Introduction Of New Member

[zappauk2003]

Hello everyone and thanks for the site membership.

I am a 37 year old male from St Helens on Merseyside and have been fish keeping for 9 months. The tank I have currently is the only one I have ever owned. It is a Jewel Rio 300 (121x51x66cm) and holds about 350litres. I am using a Fluval 205 filter and a Fluval 204 filter and have overhead lighting and no cover/lid. The water is at a PH of aprox 7.5 straight out of the tap and i keep the temp at a steady 80F.

My community stock is has follows:

10x Tiger Barbs (which was the first fish I purchased 9 months ago as Juvies and placed in my freshly cycled tank against store advice, haven't lost one)
2x Three spot Gouramis
2x Golden Gouramis
2x Honey Gouramis
4x Swordtails (2 Male and 2 Female 1 of the Males was a baby that survived and didn't get eaten)
4x Blue Angels (2 of which have paired with each other)
1x Zebra Angel which has paired with one of the other Blues
1x Strange Zebra Angel which I think must be an Altum because its body is small but its fin height is massive.
4x Keyhole Cichlid
3x Rainbow Cichlid (2 Females 1 male who keeps breeding with both Females but fry haven't survived more then a week yet unfortunately)
2x Adult Apistogramma Cruzi (bred less then 1 week after purchase and still have 14 surviving Juvies in same tank, gorgeous, gorgeous fish)
14x Juvie Apistogramma Cruzi (See Above)
1x Discus (Off the Brother in Law as he no longer wanted it and it bemuses him to this day that it is still living and doing perfectly fine)
2x Monos (nice but aggressive fish, love hanging out with the barbs, the Discus hates them)
4X Bronze Corys
3x Bristlenose Plecs
1x Golden Nugget
5x Ottos (A must have for anyone with plants)

Tank was heavily planted but now just has two nice sword plants and a mass of grass covering all the front area, also lots of bogwood. Do roughly 25% water change weekly/fortnightly. Gonna change to a community Tanganyika Cichlid set up in the the same tank and start again within 12 months as my next project. Think I've done really well as a noob but ready for the Cichlid challenge me thinks.

 

[TheDarkGoby]

Hello and Welcome to Tropical Fish Forums!

Sounds like an interesting setup! You have alot of semi-aggressive fish species such as you gouramis and cichlids, are you having problems with aggression? Just wondering, because some of these fish have been known to cause problems.

If you are unsure about if you have too many fish, ##150###.com is a great stocking calculator that will also inform you of many incompatabilities and dangers with a stocking plan. It is a great site and I have used it to help stock alot of my plans. Keep in mind that it isn't perfect, so it is a good idea to run your plan through the site if you want extra help.

I just wanted to point out that Monos are a huge brackish schooling fish that cannot live in freshwater as it ages. Unfortunately making them in-compatible with your other fish as they need a salinity of about 1.000 to 1.003. There is alot of conflicting information out there, so it is hard to give proper information. I am just repeating what I have been told (I believe the wide majority of people consider Monos brackish as they mature). Just wanted to point that out. Maybe there is research you can do on that.

Anyway, we look foward to getting to know you on the forum! Feel free to ask any questions you need to!

-TDG

 

[FishAreFriendsNotFood10]

welcome to the forum i wish i had a brother like yours that gives free discus fish lol

 

[TheDarkGoby]

I am just posting to say that "##150###.com" is not a website. I think there must have been some kind of site filter blocking the name of the site. Just posting to let you know.

 

[zappauk2003]

Hello and Welcome to Tropical Fish Forums!

Sounds like an interesting setup! You have alot of semi-aggressive fish species such as you gouramis and cichlids, are you having problems with aggression? Just wondering, because some of these fish have been known to cause problems.

If you are unsure about if you have too many fish, ##150###.com is a great stocking calculator that will also inform you of many incompatabilities and dangers with a stocking plan. It is a great site and I have used it to help stock alot of my plans. Keep in mind that it isn't perfect, so it is a good idea to run your plan through the site if you want extra help.

I just wanted to point out that Monos are a huge brackish schooling fish that cannot live in freshwater as it ages. Unfortunately making them in-compatible with your other fish as they need a salinity of about 1.000 to 1.003. There is alot of conflicting information out there, so it is hard to give proper information. I am just repeating what I have been told (I believe the wide majority of people consider Monos brackish as they mature). Just wanted to point that out. Maybe there is research you can do on that.

Anyway, we look foward to getting to know you on the forum! Feel free to ask any questions you need to!

-TDG

Thanks for the welcome guys,

Yeah I found out about the Monos after I bought them (could do with an internet data package for my phone at times like then lol.) I asked the woman in the shop if they required the same water as Angels and she said yeah they were a snap buy because I really liked the look of them, once I got home on the internet and looked them I realise they might struggle once they mature but you never know, read one guy say he had he's in freshwater for nearly 10 years and it thrived.

When the Rainbows are breeding, which has been on and off since I got them, they will protect their corner and drive the rest of the tank away. When not breeding they are pussycats. The Paired Angels have a half each and square up occasionally in the middle or when they encroach on each other, rather amusing to watch, like two drunk men swearing, gesturing but not really touching each other, love watching them. The apisto's when rearing up their fry did a marvellous job of parenting. She is only small but you should have seen her scatter anything which got too close, she was a star but the territory she guarded was only small really, a lot smaller then the Rainbows seem to think is theirs.

The Gourmi's have an occassional bought of bullying the submissive one, was very bad when I first got them but thankfully it settled down.

The Angel that I am convinced is an Altum can get bullied by the other Angels unfortunately but thankfully he gets plenty of respite in between, Otherall because I have given them enough Caves and hideaways they can get away and I have completely redecorated the tank three times which as helped to reestablish territories.

Unfortunately one of my Tiger Barbs had died this morning and my lights have gone . One of the t5's has been struggling for a couple of weeks and wouldn't come on at all this morning so I wanted to check if it was the light or the lighting system. So I did the logical thing, pulled out my working light to try in the other ballast and low and behold I pulled it from the light itself and pulled it apart from the connecter, wires showing the works. So I have gone from bothe lights working to no light. Still don't know whether that ballast, starter motor is broke and no one seems to stock that compact T5 that I needed.

Seriously thinking about delaying my saving for Tang setup and getting a sub of my mother and getting that aqua fx 500 led lighting system as it is dirt cheap at the moment. Looks well funky and if it not quite bright enough I could supplement it with some additional strips. If I do get it i'll do a review for the site.

It never rains but it pours eh.

 

[Holly12]

Hello welcome to the forum I have got to say that your tank sounds awesome lol looks like you have been doing well please keep us posted on how they are all still doing.

 

[ZoddyZod]

welcome to the forum. Sounds like quite an ecelctic mix of fish! Whack some pics up over in the members aquarium pics sections so we can all have a good look!

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Zappauk.
When my rainbow cichlids breed, I find they can only defend their part of the tank for a few days after the larvae hatch. After that other fish manage to get to the fry and eventually I lose them. If I want some to survive longer than that, I siphon off some fry into a temporary home using a simple piece of air line as my siphon. In their new home I feed them on microworms but there are other foods that could be used, like golden pearls for instance.
This is one of my rainbows in full breeding colors guarding some fry.

For Dark Goby, we do indeed block the name of that site. We found that it was far too simplistic in its approach and was giving more bad advice than good. I work with databases for a living and definitely admire that person's efforts to use a database for stocking advice but the end result simply does not reflect reality. Too many approximations are being made for the end result to be truly useful and too many assumptions about compatibility were being made. If you want to know whether a particular stocking will work, it is far better to ask an experienced aquarist than rely on any tool of that nature. Some day, a tool like that may be invented that can consider all aspects of tank stocking but for now it simply isn't happening, there or elsewhere.