New To This:

[beux]

We recently acquired a 60L tank with the appropriate heater, filter, thermometer, lighting. We got quite large black gravel, rocks, and a couple of plastic plants and set this all up. We got all this from Timperly Aquatics (for those who are familiar with the North West).

We then went to A Drop in the Ocean to have a look at fish (as Timp are not fish specialists we thought it best to go somewhere where they were more dedicated to fish). We bought a variety of live plants and 6 Danios.

The tank is now 'cycling' with the Danio's in and we are starting to think about what fish we want in it after it's ready. We are both totally new to fish and obviously there were lots we saw that we both wanted so we need to take compatability etc into consideration whilst also getting a small variety of interesting fish.

The fish we are interested in are:

Cardinals
Neons
Black Ghost Knifefish
Clown Loaches
Angelfish

But we are open to ideas for a mixture of fish that will be compatible and also fill the different levels of the tank without overstocking. It would be nice to have at least one type of fish from the list above (I especially love the angelfish and the knifefish). Also what would be a good fish for eating algae?

Any ideas for what we could put in this tank?


Also - when changing water what is a good way to siphon it out...without taking the fish with it? This is something that is worrying me a little!

Thanks!

 

[WILDER]

The tetra's need a cycled tank usually a mature tanks of six months.
No to the angel fish needs a 30gal tank.
No the the clown
loaches have to be kept in group to be happy, plus need a 90gal tank.
Plus no the black ghost knife fish they grow large too and need large tanks.

 

[jonny-5]

when changing the water when i first started,i used to use a little jug but it was hard work and very time consuming.You can buy a little syphon pump off Ebay or a good pet shop for no more than £4,They do the work for you and there dead easy to use!!

 

[monkeyman]

Well i think if i were you, i would be starting off with the likes of neons (these were the first fish i had in my first tank, which was a 60 litre, they went in as soon as it had cycled - no problems) or platys, something small - that stays small! Clowns grow way too big for your tank & so do angels, so none of those 2 for sure Perhaps you could even get some guppys (1 male for every 3 female i think), or even a small shoal of 10 or so tiger barbs, to be kept as a species tank though! These are just some examples of what you could have & im sure other people can add to this...

Still, the most important thing watever you decide is that just because the fish are small in the store doesnt mean they will stay that way! But i know this is a great site and you should find help on here. I hope im a start for you!

 

[Nina]

Black Ghost can reach 18-20" and can eat pretty much anything under 2" and to be safe I wouldn't keep anything under 3".

The clowns would also get too big i'm afraid and as wilder said they need a group to be happy.

Before you buy any fish the best thing to do is a search on the net for details of their compatibility and their final growth size. You don't want to be buying a 2" fish which gets to 2'.

 

[beux]

Yeah. I had done quite a bit of research and mostly decided against the knifefish and, sadly, the angelfish due to size and how delicate they are, I should have mentioned that. I just wanted to give an idea of what we were interested in so that you would have an idea of our tastes and might know of similar, smaller, easier fish.


Also, I have another question.......at the moment I'm feeding these danio's on flakes and trying to dicern how much i should be feeding. The problem I am having is that the filter is causing a current which is pushing the food around, now the poor danios are chasing after in a mad rush....but they hardly ever find it. They just seem to be swimming past it, under it, over it, round it and only very occassionally does one of them find it and eat some. I'm only putting in a few flakes (currently 4 flakes for 6 danios) because they *never* get it all. I am worried they are not getting enough because it's not that they can't eat that much in 2/3 minutes the problem is they can't find it. Any ideas?

 

[OMA]

Hmm, sounds a little funny, you could try them with adhesive food, sticks to the side of the tank and they won't have to troll the gravel for it like with sinking food. Or and i'm not 100% on how much you should do this! You could turn of the filter while feeding, i can't see it doing to much damage to the bacteria if it's for a couple of minutes.

 

[beux]

Yeah. Trying another type of food sounds like the best option really. I thought about turning the filter off, but I don't think it's a good idea, turning it off for a start - even though for that length of time, like you said, probably wouldn't effect the bacteria and then theres the whole putting my hands into the water at every feed to turn it off which i don't really want to do - the other option is turning it off at the plug which would turn off the light, heater and filter all in one go.

I'll get to the shop and check out some other food options.

 

[Nina]

Have you tried live food. You might find that they enjoy chasing it around the tank to eat it and plus if it doesn;t get eaten it will just swim around until it does.

Usually feed our smaller fish small bloodwoms (but they tend to sink to the bottom) or daphina. You can usually get small bags of live ones from your LFS

 

[OMA]

Yeah. Trying another type of food sounds like the best option really. I thought about turning the filter off, but I don't think it's a good idea, turning it off for a start - even though for that length of time, like you said, probably wouldn't effect the bacteria and then theres the whole putting my hands into the water at every feed to turn it off which i don't really want to do - the other option is turning it off at the plug which would turn off the light, heater and filter all in one go.

I'll get to the shop and check out some other food options.

I'm a little confused as to why you can't switch off your filter without putting your hand in the water or without turning everything off

As a further thought, you can buy a feeding net which attaches to the side of the tank. you put live food in like bloodworm and it sits in a kind of seive poking out so the fish can grab it near the surface. no amount of current can affect it really.

 

[beux]

thanks for all the advice. got lots of things to try now...


as for turning off the filter...you can turn it off on the filter...which is under the water....or at the plug which the only accessible place is where the adapter for everything is plugged in.