My First Tank, Fully Setup

[A creature void of form]

Hello, this is my first ever tropical fish tank setup. It seems to be stable and healthy, if not a little overstocked. Any suggestions/comments/concerns about the setup?

I'd also like to thank anyone who answered my questions here during the fishless cycle phase and beyond. This is a very helpful forum.


15 Gallon tank.

Stocking:

2 x Dwarf Blue Gouramis (2") £6.00
3 x Black Phantom Tetras (1") £5.00
8 x Cardinal Tetras (8") £10 approx

4 x Amino Shrimp (1-1.5") £7.70

The full set up.

There's one of my Gouramis hiding in the bottom left corner. He's not normally shy!

My Amino shrimps are super-cool. I've only had them a week, but they seems happy enough scrambling over the bogwood and sifting throught the sand. Hopefully they'll survive when they shed their exo-skeletons in a few months.

 

[Squidman]

Nice pictures! Are those live or artificial plants?

 

[A creature void of form]

Nice pictures! Are those live or artificial plants?

Thanks! They're all live plants, although I don't know the name of any of them. With the plants, I've simply chose the ones I liked and rooted them in the sand. A few species died, but the ones you can see are thriving.

 

[mark.w.jones]

Good going. You've started a really great tank there. You are overstocked slightly without question. Just keep up the maintainance on a weekly basis and you should be OK. If things go wrong in an over stocked tank they tend to go very wrong but hopefully you won't have any problems at all. Stocking wise I think you'd have been better with 5 cardinals and 5 black phantoms with only one gourami. This would be about perfectly stocked but hey

I think your layout needs a tweek as well. Those long stemed plants on the right would look better in the back right corner all bunched together making a kind of umbrella. You could then plant something like a Crytocoryne Wendtii sp? (green) underneath.

IMO your rocks would look better all grouped over to the back left corner leaving the whole right hand side of your tank open just for plants. I would be inclined to put all you grey rocks together and all you white rocks together. With aquascaping I generally advise people to bunch things together. So if you buy 5 of the same plant, put them all in a group.

A good start though!

 

[A creature void of form]

Thank you, jonesyUK.

Good idea about grouping my plants/rocks together, I'll give that a go. With the stocking, I was concerned that my Cardinals would feel intimidated in a smaller group, and I was under the impression that Gourmis needed to be kept in pairs. Oh well, I do a 20% weekly water change which should keep my Nitrates and Nitrates low.

Thanks for the confidence boost!

~ ACVOF

 

[paul_219]

Nice picture ur tank is gr8.

 

[shelby2007]

I really like your tank !!!!!!!!!!! seeing as its your first tank its pretty good lol

 

[A creature void of form]

Two compliments in as many minutes...haha thanks!

 

[paul_219]

The tank is Looking gr8.

 

[backtotropical]

Nice tank, although the long-stemmed fern-like plant on the right isn't aquatic. It will rot and die. I advise you to remove it and replace it with an aquatic plant instead.

Cheers

BTT

edit: the plant on the left side looks like Limnophila Sessiliflora. That is a true aquatic plant and will grow quickly.

 

[shang hi]

i would love to say, my tank is better but that would be lieing... awwww it looks so good compaired to mine.
exelent job even though the stocking is slightly high, aslong as the maitanance is kept up then it will stay healthy

 

[eschaton]

I'm a little worried about that "holey" rock. Assuming it's real and not plastic, it's probably calcerous, meaning it will raise the PH of your tank over the long term.

 

[*Fishkies*]

WOW! Very nice tank setup!!


What type of sand did you use? Out of curiosity?

 

[Daveyg1969]

Good going m8, keep us posted on here and good luck

 

[A creature void of form]

Nice tank, although the long-stemmed fern-like plant on the right isn't aquatic. It will rot and die. I advise you to remove it and replace it with an aquatic plant instead.

Cheers

BTT

edit: the plant on the left side looks like Limnophila Sessiliflora. That is a true aquatic plant and will grow quickly.

Thanks for the info. I've had the ferns for 2 weeks and they are really healthy. I think I'll see how they do before I remove them. Not that I doubt what you say, it's just I don't want to disturb the aquascape too much while my fish are getting established.

The Limnophila Sessiliflora have been fine - I've had them for about a month and grow very fast. Cheers for your input.