New Community Tank - What Should I Do?

[JohnChong]

I’m new to taking care of fishes, I have spend some time reading but still have some questions and want some advice on my options. I currently have a 7 gallon tank (8”x9”x23”) with 6 Zebra Danios helping with the cycling. I read up some names and was wondering if I should put these fishes together and if so, how many should I put. And whether if I put all these in would it be over stocked. Also I am living in Hong Kong, and the temperature here isn’t as cold as Canada or in the states, so I was wondering if I need a heater or not (or could I just leave the lights on for around 8-10 hours)

Fish I want:

3-4 Altum Angel Fish or 5-6 Fancy Gupper (Believe that they don’t go as well together)
10 Cardinal Tetra or Rasboras or White Clouds
5-6 Swordtails
1-2 Some sort of Freshwater Shark?
1-2 Some sort of bottom feeders (eel or catfish)?
1-2 Snails?
1 Beta fish?

Also I was wondering if it is bad for the livebearer to eat it’s fry, and should I place some fake and real plants? (Thinking of Java Moss or Banana Plants, since they are easy to maintain)

And recommendation and ideas will be helpful

 

[anwhyte]

I’m new to taking care of fishes, I have spend some time reading but still have some questions and want some advice on my options. I currently have a 7 gallon tank (8”x9”x23”) with 6 Zebra Danios helping with the cycling. I read up some names and was wondering if I should put these fishes together and if so, how many should I put. And whether if I put all these in would it be over stocked. Also I am living in Hong Kong, and the temperature here isn’t as cold as Canada or in the states, so I was wondering if I need a heater or not (or could I just leave the lights on for around 8-10 hours)

Fish I want:

3-4 Altum Angel Fish or 5-6 Fancy Gupper (Believe that they don’t go as well together)
10 Cardinal Tetra or Rasboras or White Clouds
5-6 Swordtails
1-2 Some sort of Freshwater Shark?
1-2 Some sort of bottom feeders (eel or catfish)?
1-2 Snails?
1 Beta fish?

Also I was wondering if it is bad for the livebearer to eat it’s fry, and should I place some fake and real plants? (Thinking of Java Moss or Banana Plants, since they are easy to maintain)

And recommendation and ideas will be helpful

with a 7g tank you shouldn't have anything else apart from the danios already in there, it's too small for anything else in addition.

 

[BigFairy]

yeah i wouldn't put any more than 6 small fish in there either.

You want to have over 20 fish in a tank that small? just in perspective, i have 43 small tetra/cichlids in a 100 gallon tank

 

[JohnChong]

Thank you for your quick replys.

Should i grab a few bottom feeders or not, was thinking of 1 or 2 cories?
And should i go for plants that are easy to maintain like java moss and Nymphoides aquatica.
And what type of gravel should I look for (smaller sizes? Would the dyed ones leak our colour?).
And wonder if there are any guides to teach me about how I should set my tank up.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi John and welcome to TFF!

It can be really a shock when you get all set up and are enjoying the first days of your tank and, because you really care and are trying hard to get into the hobby, you stumble on a serious hobby site/forum like this. All of a sudden you've got experienced people telling you all sorts of things that go counter to what you thought was careful planning so far!

The commenters so far are correct I believe, you have not only fully stocked that little 7USG but are probably overstocked a little. Worse than that, stocking plans are not really the top priority thing to be worrying about at this point. Instead you've got a problem in that the correct way to run a fish-in cycle is with a tiny fraction of the stocking capacity of a water volume (and unfortunately, rather than being at a small fraction, you are more than fully stocked.) On top of that, the danios actually need a larger tank than that as they are high speed minnows that need long swimming runs to be happy.

I see a couple of options: ideally if you've got a decent LFS, you could return the danios and perform a fishless cycle on the tank to prepare the biofilter prior to exposing the fish, which is the state of the art we usually try to teach beginners. If you don't want to return the fish then you will be in what we call a "situation" (a "fish-in cycling situation") where you'll need to have a good liquid-reagent based testing kit (well, you'll need that regardless) and will need to perform large water changes on the tank very frequently in order to keep keep the danios alive. Ammonia, even in tiny amounts, causes permanent gill damage and nitrite(NO2), even in tiny amounts, causes permanent nerve and brain damage.

Looking at the bigger picture, considering your interest and stocking planning. It looks to me like the truly ideal thing for you would be to consider a bigger setup and switch the little 7 gallon to being your quarantine tank! Its about the perfect size for that role!

Anyway, the members here are great and they'll help you get it all worked out no matter which set of needs you end up having.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Assaye]

Here's a good guide on setting up new tanks and how to cycle properly

As the others have said, there are a few problems with the stocking plan you have:

1) Most of those fish are too big for your little tank
2) You have already over stocked the tank with your danios
3) Your danios need way more space than that - they may be small now, but they'll get bigger and they like to move . . . FAST.

When you say you are using the danios to cycle the tank, what do you mean? How many water changes are you doing and how much each time? What are your typical readings for ammonia and nitrite in between water changes?

When doing a fish-in cycle (as you are) you should have a very small number of fish in the tank and you need to test every day for ammonia and nitrites. If you do not do this, you can't know how high these levels get. If you don't know how high the levels get, you don't know when to do water changes. If you don't do water changes, the fish could very easily die.

Take it slowly. Get through your cycle (or even better - return your fish and do a fishless cycle) and then consider what fish you'd like. If you want the fish in your opening post, you'd need a very large tank. Consider what is more important - having a small tank or having the fish you want - and then set yourself up accordingly.

In that little tank you have now, the best combination would be the betta and a few ornamental snails (such as apple snails or nerite snails).