Fluval Roma 240 Stocking Plans ( Help Needed)

[ConnerD]

Hey people, will soon be buying my new tank and want to get the stocking ideas planned out so i get it up and running faster .
I'm fairly open to ideas as i havent actually been fishkeeping for that long although i have tried to do as much research as possible.
Would hopefully prefer a more community based tank with a centre peice fish as such .
Thanks, Conner.

 

[kelvinrankin767]

If i had a 240L tank i would put in a group of corys and a few shoaling fish and a centre piece fish, Get it nicly planted and it will look amazing

Have a look into rummynose tetra a shoal of them would look very nice and also a shoal of harquline rasboras or neons or some other shoaling fish, A nice group of corydoras would be great for a community tank and you could get a good few in there try looking at panda corys, With a tank that size you should get a few clown loaches they are amazing fish.

all of the fish above will live together very well, Will make a peacful nice to look at tank.

 

[Carlovel1]

Clown Loaches in a 240l tank?
No way!
You would be better off with something like
10 Bleeding Heart Tetra or Colombian Tetra
8 Adolfio Corydoras
5 Golden Wonder Panchax
And 2 Pearl Gouramis

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

I highly recommend looking into an African river theme, using Kribs or the more uncommon Steatocranus Cichlids (Lionhead [casuarius] or the Slender Lionheads [tinanti] as your centrepiece.

Why?
These fish like slightly alkaline water, which most of the UK has in spades.
There are many unusual looking and quirky behavior fish eg. Lionheads with hopping motion on floor and hump on head; catfish that swim upside down [Synodontis negriventis]; fish that look like the head and gills of a 2-foot normal fish with fins all around [Ctenopoma acutirstre]; fish that float on the surface with "wing"-like structures [African Butterfly Fish]; mid-water tightly schooling catfish [P. buffei].

They need a specialist environment with lots of current and relatively sub-tropical temperature, but they are entertaining.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi ConnerD,

Your threads got me thinking about a couple of things. First of all I was thinking about what NOTG was saying up there and wondering if you have any liquid-reagent based KH/GH test kits yet along with pH and have used those to get a feel for what your tap water really is, so that you could either verify the type UK water he's suspecting or whether your water might somehow have different characteristics, such that you'd want to plan your stocking in a different way? (Not saying you'd really have to have kits like that but wondering how much we really know about your water.)

The other thing I was confused about is your tank situation. In a different thread you mention your fish that are already swimming around, yet this thread is about planning a new tank. Have you got an existing tank and are planning a second tank? It got me thinking about the age-old thing we always discuss with newcomers, about what they do for cycling their filters and whether they've been exposed to that beginner skill. All of your threads are really short so far and none of them mention cycling, but perhaps your first tank is older and you've been through all that some years ago?

Not sure, just thought that might help the members in discussing your plans with you.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[ConnerD]

thanks for the responses much appreciated

I will be running both tanks at in the house.. ( Also my first tank was second hand with a filter and media that had been running for around 6 months. I will be doing a fish-less cycle with the new tank.

I do read up on these things i like to make my fish feel comfortable.

PH is currently 7.5.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

As long as you know the existing tank is biologically stable, you could use some of its media and/or sponges to accelerate the bacterial colonisation of the new tank.

Try and keep the temperature around 28C to help the bacteria and test morning and night for ammonia; nitrite; nitrate. After each testing, add ammonia to the tank to top-up the concentration back to 5ppm.

 

[ConnerD]

cheers mate will do that

 

[waterdrop]

Agree, don't take more than 1/3 of the biomedia from your existing filter (plan it out so that you have some replacement material when you go in to get the mature stuff out. Also plan where and how to put it in the new filter. Its ideal if its right next to or mixed in with the new biomedia section, slightly ahead of it in the internal water flow of the filter. Does that make sense? Its also better not to add the mature media until after you've already been dosing ammonia for a few days and have the hang of the amounts that will create the right (4 to 5ppm) ammonia concentrations in your cycling tank. That way, when the mature media comes in, it will have the best change possible to "take."

You only ever dose ammonia once within a 24 hour period and that's only if ammonia dropped all the way to zero ppm within the previous 24 hours (or very close to zero.) You try to dose at the same hour within the 24 each time. You also strive to conduct your testing at the same 24 hour mark more or less (and the same 12 hour mark at the much later stages of the fishless cycle.)

~~waterdrop~~