First tank advice

[Darter217]

Hello everyone,

After a bit of research I have decided that i'd like to start my own aquarium and have spent doing quite a bit of reading the past week about how to set up a tank, care for fish and what species of fish go together etc.

I have narrowed my choices for my first two species of fish down to guppies, sword tails, mollies and platies. The tank I am going to be purchasing is 100 litres deep. What do you all think would be the best 2 species to start with and how many should I get? I'd appreciate all the advice I can get.

 

[FishFinatic77]

Welcome to TFF!
Are you aware of the nitrogen cycle, and do you know how to cycle your tank?
What is the GH, KH, and PH of your water? The fish you mentioned are all hard water fish.

 

[Darter217]

Welcome to TFF!
Are you aware of the nitrogen cycle, and do you know how to cycle your tank?
What is the GH, KH, and PH of your water? The fish you mentioned are all hard water fish.

I am very new to this so I'm not too clued up on how to cycle the tank or the levels of my water. Any advice on all of this would be welcome.

 

[Ch4rlie]

I would first of all, start by reading this article, very useful.

Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First!

Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank What is Cycling and Why is it Important? Fish waste, and especially fish breathing, plus uneaten food and other organic matter breaking down in a tank all produce Ammonia. This can quickly become toxic to fish if it is allowed to build up to any measurable...

www.fishforums.net

A lot of information to take on here, so you’ll have to re read that article a few times to get the general idea of why and what you can do.

And then you’ll need a decent testing kit to test the tank water, fish are sensitive to certain elements in the water so it’s vital you know what is present in your tank water and then you can deal with whatever issues that may arise.

I would recommend to get this kit, API Master Freshwater test kit.

You can get this from some LFS (Local Fish Store) or online on websites such as Amazon for example.

Once you have read and understand the article and ordered your kit, you can then proceed to next steps.

Big learning curves but all worth it in the end

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

 

[squidneh]

I always recommend using live plants to help your initial cycle. Live plants use ammonia (which fish produce) as fertilizer, which means it will keep ammonia out of the water of your tank. If you get enough plants and the right kinds (faster growing means they use more ammonia) you can significantly speed up the cycling process and add fish pretty quickly. To do so you have to heavily plant your tank with fast growing and floating plants. Then you would wait until you see signs that your plants are healthy and growing (sometimes new plants might suffer briefly after being added to the tank, and dead plants will not use ammonia). Once you see signs of growth from the plants, you can start adding your fish.

Even if you choose to use live plants, it's still important that you read up on the nitrogen cycle and have a good test kit. A good understanding of fish-keeping water chemistry will be invaluable as time goes on as a fish keeper.

 

[Darter217]

Cheers for that! I'll have a read through. I have my tank, heater, filter and water conditioner but have not taken any of them out of the box yet as I've noticed I still have a lot of info like this to read through before I get started.

I have read that tap water will generally have sufficient water hardness but I'm definitely going to buy a test kit as you've suggested, better safe than sorry.

 

[Essjay]

Rather than buy a hardness test kit, look on your water provider's website. As you are in Scotland, I assume that's Scottish Water? If it is, download Water Hardness Data 2019 on this page https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/help-and-resources/document-hub/key-publications/water-quality
Fish profiles use one of two units, so look for the numbers in the "hardness as mg/l CaCO3" and German degrees columns.

Most of Scotland has very soft to soft water, though some regions do have harder water. Ignore the words in the last column as the words UK water companies use make it sound harder than it really is.

 

[Darter217]

Rather than buy a hardness test kit, look on your water provider's website. As you are in Scotland, I assume that's Scottish Water? If it is, download Water Hardness Data 2019 on this page https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/help-and-resources/document-hub/key-publications/water-quality
Fish profiles use one of two units, so look for the numbers in the "hardness as mg/l CaCO3" and German degrees columns.

Most of Scotland has very soft to soft water, though some regions do have harder water. Ignore the words in the last column as the words UK water companies use make it sound harder than it really is.

Just did a search for our area on the Scottish water website and the water here is classed as soft. The number in the German degrees column is 1.83

 

[GFAJ]

Hey there
nothing to add on the cycle just want to share my experience with deep tanks which admittedly has been negative
The tank has bigger a need for aeration due to the limited susrface area
Stocking wise it is much more hard to find appropriate stocking since nearly all fish use the horizontal and not vertical space.
Aquascaping is very hard since finding decor that can cover the top swimming space is impossible
The taank is harder to clean
Finding an appropriate light is far harder
I would stick with a longer tank`

 

[Essjay]

'Soft' is the band 0 - 2.8 dH (German degrees) and 0 to 50 ppm (mg/l CaCO3) so your hardness is less than 2.8 dH and less than 50 ppm

Unfortunately livebearers need at least 200 ppm and mollies need over 250 ppm. Yes, the water can be made harder for them but with water as soft as yours it means adding hardness minerals to the new water at every weekly water change.

It is much easier to keep fish suited to your tap water. There are many fish suitable for your water, many of our members would die for your soft water.

If you do a fishless cycle as in the link Ch4rlie gave you, you do have a few weeks to decide what to do - 'harden' your tap water or keep soft water fish.


When you say the tank is 100 cm deep, what are all the dimensions? 100 cm deep - ie from top to bottom - would be very difficult to maintain as you wouldn't be able to reach the bottom of the tank......

 

[Rhianne]

Hi! I’m currently two weeks into a fishless cycle and when I was reading up I found it quite confusing to start but then it just clicked. Just testing my ammonia levels as we speak but still coming up as zero at the moment! I’m also in a soft water area so am researching what fish to get once the cycle is complete.

 

[Darter217]

'Soft' is the band 0 - 2.8 dH (German degrees) and 0 to 50 ppm (mg/l CaCO3) so your hardness is less than 2.8 dH and less than 50 ppm

Unfortunately livebearers need at least 200 ppm and mollies need over 250 ppm. Yes, the water can be made harder for them but with water as soft as yours it means adding hardness minerals to the new water at every weekly water change.

It is much easier to keep fish suited to your tap water. There are many fish suitable for your water, many of our members would die for your soft water.

If you do a fishless cycle as in the link Ch4rlie gave you, you do have a few weeks to decide what to do - 'harden' your tap water or keep soft water fish.


When you say the tank is 100 cm deep, what are all the dimensions? 100 cm deep - ie from top to bottom - would be very difficult to maintain as you wouldn't be able to reach the bottom of the tank......

All the fish I have been looking at are hard water fish, sods law seems to mean that folk with hard water often want soft water and vice versa. Would you be able to give me any suggestions about soft water fish to keep? As if what you're saying is the case then I will probably just stick to soft water fish.
With regards to the tank the depth is 35cm, the height is 51cm and the width is 68cm

 

[Ch4rlie]

Tank dimensions of 68Lx51Hx35W gives us 121 litres or 32 US gal. According to the forum calculator.

Most tetras species are soft water fish so that gives you a start as there are many specie of tetras of all shapes and sizes.

Coradoras, Barbs, Rams and Gouramis are all soft water fish as well, quite a few choices
to help you out to start some research.

Bear in mind that compatibility, tank size and how the tank is set up all plays a part in what you can and cannot keep.

Research is key!

 

[Darter217]

Tank dimensions of 68Lx51Hx35W gives us 121 litres or 32 US gal. According to the forum calculator.

Most tetras species are soft water fish so that gives you a start as there are many specie of tetras of all shapes and sizes.

Coradoras, Barbs, Rams and Gouramis are all soft water fish as well, quite a few choices
to help you out to start some research.

Bear in mind that compatibility, tank size and how the tank is set up all plays a part in what you can and cannot keep.

Research is key!

The size of my tank would probably rule out the Gouramis, I imagine that some Neon Tetras would be quite ideal for cycling the tank to start with. I feel quite relieved now as some of these soft water fish look very interesting.

 

[Ch4rlie]

The size of my tank would probably rule out the Gouramis, I imagine that some Neon Tetras would be quite ideal for cycling the tank to start with. I feel quite relieved now as some of these soft water fish look very interesting.

Would not recommend using ANY fish for cycling the tank.

This is called fish in cycle, a cruel way of treating fish tbh, breathing in ammonia and nitrite which is toxic and probably painful to them every day until tank is cycled which will take weeks if not months to fully cycle.

Best way is to do either fishless cycle or silent cycle with lots and lots of plants.

Read thy article I linked on my first post, that’s the fishless cycle method.