Fish Tank Light

[Denk15]

hey folks

well i am pretty new to fish keeping (only had my fish tank for a couple of months)

it was given to me by my sister because she moved house and wasnt allowed to keep fish (good news for me )

anyway the questions..........in the tank i have a red tailed black shark fish, red dwarf gourmi, 2 powder blue gourmi's and 4 ghost fish....and i was wondering if a male fighter fish would be ok with these tank mates

also am i suppose to turn the tank light of every night?....ive heard different things so i just wanted to make sure

Thanks in advance

 

[SJ2K]

1) Welcome

2) How big (in volume preferrably) is the tank?

3) Im afraid your stocking is a little innapropriate (unless you have a particuly large tank, in which case you may get away with it). Red tailed black sharks (as with most) are territorial and will become aggresive towards the others.

4) Siamese fighting fish (also known as Betta) do not do well in community setups of any type, there will be the odd success story but generally speaking its a no no.

5) The light only needs to be on during the day, try to keep a consistant 12hr on, 12hr off routine. (A timer switch will help this greatly). After all, in there natural environment it isnt day time, all the time

 

[Denk15]

oh that isnt what i wanted to hear lol im not sure about the exact size but as a rough guess id say about 25 uk gallons

i have a tall tank, so the shark practically controls the whole of the bottom of the tank lol

i guess ill have to get a seperate tank for the betta there 2 nice not to have one


thanks for the advice btw

 

[SJ2K]

Lol thats cool, alot of people have a seperate tank just so they can keep a Betta

Good luck.

 

[mark.w.jones]

You need to get us a more accurate volume. Measure the length height and depth in cm. Type them into the google search bar like this e.g.

25cm x 25cm x 100 cm in US gallons.

This will then give you the volume of your tank in US gallons. Then we can give you an idea of whether your stock is OK or not. RTBS are really not great community fish mixed in with some fairly terratorial gouramis and what I would guess are 4 ghost knife catfish which can reach 20" each and I reckon you've inherited a bit of a nitemare if I'm honest. Get back to us with a volume asap but I would be surprised if you have a tank of suitable size for all those fish.

 

[Denk15]

ok......so my tank measurements are.........length 35cm Width 35cm height 77cm

according to my calculations my tank holds

US Gallons - 24.8
UK Gallons - 20.6

no i have 4 glass catfish, according to this forum they reach a maximum of 4" sorry if i used the wrong name and confused you lol so how are my stock levels looking?

my red tailed shark fish seems to get on with the gouramis.........he chases them abit when i feed them lol but he doesnt attack them or anything like that, most of the time he is calm and just lies in his bark cave lol

thanks for the help and concern btw such a lovely forum

 

[mark.w.jones]

no i have 4 glass catfish, according to this forum they reach a maximum of 4" sorry if i used the wrong name and confused you lol so how are my stock levels looking?

Now that's a different kettle of fish. I know not much about the fish you are keeping I'm afraid other than what I've found from a bit of reading about. Mixing different gourami species is often not a good thing as they are terratorial. Some more than others. Yours are relatively peaceful so are probably OK for now, if you have a 1 male and 1 female Dwarf (powder blue) gourami then there may be problems during courtship. Just keep an eye out. Ideally you want 2 - 3 females for every male however, buying new ones is a real lottery as a lot tend to die very easily. There's a good pinned faq on them in the gourami forum.

I would honestly say that the RTBS in that tank will become more of a problem as it matures. You might get lucky but they are very aggressive. If your tank is very heavily planted and aquascaped you may avoid it attacking too much but if it was me I would get rid of it as you have very placid and timid fish in there with it and things will only get worse. The glass cats in particular are very placid and will not appreciate having such a brute knocking them about.

 

[Denk15]

well the RTBS is very old......thats why i think he cant be bothered to move very much lol but ill keep on eye on them

yea i have 1 male and 1 female powder blue, so ill have to keep on eye on them aswell lol

cheers for the advice ill just have to keep on eye on the fish and see if they behave, i have a second tank now (although i havnt got the stuff for it yet) but if one misbehaves he can go in the naughty tank