New Tank - Bright (preferably Pink) Tropical Fish List Needed

[fishncan]

Try Bleeding Heart Tetras

 

[fishyfeet]

yea and how about some cherry shrimps, or some pink apple snails

 

[simonmac2]

Thanks for all the advice. In addition to the starter neon tetra's. Once the cycling is complete i'll go for the list below. It should give me enough time to check the ph requirements for them, and make sure that they are compatible. I think a number of shoals will be easier to manage than too many varieties (and corpses don't become too much of an issue)

If anyone has any ideas on the gravel and how to either (a) keep the pattern, or (b) how to deal with it, i would be most grateful.

Current List for Barbie (tm) scheme fishtank:
cherry barb
red harlequins
pink parrot fish - can't find these in the uk mailorder co
Purple Passion Danio
celestial pearl danio
pink glowlight danio - mailorder co, said they aren't allowed genetically modified fish ;-(
albino cories
Bleeding Heart Tetras
cherry shrimps

Regards

Simon

 

[Miss Wiggle]

please don't start the cycle off with neons, they are very weak and will almost certainly die..... is that really something you want your daughter to go through fishless cycling puts no lives in danger and requires little more than a test kit and a few weeks patience. the links in my sig with all the info, just have a good read before just getting fish please.

for an idea of the numbers of fish, your tank is just under 50gals, you can have 1" of fish per gallon of water. so look up the adult size of the fish and you'll compile a list something like this

6 x cherry barb - 2" ea - 12"
6 x red harlequins - 1" ea - 6"
6 x Purple Passion Danio - 1" ea - 6"
etc

when you get to the point when it all adds together to 50 then the tank is full.

you don't wanna put a parrot fish in with all the smaller fish, it'll probably eat them all the other fish mentioned are schooling fish and need to be in groups of 6 or more of the same species.

 

[rich]

I agree, don't cycle with neons. If you really don't want to fishless cycle you could get a couple of hardy fish in to maintain interest in the interim

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Simon and welcome the our forums!

In the time I've been here I've now watched Miss Wiggle and the other experienced experts here help what seems like hundreds of families who are starting aquariums for the first time. The ones who are too impatient to do a fishless cycle to get their filter prepared and working always seem to have the same outcome: The kids are in tears over the fish that die and the parents are exhausted from the huge daily water changes they now have to perform to keep the remaining fish alive in an uncycled tank. The sentence they universally post in here is "Oh how we wish we had listened to you and done a fishless cycle."

The difficult little secret in this hobby is that cycling is critical and its felt to be an unsustainable business model by the LFS. Its easy to understand that they would have a hard time selling large amounts of sometimes expensive equipment and at the same time telling customers that the equipment won't be ready for fish for several weeks! The turn its taken is that the stores just ignore the problem and tell customers that everything is fine and just to go ahead and introduce fish after a week or a few days. Besides, in the end it increases sales as the replacements for the fish that died in cycling are often purchased at the same LFS (Local Fish Shop.)

The filter is arguably the most important piece of equipment in the hobby and unfortunately it does not work when you get it. At first it is just a piece of raw equipment, not even capable yet of good mechanical filtration. It needs to perform 2 major functions for you, the mechanical just mentioned and the most important, the biological function (there is a 3rd function, chemical filtration that is only needed on special occasions.) By performing a fishless cycle, you are preparing the biofilter. You grow 2 species of bacteria in the media of the filter and together they then perform the almost magical job of continuously removing 2 deadly poisons from your water. In addition, the biofilms they form make the media sticky, which brings the mechanical function of the filter up to speed.

Getting through fishless cycling with children is difficult (I've been doing it myself), and even more of a challange with your children's age range, but it is quite do-able and you'll never find a better place than here, I don't think, for help and support. The Nitrogen Cycle, the thing behind cycling, is really quite interesting, and a young artist like your daughter would have a wonderful time drawing large pictures of the cycle, with symbolic arrows and everything, with your help. In addition there are lots of creative ways to include her in the planning and fish store trips that will be necessary. Children who get good grades also tend to take these creative assignments from parents and run with them, so you've got a head start I'd say!

Anyway, that's my 2 bits... great looking tank you've got there!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

(morning WD)

forgot to mention about the gravel, sometimes in tanks people manage to keep different types of substrate seperate using this method, never seen it tried with a pattern quite so intricate but you can give it a go!

get some strips of flexible plastic, they should be flat and the width of them the same as the depth of the substrate, you then position them inbetween the different areas of the pattern to stop them from merging together. like i say though, people usually just use this to create a 'path' of different coloured substrates or something like that, dunno how well it'd work for you.

another option is to change it for something pretty but slightly messier which wouldn't matter if it gets messed up. like do purple at one end of the tank and pink at the other with them sort of merging into each other in the middle. then it'd not matter if odd bits of gravel got out of place.

 

[WillyRBeek]

I have a really nice fish that has pink and black horizontal stripes running down it which are really nice. It's about an inch long now and apparently they don't get much bigger then that, so it would probably be a good choice for what you're looking for. Unfortunely I can't remember exactly what the fish are called. I think it's something along the lines of "Red Rocket" or "Rocket Red" or something like that. I know when I bought him the manager at the store said it's not a fish they usually carry because apparently they're a real hassle to order in. He said they're from Peru, and it cost roughly about $15. Unfortunely I can't be any more help then that, but hopefully another more knowledgeable member around here knows the fish I am referring to and can give you an exact name for it.

 

[simonmac2]

i'll definately push for a couple of hardy fish (the lfs said tetra's would do) - knowledgable recomendations would be appreciated that can survive the rest of the cycling - Curse the LFS!

I can't not get some fish tomorrow - she was awarded the school star today.... I'll make sure i'm up early to check everything, and get her up to speed with the water testing and where we are in the cycle. I've read the various stuck posts on what to do.

i'm sure the gravel is going to break me...

 

[Faythee]

Don't listen to the LFS

Hopefully once she has some fish in there to watch she will not be too interested in the gravel anymore.

 

[waterdrop]

What size tank is that, looks pretty big...

 

[tenohfive]

Good idea abandoning the Dwarf Gourami's (for now at least) as they are very sensitive, and need a tank thats mature before being added.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's a rio 180, so 180 litres, (the juwel tanks are handy like that, the tank no is always the litres it holds) knocking on 50gals off the top of my head. nice size tank.

I can understand that you wanna reward your daughter, but I'll say it once more, I'd urge you not to reward her at the expense of the fish. Cycling with fish is dangerous and nowadays is unnecessary. I'm sure you can find another way to reward her, let her pick out all the ornaments and decor for the tank or something.

really if her first experience of fishkeeping is cycling with fish and the liklihood of fish developing disease or dying, then it's not a good way to introduce her to keeping pets.

perhaps WD can give some suggestions for persuading her that it's the right thing to do to not put fish in straight away, i've not had to go through this with kids so can't really help that much.

however that being said, it is ultimatley your decision and I would hate for you to be put off this forum because of it, so if your gonna cycle with fish then just make sure you are armed with the fact and you do it right.

Your target is to keep ammonia and nitrite under 0.25ppm at all times, so a good quality liquid test kit is vital. To keep it down you just do water changes, sounds simple enough yeah, but it'll be every single day, sometimes twice a day. change as much water as you need to get the levels down, change up to 75% of the water at any one time, an hr or so after a water change test the water again, if levels aren't below 0.25ppm then do another big change.... and so on until levels are down low.

hardy fish for cycling are platy's or danios. Danio's would be my preference because if you get platy's you'll probably end up with babies, if the fish has babies I imagine teaching your daughter survival of the fittest is gonna be a hard lesson and you'd want to try and keep all the babies alive, we're talking upwards of 20 baby fish every single month and you can imagine the tank would very quickly get overcrowded at that rate, and then the babies start breeding amongst themselves. Look for leopard danio's, they're leopard patterned so quite cute, can see your daughter liking them (even though they aren't pink!!)

ha ha i can see the gravel breaking you too!! but tbh, it's not that big a job to change it out if you need to at a later date.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I was asking the size because I was thinking of that next step after the "fish-in" cycle starts of having to change out about 80L/25G of water a couple times a day to keep the ammonia and nitrites down.

I'm sure that in this case, MW and I sound like a couple of techies spoiling the fun. Its just that the "hardy fish" phrase makes it sound like a couple a "tough happy zebra danio guys" who will tough it through and then come out feeling good on the other end of cycling. Unfortunately, ammonia pretty easily causes permanent gill damage, and nitrites cause a form of suffocation similar to carbon monoxide in mammals, because the nitrite uses up the positions normally occupied on hemoglobin on the blood cells of the fish.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[simonmac2]

will get the plants, ammonia and eye dropper tomorrow. had a talk this evening and agreed that we would need to order the "pretty fish" from the uk and that will take time. meanwhile we'll get the tank perfect for them...

i'm hoping the chosing process will take a week in itself if the cycling is going to take a month...

thanks for all input.

it is important for the nipper to understand that i'm not going back on my word, and we took a long time to get to that acceptance. whew!

thanks again all.

Simon