Questions About Stocking A New Tank

[Brun]

I have got a small tank set up in my bedroom. Its one of those Clear Seal Astra 12 gallon ones.
I have in it at the moment: 2 pearl gouramis, 1 golden gourami, 1 three spot gourami and 2 small clown loaches.

I have ordered a juwel rekord 120 from a website and its coming next week. I just have a few questions of what extra fish I could add to my new tank.
I want to put all the fish from my current tank into the new one and add some new ones.
I think that I then want to add: 2 or 3 angels, 1 more clown loach, either a plec or some corydoras and maybe some other small tetras or barbs.

I would obviously not add all the new fish at once but I was just wondering if you thought that this new setup would be okay. If I got a plec would it be okay with the clown loaches? or if I got some corydoras instead of the plec would they be okay with the clown loaches?
Also do you think that if I added all these fish on the list there would be too much in the tank. And how many small tetras or barbs could I have. Would 10 tiger barbs be okay?

Thanks in advance if anyone has any advice.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hiya brun

i make your new tank about 33g

which means you need to aim for about 33" of fish, worked out on they're adult size.

your current stocking is

2 pearl gouramis, - 6"
1 golden gourami, - 3"
1 three spot gourami - 3"
and 2 small clown loaches - 24"....... yes you read that right, they may be small now btu they get to 12" each.

so as it is, you can't add any more fish, but that's just cos of the clown loaches, they really aren't suitable for your tank and I would advise you to re-home them, they get very big and like to be kept in groups, so a tank of around 100g+ is needed to keep them properly.

so assuming you re-home them then you have 12" of fish, so another 20 to play with.

angels need a tank at least 18" deep as they get very tall, you need to allow 5" for each one. they are also best kept in groups to dissipate agression between them.

so if your tank is tall then you could add 4 of them, but that'd be it pretty much.

however that'd mean you tank is full of middle swimmers with no ground crew so it would be a bit cramped, you should spread things around a bit more to give them room.

so a shoal of cory's would be a great idea, need a group of 6+... most get to about 2" so allow 12" for that, then you've room for another group of 6 smallish (1-2") fish that are middle swimming. you could also have one of the smaller plecs, something like a bristelnose that gets no more than 6".

tiger barbs can be a bit nippy but gourami's can be agressive too so they should be fine together.

so from your suggestions I'd go for

2 pearl gouramis, - 6"
1 golden gourami, - 3"
1 three spot gourami - 3"
6 tiger barbs - 9"
6 cories - 12"
BN Plec - 6"

this is a bit overstocked but not desperatley, and becuase you've used fish in different areas of the tank it should be fine providing you do plenty of water changes and overfilter the tank

 

[Brun]

Thanks for your advice miss wiggle.
The two clown loaches I have already are: 1 at about 3 inches and 1 at about two inches. I bought the first bigger clown loach to get rid of a snail infestation in my tank and then I read that they need company so I got another smaller one, but I heard that they like to have 3 or more of them.
I know that they can grow to 12 inches but I thought that they grow very slowly and can get to 20 years old before they grow to full size. If I got another 3 inch clown loach, and 6 corydoras would that be ok in the mean time and I could look to rehome the clowns further down the line?


Here is a pic of my two clown loaches:

The pic was taken using my phone so its not very good.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i'm surprised you needed the loaches to get rid of snails with gourami's in your tank, they normally eat them, anyhoo

yes clowns are very slow growers, I do appreciate that.

we get this all the time with people saying they will re-home things when they outgrow the tank, although in some circumstances this will be fine personally i won't advise people to do it for 3 main reasons.

1 - in a few years you may be too attached to give them up and who knows what your personal circumstances will be, you may not have room for/ be able to afford a tank big enough

2 - common tank busters can be very difficult to re-home when they get too big, people always think they will find a home for them at a fish store or public aquarium, in actual fact they are often swamped with requests for re-homing of big fish and as such can take only a very small %age. so it can be a lot easier to take them back to tehe store when they are still small

3 - people always say they will re-home the fish when they see it is getting too big for the tank, in all reality you often won't see it, because the fish will become stunted from being in too small conditions and the damage will be done before you ever see the fish getting too large.

so really it's down to you to decide what's for the best, because fo the above reasons I won't tell you it's fine.

 

[Brun]

OK thanks a lot for your advice Miss Wiggle. I have quite a bit of time before I decide what to do as my tank comes next week and I will need to let it mature first. Thanks.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

no problem

your certainly going about it all the right way doing your research and asking questions, it's the best way to learn!



can I ask how your maturing the new tank?

 

[Brun]

Wel I was just going to let it stand for about a week then put the gouramis in after a week and the clowns in after another week, but after reading your article about fishless cycling I think I will try the 'add and wait' method.
I am also going to use aquarium sand as the main substrate for my new tank because the clown loaches like sand, but I will also mix it with some of the gravel from my current tank, so there will be some beneficial bacteria in that.
I will do the add and wait method, then add the gouramis first, then the clowns a week after that. (I wouldn't be too bothered if the gouramis didn't make it, but I would be devastated if the clown loaches died).
I have also had an idea of squeezing the sponge out of my current filter in some of the water took from the current tank, then squeezing the sponge from my new filter in the same water so that it might absorb some of the bacteria from my old filter. Does this work?
Thanks.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

are you intending to keep both tanks running, or just upgrading to the bigger one?

if your just upgrading then your current filter is enough to support your current bioload, so you can put that onto the new tank, move all your fish over straight away and run the existing and new filters together, after about a month the new filter should have built up enough beneficial bacteria to support the bioload on it's own, so you can remove the old filter and start to add new fish, slowly.

Or if you want both tanks running together but don't mind just having the new one for a month or so then do as above, but when you remove the old filter put it back on the old tank, re-fill it with water etc and you can add fish straight away

 

[Brun]

No I don't want to have both tanks, I just want to upgrade. I never thought about doing it that way. I will use both my old filter and the new filter in the new tank for a few weeks. Thanks for that suggestion. It will save me a lot of time and money. Thanks for your brilliant advice Miss Wiggle, you're a legend.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

you made me blush!! ha ha

no problem