Help With A Replacement Fish

[TFFKes]

Can anyone help?

We've, (me and my 2 sons - 5 & 2) have got a Juwel 60, moderately planted, with :

2 Leopard Cories
4 Harlequin Rasboras
6 Cardinal Tetras

6 Cherry Shrimp
2 Apple Snails
(and stowaway little snails )

The water's pretty bloody hard & pH about 7.5

Until Tuesday I also had 2 male guppies, who had a couple of scraps (fins ripped), but they healed up. Tuesday morning I came down to
find one of them upside down and very, very dead. No idea why, though I wonder whether he might have got a hit of neat Flourish Excel - would
this have hurt him?

Now my older son wants to get a replacement. Are there any small fish that don't mind living on their own?
Would I be better getting another guppy? A couple more shrimp?

Any ideas/suggestions/comments whatever welcome.

Cheers,

Kes

 

[doresy]

When you have a death of any fish I suggest the first thing to do is a water test of the 3 main levels before considering replacements.

The cause of death may not be what you think is the obvious.

So, what are your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels?

 

[TFFKes]

Cheers Doresy,

I've just done a water change, and they look pretty good - no Ammonia/Nitrite - Nitrate is still high at about 20-40ppm. After visiting a LFS
last week I found out I'd been over-feeding and the Nitrate's dropping down slowly now I'm feeding less. May also be being helped by a nice
new Ambulia (I think) which is growing like mad.

Kes

 

[doresy]

Ok, so I am assuming that you have cycled your tank (fishless?) and right now you are showing results from a recent water test as nil for ammonia and nitrite with upto 40ppm of nitrate (which is perfectly acceptable)

If you are concerned about any overdosing of any kind then you should do a partial water change as a precaution.

Small fish are usually shoaling fish for protection so will be stressed if kept singley.

There are many variations of guppy so perhaps some replacements but best to keep to males as they are livebearers and mixing sexes will result in a population explosion!

 

[TFFKes]

Yes, the tank's been up and running for over 5 months now, the 2 guppies were the last fish I added, I guess 3 months or so ago.

That's what I suspected about small fish, I was just wondering if there were any others like guppies that don't seem too bothered about
being kept singly (though they both seemed to like swimming with the Harlequins - go figure).

The only other option would be a bigger tank, but I don't think the wife is prepared to contemplate a bigger tank at the moment.

If I do go for another guppy it would definitely be another male - the tank wouldn't cope with any population explosion (and iirc 1 male
would need more than 1 female guppy too).

Thanks for your help,

Kes