Lfs Trip What Should I Buy.........

[kev_bo]

taken my water to be sampled and LFS says all is well with my water

not one of the LFS which tell you yh its ok just to sell you fish

what is a good fish to start out they was suggesting mollies but ive read up on this site they need salt added to water if this is the case and limits me to certain fish i dont want to do it

anyone got ideas as you will be my last insight before i actually buy them tomoz

thanks in advance

KEV_BO

 

[Tory]

LOL! Excited...MUCH?!!! hehe just kidding, im like it everytime - and most others on here were too!

Whats the size of the tank?

 

[kev_bo]

LOL! Excited...MUCH?!!! hehe just kidding, im like it everytime - and most others on here were too!

Whats the size of the tank?

lmao ....... its erm 60ltrs about 12 gallon i think not that big i know i can only get like 65 cm fish total but i only plan on introducing some fish to start then let them firmly get it going then add fish afterwards

i was just thinking about what to get to start off with thats all thanks tory

 

[ellena]

Platies? They stay smaller than mollies, don't need salt, are really hardy and come in gorgeous colours-perfect!

 

[[email protected]]

LOL! Excited...MUCH?!!! hehe just kidding, im like it everytime - and most others on here were too!

Whats the size of the tank?

lmao ....... its erm 60ltrs about 12 gallon i think not that big i know i can only get like 65 cm fish total but i only plan on introducing some fish to start then let them firmly get it going then add fish afterwards

i was just thinking about what to get to start off with thats all thanks tory

a little group of cory catfish would look good

 

[Luke_emma_23]

If you get live bearers are you prepared to save the fry & home them, you may have a batch every few weeks if you get females who are already pregnant.
Do you have a sand or gravel substrate? corys need sand to protect their barbs and they need to be in a mature tank as they are not very hardy, have learnt from experience unfortunatly!!
Rasboras are nice looking fish, add a bit of colour to the tank.

 

[Bluefintuna]

Guppies FTW

 

[Curiosity101]

I just read your first topic on here, and it seems to me that your tank wont be very cycled at all.

I don't believe for one second that the fish shop has been honest about your water results. Your tank has only been cycling for 2weeks, unless the fish food you used basically hasn't created enough ammonia then your tank should still be showing high levels of ammonia, and a tiny bit of nitrites.
The mature media you had was without an ammonia source for too long.

You said in previous posts that you really wanted to do stuff properly.
Well go out to the lfs...buy a liquid API master test kit, or if that's too expensive buy a liquid ammonia and liquid nitrite test kit. Then swing by homebase, or boots, or something like that a buy some pure household ammonia.
Then read out fishless cycling guide and cycle the tank properly.

If you do not want to cycle your tank properly then PLEASE get a liquid test kit before you get fish. If you don't then you will be subjecting them to ammonia and nitrite poisoning, significantly shortening their lifespan.

If you are dead set on getting fish today then please don't get more than 2, also stick to very small fish. So no dwarf gouramis, no dwarf cichlids, don't get any shoaling fish like tetra, barbs or rasbora. Your best bet would be 2 very small livebearers.
Ie. 2 platys, 2 guppies

 

[MBOU]

More often than not, the medium sized tanks seem to be able to cycle in 2 weeks time, biorbs and such like tend to take 4-5 weeks if you leave it to get on with it, 60 - 125 liters tends to take 2 weeks and 200 liters plus i've seen cycle in 10 days.

Besides, if old media was put in and all the bacteria had died off whilst it was out, that would have been an immediate source of ammonia, when the bacteria dies like that it causes an ammonia spike, same as washing sponges etc in tap water...

So effectively, the OP has done it badly but has accidently cycled his tank anyway.

That said.... BUY YOURSELF A TEST KIT!!!! No proper fishkeeper should be without them! Very easy to use and the API test strips have like... 50 tests in them!!

Some hardy fish to start with:

Platies.
Mollies (no, they dont have to have salt in the tank).
Harlequin Rasbora (or the espei or heglei gold line harlequin rasboras)
Black Neon Tetras (there is an albino black neon tetra too)
Ember Tetras
Danios (zebra, golden zebra, leopard, pearl, glowlight, hikari etc)


They are all pretty hardy fish to go in first, the ones you want to avoid as a first fish but the LFS might not mention it:

Guppies (not as hardy as they used to be!)
Neon Tetras
Cardinals
Gouramis

 

[Curiosity101]

MBOU your theory on die off is correct but if you were to look at actual physical amounts then you would realise you're wrong.
There aren't enough bacteria to keep the tank cycled, the ammonia spike they produce is minimal and also short term. They all die within a few days...FACT.

Also it's not true that most tanks from 60-125l take 2 weeks...and 200l+ cycle faster...that's absolute rubbish.
The average time it takes to cycle a tank is from 4 weeks - 8 weeks, 6 weeks being most common.
It applies to ALL sizes of tank that are using the add and wait method up to 5ppm...which is the one described in our beginners section.

The test strips are BAD. They are incredibly inaccurate and even if they were accurate, they do not test for ammonia.
With ammonia being one of the most toxic pollutants you can end up with in your tank, you would hope any good test kit comes able to test for it.

The Liquid API master test kit is the best low end test kit available. It is the one most widely used on these forums...and there is a reason for that!
They can be bought for £18 on Ebay and last for over a year.

Plus your fish lists aren't 100% accurate...
Mollies grow to be from 5-10cm depending on species. The OP needs to stick to normal short-finned mollies if they want to put them into a 60l tank. Sailfin mollies are far too big for that sized tank. Also they don't need salt to be added to the tank, I think the reason this 'myth' came about is because mollies require very hard water to thrive. It can be a bit hit and miss as too how well they do in soft water.
Danios - Are far far too active for a 60l tank. It just doesn't give them enough room to move, this can lead to issues with stress and agression. So what would be peaceful fish that live to 2 years or more. Become short lived fin nippers.
Guppies - Fine to go into the tank...but only if it's cycled.
Gouramis - You haven't specified, it is only the 'dwarf gouramis' (Powder blue, neon and yellow) which are suceptable to disease and therefore need pristine water at all times. Honey Gouramis (Red robin and normal variety) are actually very hardy fish and can withstand a fish in cycling process more often than not if people wish to go down that route.

To sum up, that tank will not be cycled anywhere near enough to introduce fish. But if the OP wants to go down the fish in cycling route then 2 SMALL fish are the only option. As getting only 2 is the only safe way to introduce fish now they can't be shoaling species...eg. tetra, rasbora etc
Also the test kit will be vital to keeping them alive through the fish-in cycling period.

 

[MBOU]

To be fair i see a heck of a lot of tanks cycling with customers and i did say that it was 'more often than not' and 'quite likely' and 'in my opinion' generally giving the view that this is in personal experiance...

I test peoples tank water every day... can kind of work out how to do it, to be honest i dont think the liquid tests are generally that much better than the test strips (of which they do make to test amonia!?) I always use tablet test kits to check because you can never really say how big a drop is a drop, with tablets, you put them in and thats that, no need to measure out. So long as they dont get damp, they never seem to be inaccurate with the one exception of the recent batch that was recalled due to the fact that they got damp in storage i think.

For Mollies.. Personally i wouldnt really advise them for a 60L but small short finned ones maybe three and they would count as the large fish.

Danios, personlly i think a small group would be fine but again, depends on species, glowlights dont get so big, the zebra danios are prone to being nippy whether you have 3 or you have 30.

Guppies, well i wont sell them to a tank that hasnt been cycled and had fish in for at least 2 months (with exceptions but as a general rule, customers dont go out and buy ammonia, they use stress coat and stress zyme etc and maybe filterstart which leaves the tank fairly unstable for first couple of months). Guppies used to be really hardy fish, same as neon tetras but they are so mass bred for the market now that their quality is fast dropping, i see nothing but problems when they are sold to an immature tank.

Gouramis, well most get far too large for the tank anyway so i wasnt refering to giants, opaline/golden/3spot or kissing gouramis, the dwarves are touch and go in that size and i hate selling them anyway, so prone to health problems so mature tank only. In all fairness i completely forgot about Honey Gouramis which i shouldnt as i have my own pair! Well, i'd consider them hardy but i wouldnt use them to cycle a tank or put them in as a first fish...

I have seen tanks cycle fully in 10 days, i cycled a tank myself in less time without using amonia, its not as difficult as people make out, i've also seen the same tanks take 8-9 weeks to cycle properly do the same stuff, my point was it could have cycled.

 

[kev_bo]

well i took my water to said LFS before and they said to me not having fish as my levels was not good

they said leave for another and do some water changes then bring a sample back in which i did and took it back they said all seemed to have leveled off

they seem to be the good type of LFS they was asking questions all the time

as for my trip to the LFS there really low on stock at the moment so didnt want to introduce fish i wasnt sure about which seems to be good by what has said in this thread i dont know who to beieve now

test kit is an option when some money free's up i think

thankyou for all your help its all getting there slowly but like said i dont want to rush things so if its best for me to wait i will wait

 

[Curiosity101]

API + tetra test strips are both very inaccurate. I have a liquid test kit and have therefore seen this myself. Also they don't test for ammonia. The best test kit available is from Salifert apparently, (A member on here has tested all the kits against labratory grade tests and has found it to be the best). So seriously...liquid kits ARE easily more accurate, and then they themselves increase in accuracy depending on brand.

I have seen no problems with any guppies put in a pre-cycled tank. So long as it was cycled properly and with a large enough amount of ammonia.

10days is very very rare, Full stop. So you shouldn't have said

So effectively, the OP has done it badly but has accidently cycled his tank anyway.

That was a statement, not a maybe.

I really don't want you to take this the wrong way...but having seen your post beforehand I would suggest that you perhaps spend a bit more time gaining experience. You're on the right sort of lines with 80% of what you say. But little things like forgetting about honey gouramis, saying guppies will perish in new cycled setups...Zebra danios aren't nippy at all if kept correctly (90% of the time)...
And you may have said 'more often than not' but...that's not true. The time it takes to cycle a tank depends very much on to what level of ammonia you are cycling too. On our site it is suggested to cycle 5ppm of ammonia as it has been worked out that this will allow you to add 80-100% of your stocking in one go with no ammonia spike. And if you were to encounter an ammonia spike then there are already huge numbers of bacteria present, so it would only take one or two multiplications to return ammonia, and then nitrite to 0 (normally 12-24hours).
The only time tanks cycle ,'more often than not', in 2 weeks or less, is if they were seeded by a mature filter, or if people are cycling with much much lower concentrations of ammonia. Cycling with lower levels is fine, but then people have to be advised on lower stocking levels. Plus they then need to add new stock in lower amounts over a longer period of time to allow the filter to catch up without exposing the present fish to ammonia.

To Ken Bo:

Seriously, test kit and the add and wait method of ammonia is the best way forward.

You will know exactly to what level your tank is cycled, and for people who have cycled to 5ppm can normally add 80-100% of their fish stock all in one go with no ill affects.

So for example you aim to have 40cm or 16" of fish in a 60l tank (for the first 6months), then you can add that many fish (adult lengths being considered, not the length you buy them at).
An example stocking would be...
2 x Honey Gouramis (6cm each)
5 x Harlequin Rasbora (4cm each)
1 x Pitbull Pleco (6cm )

 

[kev_bo]

@Curiosity101

thankyou for your help i was only going on what my trusted LFs was saying

but as you put it it seems a wise idea to carry on with my fishless cycle and get my own test kit should i just post up my levels of reading on here when i have done .....?

i will also be taking into account full saize the fish grow to i would rather have a less is more anyways seems better that way

thankyou again for all your help

 

[Curiosity101]

I would ALWAYS go with the theory that you can add more fish... But adding too many and then having to take some away could be problematic at best.

Are you doing your fishless cycle with fishfood? I can't stress how much easier it would be using a measure amount of ammonia.
500ml bottle of household ammonia...
[URL="http/www.boots.com/en/Boots-Household-ammonia-500ml_923908/"]http/www.boots.com/en/Boots-Household-am...a-500ml_923908/[/URL]

It's £1.75 + delivery if you wanted to buy some.
Or you can pick some up instore.

You should definitely post your readings up once you have a test kit. Problem with fish food is that you don't know to what level your tank is cycled. So you don't know if you can add like 10% of your final stock...1%...100%... Yeah?