Set-Up Questions

[Allandra]

So, as a child I used to keep a pair of goldfish in an un-filtered tank, until they died after about 5 years. Looking back, I'm extremely lucky that they lived that long, given the state the water must have been in, and how stressed they must have been when I dumped them in a bucket every week to clean them out! Unforgivable ignorance on my part, I suppose. I plan on doing things rather better this time, and want to get all of my information in a straight line before I start; especially since I plan to keep tropicals instead of cold-waters.

Firstly, on the subject of the tank itself. I have limited money available (starving student, here) but there's a pretty sturdy 21 litre tank that I can afford. But its sold as a cold-water tank, with all of the equipment that it comes with being geared towards cold-water fish. If I then bought a heater (presumably a 25W would do the job) would I then be able to use it for tropical fish? As far as I can tell, there's not much difference otherwise. Is there a difference between cold and tropical filters, for example?

Also, the fish. I had planned on getting a bunch of tetras, but having read the non-beginner-fish-post I guess that's not a good idea. Bearing in mind that I don't really want to end up with a tank full of baby fish, can you offer any suggestions? I've been looking at danios, which seem recommended - do they reproduce furiously, or should I be alright with them?

Many thanks!

 

[arobinson1984]

Hi,

danios would be too active for a 21L tank.

Some ideas could be:

a betta
harlequin rasboras
hengeli rasboras
dwarf gourami
honey gourami
shrimp
african dwarf frogs
golden teddies
endlers
Pygmy cories

obviously not all of them, they are quite a few more, have a search on google etc for nano fish.

Have you read up about cycling the filter? I'd recommend doing a fishless cycle, it's so much easier and less work but the decision is yours to make.

All you would need to add is a heater to change tank from coldwater to tropical, filter would be fine, what filter is it by the way?


Andy

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to our forum Alandra.
You will indeed be able to "convert" a cold water tank to a tropical by the simple expedient of adding a heater. I am a big enthusiast when it comes to small fish. My own stock includes Heterandria formosa which are very suitable to small tanks. Mine have a nice breeding colony set up in a 38 litre nominal volume tank. This is one of the males who is less than 2 cm in length.

Another nice small livebearer is the Xenophallus umbratilis, golden teddy. My present avatar is a male X umbratilis. He is only about 2.5 cm in length and looks like this.

n
The female X umbratilis looks like this female of mine. She is a bit larger than her male counterpart.

There are tons of non-livebearer equivalents for your consideration but I am a livebearer fanatic enthusiast.

 

[drobbyb]

They weren't mentioned, but what about white cloud mountain minnows?

 

[pjandnoo]

We started with some white cloud minnows and then found some golden cloud minnows in our local LFS. Wish we could have got a mixture as they both look really nice and they are nice easy starter fish.