New Ish Tank

[deephouse]

hello

I'm fairly new to this but have just about finished stocking up my 70 litre tetra tank. here's what I have got, everyone seems to be healthy and getting on well, would be really interested to hear everyones opinion on my setup;

5 neon tetras
3 white cloud mountain minnows
5 guppies (3 male 2 female)
1 black fin molly (female)
1 sunset platy
1 red balloon molly
2 x ray tetras
1 silver shark
1 red tail shark
1 leopard danio
1 zebra danio
1 indian torpedo barb (redline shark)
1 leopard catfish
1 siamese fighting fish (betta splendor, male)
1 rainbow fish
1 mountain shrimp

 

[minxfishy]

Hi and welcome.

OK, you are overstocked.

1st problem would be the silver shark ie Bala shark, these need to be in a shoal of 5/6 and will far outgrown your tank, they need a minimum of a 6ft tank Im afraid.

The siamese figher, is it Male? If so, really should not be in with those fish. Male figher fish should be housed alone preferably or with certain fish that will not fin nip (as tetras do) or he would not find a threat, ie: fish with long flowing fins, like guppies.

Watch the red tail shark, they can become very aggressive as they grow larger.

Im sure more people wil be alone soon to add their comments.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there deephouse, welcome to the forum

i'm afraid to say you have got a lot of unsuitable fish in the tank.

the general guideline for stocking is 1" of fish per gallon of water. Your tank is 18 gallons so 18" of fish. what you have is this

5 neon tetras - 5"
3 white cloud mountain minnows - 3"
5 guppies (3 male 2 female) - 5"
1 black fin molly (female) - 3"
1 sunset platy - 2"
1 red balloon molly - 3"
2 x ray tetras - 4"
1 silver shark - 6"
1 red tail shark - 6"
1 leopard danio - 1"
1 zebra danio - 1"
1 indian torpedo barb (redline shark) - 2"
1 leopard catfish - unclear species, lets assume on the safe side 2"
1 siamese fighting fish (betta splendor, male) - 3"
1 rainbow fish - 3"
1 mountain shrimp - 1"


so that's 50" of fish, now there's a degree of flexibility in the guideline you could maybe have 23/24" of fish in there safely, but 50" is massivley overstocked.

in addition to that the following fish need to be in a species group of 6+ - neons, white cloud mountain minnows, x ray tetras, silver shark, leopard danio, zebra danio, torpedo barb and rainbow fish.

the following fish get too big for your tank when they reach adult size - silver shark, redline shark, rainbow fish

and lastly the simaese fighter needs to be in a species tank by himself.

so i'm sorry your stocking list looks really bad. you need to choose a couple of the species you have, take the rest of the fish back to the shop and then increase the numbers of the fish you have left so that they are in correct sized groups.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, MW and minx have got you started on the important advice.

You are going to have to tune in here frequently too as there may be some rather urgent tasks if you can't get the right numbers returned or re-homed quickly.

You may need to do frequent and fairly large water changes and those will need to be done with correct technique, so you may need to get your technique verified here.

You may need to learn about appropriate test kits fairly quickly also.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[deephouse]

cheers for the advice guys, gonna take the minnows and the danio's back tomorrow and swap them for more neon's, the siamese is fine, he's very peaceful and doesn't bother the other fish, plus I've not seen anyone nipping his fins, think he's gonna be ok

as for the fish outgrowing the tank, they are all pretty tiny right now, so will cross that bridge when I come to it...

the 3 sharks although all different breeds seem to shoal together, so they seem ok

I've got a smaller tank spare so if any problems crop up I can separate the remainng fish

 

[waterdrop]

What kind of test kit have you got and how often are you testing?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[deephouse]

have got a nutrafin mini master test kit and we've been testing every other day

 

[minxfishy]

Unfortunately leaving it until they outgrow the tank is not a good idea. Some may never reach their full size as they will be stunted by the confined space they are in. I would re-home them as soon as possible to prevent them being stunted which is an awful thing for a fish to go through.

 

[waterdrop]

OK, good, the nutrafin mini is one of the best test kits.

Goal: keep ammonia and nitrite between zero and 0.25

~~waterdrop~~

 

[gaz gun man]

did you cycle the tank or buy it, fill it with water, wait X amount of days then add fish?


if I were you I would seriously consider your stocking

 

[Miss Wiggle]

have got a nutrafin mini master test kit and we've been testing every other day

what results are you getting? if you have a record of past days results so can give us a trendline that would be most useful