New Fish Owner, I Have Some Questions!

maamo666

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So today, I FINALLY got my 20 gallon tank set up.
I wanted to get some fish, and was wondering how many I could put in a tank, and if they would be good together.
I was thinking 6 small fish: like 2 rasboras, 2 guppies, and 2 tiger barbs or some kind of tetras.
Then I wanted maybe one black angelfish (small or large size?) or 2 small angels (a black and white one).
finally, for my trophy fish, I wanted either a Ram cichlid, swordtail fish, or a dwarf gourami (which i really really want to get!)
So, are these fish good to be together? Are there too many, or could I add more?
also, I shop at petsmart and pj pets mart (in square one) and I live in Mississauga, Ontario.
I would also love to hear some suggestions of other fish I could get, besides the above mentioned ones.
Im a new fish keeper and I am very excited. But I still have ALOT to learn.
 
I have a 20g also and In my tank I have both tiger barbs and many types of tetras.
Both of those kind of fish are pretty cool to watch especially the tiger barbs.
But I will tell you this you should not get angles with tiger barbs .
I dont know about angles in a 20g but I know that they need a higher height than regular fish do.
hopes that helps
 
So today, I FINALLY got my 20 gallon tank set up.
I wanted to get some fish, and was wondering how many I could put in a tank, and if they would be good together.
I was thinking 6 small fish: like 2 rasboras, 2 guppies, and 2 tiger barbs or some kind of tetras.
Then I wanted maybe one black angelfish (small or large size?) or 2 small angels (a black and white one).
finally, for my trophy fish, I wanted either a Ram cichlid, swordtail fish, or a dwarf gourami (which i really really want to get!)
So, are these fish good to be together? Are there too many, or could I add more?
also, I shop at petsmart and pj pets mart (in square one) and I live in Mississauga, Ontario.
I would also love to hear some suggestions of other fish I could get, besides the above mentioned ones.
Im a new fish keeper and I am very excited. But I still have ALOT to learn.


first do a fishless cycle or get 3 guppies or platys and let your tank cycle through before you add any other fish. I don't think the angel and the ram would work in your tank( not sure on the ram though) after about a month or so you can start adding a few new fish, a small school of tetras would be nice 5 or 6 of them, a small pleco or a school of cory cats would be a nice addition too, not only will they help cut down the waste of leftover food but they also are amazing to watch and play. for your show piece I would choose the swordtail or go with the gourami both would be an excellent choice.

about your lfs I believe there is a Big Als close by which would provide a wider range of fish than petsmart or pj's would. you could also check in the yellow pages for a nice mom and pop store as well :p.
 
no angels, not big enough sorry... dont know a thing about rams.. also not sure whats compatible with tiger barbs as they tend to be agressive.. id research, just look em up on google,
 
okay dokay so if you just set up your tank you should wait to buy fish so it can begin cycling, when set up my first tank (46g) i thought "hey now that its setup i should go out and buy a ton of fish" so i did i bought about 50 fish and in about the next week 3/4 of them died due to the amount of ammonium (fish poop) in the water, cycling would overtime decrease the amount of ammonium in your tank.

I own a skool of 15 tiger barbs and i love them, about a month ago i had a pair of huge angel fish after about a good 2 weeks of constant abuse from my tigerbarbs they died. In other word i dont suggest mixin the 2 especally in a 20 g

Now to your fish problem: i have always gone with for every gallon you get an inch of fish so you do the math.
-Tiger Barbs and Tetras- if your gunna get them make shure your get at least 6 of them because they are schooling fish and they will be happier and more active
-Dwarf Gourami- One of my favorites as well, they are active yet funny fish, i only have one and he seems very lonely but always try to chase after my rams with his whisker-things and tries to poke them, the other three gouramis died because i didnt start cycle
-Trophy Fish- Rams is gunna be your best choice in a 20g because they dont grow huge like most cichlids and dont need much space, i have 2 rams and they seem to chase eachother alot and often get in fights so advise only getting one.
-Suggestions- My favorite fish are platies, they are very active, good lookin, cheap, and are very easy fish to take care of. They come in many variaties my favorite the high-fin tuxedo platy. I have a 10 g tank set up for breeding these little rascals (i have many babies, breeding is alot of fun).
Also i think you should take a look a catfish, catfish are highly active, pretty and they will help you clean your tank. For a 20g tank i would go looking for a Cory catfish they dont grow huge like pleco catfish but they get the job done, and stear clear from syno catfish because mine is nocturnal and never comes out =(

Well good luck to you and any other questions just add a reply ill check this regularly

Tu Amigo,
The Dood
 
hi there, welcome to the forum and to fishkeeping.

i will answer your question about stocking but there's some info you need before you even consider what fish to get. Sometimes people don't know that they need to know something so they don't know what questions to ask!

the most important part to fishkeeping is keeping the water clean and healthy. a wise man once said 'we are not fish keepers, we are water keepers, look after your water nad the fish will look after themselves'. now it's not strictly speaking true, you need to feed them and stuff but the general idea is there. You need to take a little bit of time to understand the water chemistry issues prevalaent in fishkeeping and make sure the water is set up suitably before you add fish, if you do this then your whole fishkeeping experience will be much easier and better.

So a few bits of reading for you, these links are all in my signature if you make sure you read through 'step by step guide to setting up an aquarium' 'whats cycling' and 'fishless cycling' then post back with whatever specific questions you may have.

Right onto what fish to get, don't worry oveer getting the list finalised asap as you've some work to do before the tank is ready to safely add fish, it's just a couple of weeks so it gives you plenty of time to do your research and get a great stock list together. The most important thing is to do plenty of research into the species you want to keep and never impulse buy fish. Also remember when fish are in the shop they are often juveniles meaning they can be small but may end up very very big, so don't assume that fish are their adult size, invariably they will grow.

So to get a general idea of the amount of fish you can have the guideline is 1" of fish per US Gallon of water, now this is just a guideline, there's flexibility and exceptions to the rule but it works to get an idea. So you have a 20 gallon tank, you need to look up the adult size of each fish species you want, add them all together and they should be around 20. You add about two thirds of this after the cycle so you'd be looking to add around 10-15" of fish initially then building up the rest later.

also read the link in my sig 'guide to stocking lists' which tells you what to research and how to work out if fish will be compatible and suitable for your tank.

The only fish in your list that's completely unsuitable is the angelfish, it just gets too big for your tank. the small ones are just babies there's no 'dwarf' species of anything like that.

The fish that I would suggest you avoid are tiger barbs and dwarf gouramis. The tiger barbs get to around 2" each, they are very agressive and need to be kept in a big group to dissipate this and stop them from bnullying other fish. So you'd need 10 of them, 10x2" = 20" so a shoal of tigeters would be the whole stocking for your tank. I'm sure you want more than 1 species so I'd suggest they are out!

Dwarf Gourami's are a very weak disease prone species, while they're lovely in temperment and very pretty they are also very weak and a lot of people just struggle to keep them alive. I certainly wouldn't recommend them to a beginner with a brand new tank. You could consider the honey gourami as an alternative though which is a similar size and much hardier.

Onto the rest of the fish, you need to consider the shoal sizes required by the fish, the tetras and rasboras will need a group of 6. the guppies and swordtails need to be in multiples of 3 (2 females to every male) or an all male group 3+

the rams I would then suggest you just get 1 by itself as a feature fish for the tank.

So I would do something like this

initial stocking

6 x harlequin rasbora - 6"
4 x small corydora species - 6"

then after 3/4 months add

1 x ram - 3"
3 x guppies - 3"

the tank would then be lightly but reasonably stocked, after 6 months or so you could increase it by adding another small shoal of tetras or something along those lines. :good:
 

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