stocking lists' which explains the process of fish selection and how to work out if fish are suitable for your tank and compatible with each other. that may be a useful read for you while you're doing your research.

i'm struggling to think of anything shark like that would eb suitable for your size of tank, best i can come up with is a dwarf loach but it's a very big stretch of your imagination, sorry but i think they're just gonna be a bit big!

angels need a tall tank, at least 18" tall, so depending on the dimensions they may be too big as well

male siamese fighters do not usually do well in community tanks, they're not called fighting fish for nothing and particularly if they were in with something like guppies (because o the tails they look similar so are percieved to be a threat) you'd end up with utter carnage.

 

[OldMan47]

Cories will eat excess food that drops to the bottom but they are not good algae eaters to speak of. Tank cleaning is really your job, not to be left to fish or snails or shrimp. The cories do live near the bottom so they6 eat fish food that gets into that part of the tank but the appreciate good food just like the rest of the fish. I keep cories in tanks by themselves because I have enough of them that they would not get enough to eat in a community tank without overfeeding the tank. In their own tank I can target the feeding for the cories and they are a delightful group of fish in that tank. Although cories are known for being bottom fish, they will use the whole lower half of the tank as their swimming space. In numbers of about 6 per tank, they have a place in any community where the other fish are not big enough to try to eat them. In such small numbers you won't get the large schools of cories playing in your tank but they will be in a large enough group to venture out and do more than just spend all their time sitting on the bottom.

 

[wilchil64]

Cories will eat excess food that drops to the bottom but they are not good algae eaters to speak of. Tank cleaning is really your job, not to be left to fish or snails or shrimp. The cories do live near the bottom so they6 eat fish food that gets into that part of the tank but the appreciate good food just like the rest of the fish.

Sorry, please don't misunderstand - I didn't mean I don't want to clean the tank!! I just meant a fish that will be happy eating the algae, I certainly didn't mean the fish poo! I will be more careful how I word things in future.

Really, all I would like to know is what would be a good combination and what order is it best to add them in. It seems every fish I look into isn't suitable for some reason. It's a little discouraging, but I realise it's early days and I need to look into it a lot more, I was just looking for some suggestions from people in the know, as I don't entirely trust the guy in the shop, after finding out about fishless cycling vs. what he told us ...

He said we could start with Danios after a week of letting tank stand empty to cycle the tank, after another week add an angel fish, after another week add a siamese fighting fish ... it seems now that's not a good idea, from what I've read here!

I was aiming for some fish on different levels, and thought maybe a shrimp and other bottom feeders with a few in the middle - the danios seem to stay near the top or middle, mostly, although they nosy around the plants too sometimes.

Sorry if anyone got the wrong idea and I'll keep reading through the information on the forum about the various types of fish.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I'd definately drop the idea of a siamese fighting fish, we routinely have to watch as the members coach fighter owners out of a large array of problems created when beginners try to include them in community tanks. Not that it can't be done but usually I think the beginners later wish they'd never had to deal with the whole mess. The same can be said sometimes for any livebearers. They are great beginner fish in the sense of being hardy and interesting but often beginners completely don't realize what a headache it will be to either watch the fry get eaten or to be setting up new tanks for all the babies, or to be wandering around at work, pleading with co-workers to please take their extra guppies for free!!

One alley you could be exploring is whether to plan for one more small shoal of some type of tetra that is different from the neons/cardinals, but that is a little hardier and thus could be safely introduced sooner. There are just a ton of beautiful types of tetras and mostly what you have to worry about is not getting ones that are too mean is some form or another (some are known fin nippers, some are downright vicious!)

Again, lets keep this all in perspective. I'm in almost the identical situation as you, just taking my time before introducing some neons/cardinals (which I feel would probably do fine currently, but I'll just have that extra edge of assurance if I let the tank mature for 6 months) and also holding off on angels, not because they aren't pretty hardy, but because I feel a pair of angels is such a "centerpiece" type of fish that I want them to have every chance of being healthy. I particularly don't like the idea of one angel dying and then having mis-matched sizes of them. So, anyway, I am biased in very much agreeing with your species choices you are thinking of.

By the way, what I'm doing to bide the time, is to try and learn how to raise aquarium plants, which so far I find very difficult! I forget, are you raising live plants?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[wilchil64]

There are so many tetras! Which ones tend to be hardy-ish and not too mean? The cardinal tetras are beautiful but maybe not hardy enough for right now ... from what I've read. How about glass catfish in a small shoal?

Pity about the guppies, they are so beautiful, but can't bear the thought of watching the babies be eaten alive and really don't have room - or money - for another tank to raise them in.

How about tiger barbs? I've read they are fairly hardy but can be fin nippers too - how much of a problem is this likely to be, what would I need to keep away from them, i.e. what sort of fins do they like to nip?

What about rainbow fish? The neon rainbows are lovely.

 

[waterdrop]

My memory (& its from way back and could be somewhat wrong) is that I used to feel, when I had them back then, that tiger barbs were a bit too rough for the kind of community I liked (and the type that is similar to what you are building now.) My reading here on TFF has taught me that tigers are also among those barbs that can do better if you have a bigger group of 5 or 6 minimum - I believe that causes them to be almost totally preoccupied to the others in there own group, thus taking the aggression away from other community members - but that implies a pretty large tank and potentially a somewhat bigger, faster type of community.

Let's see, the tetras I'd be careful about would be Serpae definately and probably even Lemons too. The Serpae are known fin nippers and lemons can be too but once again I probably didn't have them in a large enough group when I was a kid.. I made that mistake a lot. There's some type of phantom that someone here just had a big thread about and they sounded really awful for aggression - maybe someone can clarify that memory..

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i'd stay away from tigers, to sucessfully keep them without them bullying other fish in the tank you need a group fo around 10. and 10 of them in your tank would dwarf it and not leave room for much else.

the neon rainbows would be a good choice, lovely fish, i keep them myself. Two key things to watch out, they are fairly intolerant of nitrate so if you have a high tap water nitrate reading they may not be suitable. They also like a good strong current so make sure your filter is up to scratch.

how about rummy nosed tetras, i think they're really lovely or rasbora beauforti (sp). It's gonna depend a bit what's available local to you, an idea is to go on a little tour of all your local fish shops, leave the wallet at home but take a pen and paper and just write down the names of everything you like, then if you come back here and give us the list we can start to form a sensible stocking list for you.

there's a v simple solution to the guppy problem...... just get boys they're dead easy to sex and if you don't get any females then you won't have any babies! You do need to get a reasonable number if you go for an all boy group, think 6+, because there will be a little bit of sparring and boisterous behaviour between them.

for some 'centerpiece' fish some of your best options would be dwarf cichlids (yes waterdrop, rainbows and dwarf cichlids again........ it's just such a great combination for this size tank though!!!) look up apistogramma, rams and kirbensis and see if there's anything that takes your fancy there. they would stay around the bottom half of the tank (they aren't bottom feeders like cories, but stay low down and like some caves to live in). so with the danio's at the top, rainbows mid-top, dwarf cichlids mid-bottom and then maybe a plec, loach of shoal of cories youd have all the angles covered.

 

[wilchil64]

i'd stay away from tigers, to sucessfully keep them without them bullying other fish in the tank you need a group fo around 10. and 10 of them in your tank would dwarf it and not leave room for much else.

Yes, that would be a pity when there are so many beautiful fish out there! I'll stay away from them ... what about other barbs, are they friendlier?

how about rummy nosed tetras, i think they're really lovely or rasbora beauforti (sp). It's gonna depend a bit what's available local to you, an idea is to go on a little tour of all your local fish shops, leave the wallet at home but take a pen and paper and just write down the names of everything you like, then if you come back here and give us the list we can start to form a sensible stocking list for you.

I'll do this and see what I can find, I'll get back to you soon! Thanks for offering to help with this.

there's a v simple solution to the guppy problem...... just get boys they're dead easy to sex and if you don't get any females then you won't have any babies! You do need to get a reasonable number if you go for an all boy group, think 6+, because there will be a little bit of sparring and boisterous behaviour between them.

Great idea! I hadn't thought of that ... Will ask the guy in the shop about sexing them tomorrow.

for some 'centerpiece' fish some of your best options would be dwarf cichlids (yes waterdrop, rainbows and dwarf cichlids again........ it's just such a great combination for this size tank though!!!) look up apistogramma, rams and kirbensis and see if there's anything that takes your fancy there. they would stay around the bottom half of the tank (they aren't bottom feeders like cories, but stay low down and like some caves to live in). so with the danio's at the top, rainbows mid-top, dwarf cichlids mid-bottom and then maybe a plec, loach of shoal of cories youd have all the angles covered.

That's great, thanks for the suggestions, i'll have a look at some photos and read the info and see what my husband thinks too.

Thanks very much again.
I'll be back .....

 

[Corleone]

Yes, that would be a pity when there are so many beautiful fish out there! I'll stay away from them ... what about other barbs, are they friendlier?

Tiger barbs are the exception, not the rule. Most other small barbs are perfectly peaceful. Checkered, honey, golden, cherry, rosey, odessa... there's a lot of nice attractive barbs that are perfectly peaceful. If you can find five-lined/pentazona barbs, they're a close look-alike to tiger barbs without the behavioral problems.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

couldn't be easier to sex guppies, same applies for all the other common livebearers

the males have a thing called a gonopodium hanging down, have a look in the lfs and you'll see it. here's a pic

 

[wilchil64]

Well, with the nitrite levels still at 0 this morning, we went to the LFS and bought ..... three rosy barbs and a gold ancistris (sp?).

They seem to be settling in well, the ancistris is munching his way round the tank - can't believe how he's clearing up the algae on the pebbles! - and the barbs are beautiful to watch and are busy rooting in the plants, just love watching them all and feel we could do away with the TV!

Does this combo sound ok? We were told an ancristris would be ok on his own, is this true?