Downgrading, completely restarting.

[Fish4dawin]

Hey all, it's been a while lol. Unnfortunately I'm having to get rid of my 33 gallon, due to problems with maintenance and a small leak which seems to drip frequently even with silicone on it. Since this has occurred, I have found it difficult to keep up with regular changes. I am ready to change however, and although I am downgrading to a 29 gallon, I am not sure on what to do. I am very certain I want to make it a nice planted tank, all live plants. I do not know the dimensions of the tank yet, I get it today and I have a filter to go with the pre-existing filter that comes with the tank. I am going to move my fish from the 33 gallon to the 29. Currently in the tank there is: (please note that most of these fish, apart from the rummynose tetras, were in the 33 before I got it.)
1 Ruby Shark
3 Rummynose Tetras
1 Lemon Tetra
1 Black neon Tetra
2 Panda Corydora
1 Catfish (can't remember the name, about 3 inches, has lots of white spots and is very spikey on the top, comes out at night a lot.)
I am fully aware that these fish aren't suited to my GH which is pretty hard, coming in at around 290ppm. I'm not sure what to do with them all, and I'm not sure what I'd like to stock the tank with. At first I will have to move the fish mentioned above to the 29, but I will find a home for them. I cannot remember at all which fish are suited to hard water, pretty sure rainbowfish were ok, plus some corydoras seemed ok, but I think that the tank is slightly too small for rainbowfish unless I get dwarf blues which I have previous experience with. Any suggestions?


Many thanks
Ev

 

[Wills]

Hi good to see you. Shame about the leak on the 33 but you are not loosing that much volume so I wouldn't worry.

With your fish choices I would make the choice on what you want to keep in there and if you decide you want to take the tetras and cories out find a store or a home for them and start over. Fishkeepers that enjoy their tanks take better care of them and thats the priority and what you have to realise sometimes is individual fish are better off with other people sometimes.

In terms of what to keep you are right Rainbowfish would be a good start. How far away is Wildwoods from you? They get some awesome Rainbows in and are sort of near London? Alongside the Dwarf Neon have a look for Kamaka, Yellows, Kali Tawa and Pygmaea. You also could look at Forktail and some of the Pseudomgill species that do well in harder water. Some Lake Tanganyika Synodontis would be cool in there like Polli or Lucipinnis. Livebearers would be an other good choice and check out fish from Lake Inle like Red Thick Lipped Gourami, Rummy Nose Rasobora and Emerald Rasboras.

Wills

 

[Fish4dawin]

Hey Wills good to see you again as well. The rummynose rasboras look very cool, not sure on where I could get them as I haven’t noticed them in either of the stores I usually go to. We aren’t keen on ordering them online though. I will move the tetras, and I was wrong about having any corydoras, I have heard that there are some that do ok in hard water, is that right? Rainbowfish will probably be the go to for me, and then have a look further, maybe at the other types you have mentioned. Also just remembered my catfish is a spotted Raphael, and has stopped growing now.

 

[Wills]

There are some great shops in London, I always try and sneak into Aquarium Design Centre on Portland Street (I think) if I'm ever in the area (saw some nice rainbows in there, though that was 10 years ago...) and Wholesale Tropical in Bethnall Green has a good reputation? My south UK geography is a bit vague but if you are anywhere near wildwoods in Enfield (which is still within the M25) you will have the pick of rainbows

Maidenheads are quite good too for these kinds of fish, I've seen Rummy Nose and Emerald Rasboras in my local one so they can order them - I've seen some really nice dwarf rainbows there too like Wapoga Red Lazers so if you have a local branch see what they can order in?

Some profiles for cories have them as doing ok upto about 14gh or 250ppm so I think your water might be too hard for them. But some of them have huge distributions out towards estuaries and brackish areas (though they dont go into brackish water) where the water starts to harden again. A lot of them live in near blackwater conditions though where the water is pretty acidic. Hardwater catfish is something I keep trying to work out but we don't have many great options.

 

[Fish4dawin]

Right, yes we have a Maidenhead aquatics quite close to us, only 25 mins, but I don’t think I will have time to get fish as I’m off to wales tomorrow. I doubt my mum will want to spend much but I’ll see what I can do. Off to get black sand and some live plants I think. I have thought about a corydora but I don’t remember the name, although I need to look into it a bit more. Any suggestions for live plants? There’s a few nice ornaments that came with the tank, so hoping that I can scape it nicely. There are no plants in the tank at the moment.

 

[Fish4dawin]

Ok so tank is all set up, fish appear to be doing well in it. Not quite got the amount of plants I want just yet, have some ideas in mind, I will post a picture of the tank later. Current ideas for additions are 5 Pearl Danios, very hardy fish, been doing fine in the water, constantly zipping around, 6-8 Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish, and some sort of corydora that can tolerate hardness at around 250ppm. Planning to introduce RO water to help the corydoras, and that also gives me some other opportunities if I can lower the ppm to around 200 or so.

 

[Fish4dawin]

Well… just returned back from holiday, and I find all but one of my fish dead.. only the danio is alive. Going to remove dead fish and the food that was left and then test the water. No idea what happened but think there was too much food in the water or there was not enough beneficial bacteria and that has contributed to the passing of everything. Pretty sad and frustrated at myself but it happens.

 

[Fish4dawin]

Thankfully, we have got it under control, added some product to overcome the ammonia, did a 50% water change and will do one tomorrow. We were told to add fish with this product called SafeStart, which has worked in the past, so we got 7 pearl danios to go with the one that is still around. They seem to be doing ok, it looks like they are still getting used to it. Need more plants though, and I'm hoping to get some in a couple days.

 

[Essjay]

No bacterial starter works instantly despite what stores or websites may say.

Which "product to overcome ammonia"? If it's a product which removes ammonia, that will prevent the bacteria colonies developing properly. If it detoxifies ammonia, remember that they are only temporary and water changes need to be done before they 'undetoxify'. And there are no products which remove nitrite, only temporarily detoxify them.

 

[Fish4dawin]

No bacterial starter works instantly despite what stores or websites may say.

Which "product to overcome ammonia"? If it's a product which removes ammonia, that will prevent the bacteria colonies developing properly. If it detoxifies ammonia, remember that they are only temporary and water changes need to be done before they 'undetoxify'. And there are no products which remove nitrite, only temporarily detoxify them.

It was called SafeStart. Fish are doing fine and have done water changes, getting some more plants as the tank is very open still, and I do want to plant it nicely to make the fish feel more comfortable.

 

[Essjay]

Tetra Safe Start is bottled bacteria rather than something to "overcome ammonia" though it will do that by seeding a colony of bacteria which eat ammonia, and a second colony which eat nitrite made by the first colony. But it does not do this instantly, it merely speeds up the process of growing bacteria (cycling). Water changes still need to be done whenever ammonia or nitrite read above zero.

You mentioned getting more plants - these will help enormously. Plants take up ammonia as fertiliser and they do it faster than the bacteria. And plants to dot turn ammonia into nitrite.

 

[Fish4dawin]

Tetra Safe Start is bottled bacteria rather than something to "overcome ammonia" though it will do that by seeding a colony of bacteria which eat ammonia, and a second colony which eat nitrite made by the first colony. But it does not do this instantly, it merely speeds up the process of growing bacteria (cycling). Water changes still need to be done whenever ammonia or nitrite read above zero.

You mentioned getting more plants - these will help enormously. Plants take up ammonia as fertiliser and they do it faster than the bacteria. And plants to dot turn ammonia into nitrite.

Yes we got 5 plants but the large ones were able to split into 5 or 6, so i added around 16 new plants to the tank. Will do a test for ammonia and nitrate + nitrite soon, things are looking good though.