Ok, What Next?

[sue barton]

I have a 30 litre tropical Bio Orb which has had a disasterous winter and I am now down to one ghost catfish having had a tank full at Christmas. Anyway, thanks to advice from you guys on here I have been testing and the levels I now have areH 7.6, Amonia 0, Nitrite 0 and Nitrate 5.

I am thinking that I can introduce one small guppy or something like that in the next week or so.

What do you think? I've made the mistake in the past of listening to the man in the shop and introduced far too many fish at once, but I won't make that mistake again! What is the best way to introdcuce a new fish to the tank?

Thanks

A much more knowledgable fish owner!

 

[SchottayB]

I'd say you could add two guppies at the same time. Theres a limit to how many you can add per week (untill your stocking level is full) but I can't remember how many a week is reccomended.

Because the filter has to have time to adjust to the new fish load or somthing like that. Hope it helps

Goodluck fish keeping

 

[chrisbassist]

yeah, if your levels are stable at that, for at least a week without any spikes then you're safe to add more. with only one fish in there i'd go nice and slow, maybe only add 1 more fish this time, max of 2 the time after, you do however only have about 5 inches left to play with. any ideas what it is you want in there? if guppys then you'll only get about 4 or 5 in there and you'll be fully stocked.

as for the process of putting it in, ........

something like:
turn off tank lights
float bag for 15 minutes (for temp to match)
feed fish in tank (so it's not so intereste in the new arrival)
add a little tank water to the bag the fish is in
wait 10minutes
add more water from tank
reapeat a few more times,
empty some of the water from the back down the drain...
continue adding tank water (so water stats are as close as possible)
finally use a net to put fish in tank.
if required, top up tank water.

guppies are reasonably hardy so you can rush the water bits a bit more with them, other fish are less hardy and the change in water will affect them more, so you'll want to slow it down...

scotty, basically you don't want to more than double the load otherwise the filter will take too long to catch up...

so in this case a 3 inch fish already in there, you could get away with 2 guppies...

 

[Wills]

If you have a fish in there and your readings are at 0 0 5 thats a good sign, before your fish died what symptoms did they show? Did any get any white patches at all?

With the fish you want to have in the tank, a stocking list is so important for a tank to work long term. The glass catfish that you have now is pretty unsuitable for a 30 liter biorb they get quite big about 4 inches and need to be in a group I would try and rehome that and start again.

I would stick to fish called micro fish, which are tiny fish but when done properly they pack in so much activity and colour its pretty fantastic. So a few species for you to consider, chill rasbora, cherry shimp, sparkling gourami and male endlers. You could also consider dwarf anchor catfish as these are more solitary than other micro catfish like pygmy cories and wont need quite as much floor space they might even hide in plants etc but they are quite rare...

Wills

 

[sue barton]

Thanks very much for the advice, I think I will be going super slow, as I really don't want to repeat the carnage of earlier this year!!

Before the fish died they didn't have white spots, some of them got covered in little bubbles and others started to swim either vertically or upside down, I think that it was just overloaded, and I didn't know that the filter should be left for so long, I thought a nice clean white new filter sponge was best - I know better now!!

I do realise that the glass catfish is not really right for the tank, but my son absolutely loves him, as you can see all the skeleton, so I think I'd be in big trouble if I got rid of him, maybe I can persuade my son to have a more suitable tank for himself - what would be the minmum size for a rectangular tank for fish like that?

Can you just remind me what the maximum inch of fish I have to play with in my biorb?

Thanks for the fish suggestions and I will definately be going for small fish now, but I don't recognise any of the species you mention form our local fish shop. Would tetras be suitable, as they are small? Or do I need to look further afield for more choice?

In the past we have done quite well with mollies, even getting babies, so I wonder if I can do that again if I keep a close eye on the water composition.

I really don't mind which fish I have in the tank, I just want a more attractive spectacel than a transparent, shy fish in the tank - people keep asking me if there's anything in there!!!

Thanks again.

 

[chrisbassist]

Well, I think it's an 8 gallon, 1 inch per gallon... So 8 inches, from what I read the glass catfish is 3 inches but I may be wrong which would leave 5 inches.
Have a bit of a google for sparkling gourami. Very nice fish.

 

[Wills]

For the glass catfish you want about 125 liter 3 foot tank in a group of 5 or so but thats the minimum any bigger would be an advantage.

With the biorb because of the small surface area there is much less oxygen exchange going on than in a regular 30 liter tank you I would stick to about 8 micro fish i mentioned or if you want to go with other small fish like tetras I would stick to 6 but making sure you get the smaller of the species available might be able to get you upto 8 like platinum tetras, gold tetras or green neon tetras or an other quite common micro fish ive just remembered the galaxy rasbora (very nice!)

Mollies are a bit big for that tank really again with a max size of 4 inches and in a tank that small your not really able to handle broods of babies, platties could be an option as could guppies but I would stick to all males to avoid babies, I had a 30 liter set up for my mum once that had 3 platties and 2 male guppies and that worked pretty well while we had the tank set up But i would try and find endlers live bearers which are closely related to guppies but stay much smaller and stay in the micro fish grouping imo and Ive seen these available even at places like pets at home.

Also you could consider having some small shrimp with the fish i mentioned like cherry shrimp.

Just out of interest where abouts do you go for your fish? If you dont mind telling us where your from someone might be able to point you in the direction of a good lfs, you would be amazed at some of them around the country and where they are one of my favorites is just on a little high street in a tiny yorkshire town yet you see fish in there you wont see anywhere else in the county, so it is often a bit easier to source rareish fish when you know where to look

Wills

 

[sue barton]

Thanks Wills - I'm in Hackney, you'd think London would be easy to find good LFS, but I'm a bit of a novice and haven't found anywhere other than a shop in Bethnal Green yet.

I will have a think about the stock and post on here to check!!

 

[Wills]

Aquatic Design Center on great portland street I always go when Im in london even brought back a few fish on the train from there fantastic selection and the staff really know their stuff Brilliant little show room downstairs as well

Wills