Newbie with a 60L tank

[FishBearer9845]

Good morning
I am just after some advice re stocking of my 60L tank.
I have 12 x guppies (4 x leopard tail, 4 x snow white and 4 x yellow) and 2 albino corys in there.
They all seem perfectly happy in there, the water tests are coming back well using the API Master Kit, and the fish are eating and swimming well with plenty of room to move about and not get in each other's way.
Am I able to add 4-6 tetras in there or would you say that it is well stocked enough? If so, I am more than happy with my current set up and the fish look lovely. I wouldn't be looking to add anything else in there after the tetras, if tetras were a possibility.
Thank you so much and please be gentle! I feel really passionate about caring for these lil creatures!
Kind regards
Sarah

 

[Essjay]

Hi, welcome to the forum


I assume your tank is 60 cm long - that's common for 60 litre tanks. (For members who don't use metric, that's 16 gallons and 24 inches)



The first thing I need to ask you is - how hard is your water? Look on your water company's website, you need a number and the unit of measurement (there are several they could use) rather than some words which will probably be inaccurate.
The reason I ask is that guppies are hard water fish while the majority of tetras are soft water fish so they don't really mix.
But once we have your hardness, we'll be able to suggest more fish.


One thing you do need is more cories. These are shoaling fish which should be kept in group of at least 6 of the same species.

 

[FishBearer9845]

Hi, welcome to the forum


I assume your tank is 60 cm long - that's common for 60 litre tanks. (For members who don't use metric, that's 16 gallons and 24 inches)



The first thing I need to ask you is - how hard is your water? Look on your water company's website, you need a number and the unit of measurement (there are several they could use) rather than some words which will probably be inaccurate.
The reason I ask is that guppies are hard water fish while the majority of tetras are soft water fish so they don't really mix.
But once we have your hardness, we'll be able to suggest more fish.


One thing you do need is more cories. These are shoaling fish which should be kept in group of at least 6 of the same species.

Hi

Thank you for your quick reply.

I have the Aquael Hex 60L which is 41cm x 41cm x 61cm high. It has an automatic heater, a sponge filter, 'stone' filter box and another filter off the pump pipe and a trickle 'feature'.

Oh no! I feel really bad for the corys there now! Ignore the tetra idea for now then I guess and get more corys?

On the website I have just searched it states your postcode is a hard water area, with the colour coding as hard to very hard.

Can I mix corys too? Will the 2 albinos get on with say pandas or the ones that look like a salt and pepper mix?

Thank you so much

 

[Essjay]

OK, that's a tall narrow tank. These are harder to stock than rectangular tanks because of the limited swimming room - fish swim side to side rather than up and down.


I'm afraid I do have some bad new, though. Most of the large cories need a tank with a bigger footprint than 41 x 41 cm (16 x 16 inches). Bronze cories, for example, need at least 80 cm tank length, and bronze is the most likely species for your albinos. And cories are soft water fish, though guppies are hard water so they are fine. I know you don't want to but rehoming the cories would be the best thing for them - the combination of a small tank footprint plus the hard water will be stressful for them, and stressed fish get sick more easily.


I will be totally honest with you and say that with the tank you have, 12 guppies is fully stocked. Do you have males, females or a mix? If it's a mix, there will be a lot of fry as well........

 

[FishBearer9845]

Oh gosh, okay I'm happy to invest and rehome the cories into something more suitable, I don't want them to suffer.
The guppies are all male according to the shop I purchased them from.
The hard water information is in the attached picture.
Thank you

 

[Essjay]

That's very hard! The two figures you need are 422 ppm and 23.97 dH as those are the two units used in fish keeping. I'm afraid is is too hard for cories.

If the guppies are all male, at least you don't have to worry about fry taking over the tank. Though I wouldn't trust some shop workers to be able to tell the difference even though with livebearers like guppies it's very easy. You can check by looking at the anal fin - that's the one under the fish just in front of the tail. If it's fan shaped, the fish is female; if it's rod shaped, it's a male.



If you do want to keep soft water fish, there are things you can do to make the water suitable for them. We have members who live in hard water areas and successfully keep soft water fish. If you want to know more, we can go into detail.

 

[FishBearer9845]

I would love to know, I'm happy to have more than one tank in order to keep them happy.

What kind of things am I able to do to soften the water please?

Kind regards
Sarah

 

[Essjay]

The way to 'soften' the water is to mix your tap water with some sort of pure water. This could be distilled, deionised, reverse osmosis or even rain water if you can always have some on hand and you are certain there is no pollution (industrial or agricultural). Most people who do this use reverse osmosis (or RO) water. It can be bought from many fish shops or you can buy equipment to make it yourself - though the process does make a lot of waste water which could prove expensive if you are on a meter.

RO is used either by 100% RO and adding some remineralisation salts, or more usually by mixing it with your tap water. This is done before the water is put in the tank. The dilution is straight forward - half tap and half RO would halve your hardness from 24 dH to 12 dH. Or one quarter tap and three quarters RO would take it down to 6 dH. If you were to buy it, you would need to keep enough RO on hand to do a big water change should an emergency water change ever be needed.


If you decide this is for you, research the fish you would like to keep and find out the hardness they need and the tank size they need. This is just about the best site for researching fish https://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/
Different profiles use different units for hardness, temperature, tank size etc, and there is a calculator on here to convert them https://www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm
Then when you are ready, we can help you set up a new tank

 

[FishBearer9845]

Wow, thank you so much for such a detailed and helpful response. You've made a newbie feel welcome and not inadequate. Thank you

 

[Essjay]

We've all started somewhere, and usually with bad advice from a shop. Fish keeping is a steep learning curve.

I don't believe in criticising anyone for listening to the shop, much better to help them help their fish