Starter Plant Question

[sharkweek178]

Angels get about 20-22cm tall as adults, you might be buying 4cm in height as juveniles but they will grow

That's something for people to remember. The fish in stores are usually juveniles. Often with a lot more growing to do.

 

[Byron]

Interesting on the water, if my water is properly cycled is it best to add all the new fish at once or a few at a time?

Some fish are what we term shoaling or schooling fish, and these must have a group. It is always advisable to add the intended number of one species at the same time, together. So for example, if you decide on say cardinal tetras, which need a group of 10+, you would add all 10 or 11 or 12, whatever, together. This is important as it means they will settle in faster with less chance of problems like ich, and with some species that develop an hierarchy adding the entire group of that species is critical. Once the species is settled, you go to the next. And so on. As you are just starting out, I would do it species by species. When I set up a new tank the fish can go in at once, but I am an old hand (literally) at this, and I have fast-growing surface plants. I highly recommend surface plants here too, they provide shade which all forest fish appreciate, and they take up all the ammonia the fish could ever produce. Water Sprite, Amazon Frogbit, Water Lettuce are good; some stem plants grow well left on the surface too. Surface plants are the easiest, but ironically they also do a tremendous job on the water quality.

Iv just googled angle fish and they are about 4cm in hight ? Do they grow huge or am I missing something ?

Other members have mentioned that stores almost always sell very young fish. But this brings up an important aspect that you need to implement right from the start, and never deviate from--and that is, always do research on a reliable site for any fish species, so you will know their mature size, how many are needed, how they behave, what water parameters they need, etc. There are so many threads on this forum where aquarists did not do this, and now have problems and sick and dying fish. Most if not all of this can be prevented with research. And ask on this forum, members here have probably kept every fish in the hobby among all of us.

Reliable sites. Forget most of what you find doing Google searches on YouTube. SeriouslyFish.com is one of our best sites. Planet Catfish.com is another for catfish obviously. CorydorasWorld.com for cories (this requires a membership). Loachesonline.com for loaches. These are professionally-run sites. The site you found that said angelfish grow to 4 cm in height is obviously totally unreliable and rubbish, if you understood them correctly.

Angelfish have other significant issues I won't get into. There is a lot of information in this thread and your other thread without getting bogged down on one fish that won't work here anyway for reasons other than just size.

Freshwater fish species have evolved over thousands of years to live in very specific water and habitats. Providing close to those habitats is the only guarantee of healthy fish. The fish deserve nothing less.

 

[777james777]

Some fish are what we term shoaling or schooling fish, and these must have a group. It is always advisable to add the intended number of one species at the same time, together. So for example, if you decide on say cardinal tetras, which need a group of 10+, you would add all 10 or 11 or 12, whatever, together. This is important as it means they will settle in faster with less chance of problems like ich, and with some species that develop an hierarchy adding the entire group of that species is critical. Once the species is settled, you go to the next. And so on. As you are just starting out, I would do it species by species. When I set up a new tank the fish can go in at once, but I am an old hand (literally) at this, and I have fast-growing surface plants. I highly recommend surface plants here too, they provide shade which all forest fish appreciate, and they take up all the ammonia the fish could ever produce. Water Sprite, Amazon Frogbit, Water Lettuce are good; some stem plants grow well left on the surface too. Surface plants are the easiest, but ironically they also do a tremendous job on the water quality.



Other members have mentioned that stores almost always sell very young fish. But this brings up an important aspect that you need to implement right from the start, and never deviate from--and that is, always do research on a reliable site for any fish species, so you will know their mature size, how many are needed, how they behave, what water parameters they need, etc. There are so many threads on this forum where aquarists did not do this, and now have problems and sick and dying fish. Most if not all of this can be prevented with research. And ask on this forum, members here have probably kept every fish in the hobby among all of us.

Reliable sites. Forget most of what you find doing Google searches on YouTube. SeriouslyFish.com is one of our best sites. Planet Catfish.com is another for catfish obviously. CorydorasWorld.com for cories (this requires a membership). Loachesonline.com for loaches. These are professionally-run sites. The site you found that said angelfish grow to 4 cm in height is obviously totally unreliable and rubbish, if you understood them correctly.

Angelfish have other significant issues I won't get into. There is a lot of information in this thread and your other thread without getting bogged down on one fish that won't work here anyway for reasons other than just size.

Freshwater fish species have evolved over thousands of years to live in very specific water and habitats. Providing close to those habitats is the only guarantee of healthy fish. The fish deserve nothing less.

Ahh I see. I’m a little gutted. I almost went for the tank that was 10cm higher and I liked the look of the angel fish too. Never mind! Il steer clear of them if I don’t have the capacity it needs.
Very interesting regarding the plants on the surface, I think I will be investing in some of these.
What I’m realising is that everything I do / buy / think I know, it’s seems to be best to check and ask before hand!

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

everything I do / buy / think I know, it’s seems to be best to check and ask before hand!

Yup! I've been keeping fish almost 20 years, and I still research and ask those in the know. Never ever rely on those in the shops, because honestly they don't know what they're doing!

Don't worry about the angel fish right now, we can help you choose alternatives that are more suitable...and you'll more than likely catch MTS and end up with angels at some point

 

[777james777]

Yup! I've been keeping fish almost 20 years, and I still research and ask those in the know. Never ever rely on those in the shops, because honestly they don't know what they're doing!

Don't worry about the angel fish right now, we can help you choose alternatives that are more suitable...and you'll more than likely catch MTS and end up with angels at some point

Haha whats MTS?

The fish shop near me is a family run business and he's been there years. To be fair, he did seem to know some stuff and was advising me away from a few things ive seen mentioned on here. (my point is, is that it wasnt some 18 year old in pets at home)

 

[Wills]

Haha whats MTS?

The fish shop near me is a family run business and he's been there years. To be fair, he did seem to know some stuff and was advising me away from a few things ive seen mentioned on here. (my point is, is that it wasnt some 18 year old in pets at home)

MTS is Multiple Tank Syndrome - some people suffer it but me and my 5 tanks are fine...

Which shop are you going to at the moment? You have quite a few very good options pretty close by - including IMO the best in the world Pier Aquatics in Wigan... I'd guess half an hour from you? Blimey it would be dangerous for me if I lived that close!

With fish keeping and aquariums there are a lot of different ways of doing things lots of different opinions and also for lack of a better phrase different moral compass. I think this forum is very lucky due to the number of qualified scientists and people who have worked in the industry all over the world, we have as members and as such 'our' way of doing things is led more by those analytic minds we have here. Over the years of this forum we've amassed such a living library of people trying things and depths of discussions that you can see things play out on the forums over the period of years and learn from it to say this works, that sort of works, that doesn't work.

One example is how 'strict' this forum is around hardness, most people focus on the ph but we've seen and shared peer reviewed papers on the effects of hard water on soft water fish (they end up with kidney stones and get organ failure...) and the effects of soft water on hard water fish (they don't grow properly), a lot of people say oh they just adapt but we've got members that kept soft water tetras in hard water and they lived for about 18 months, they then switched to RO water to give them soft water and now their new tetras are 6 years old. And its not just the fish that benefit from this way of thinking, fish kept outside of their optimum are more stressed and more prone to diseases so you can see how thats going to effect you as a fish keeper - more maintenance, more to deal with with medications, more fish loss, more stress. But its just one example where

Wills

 

[Essjay]

I used to live in Lowton back in the 1980s and if I'd kept fish then you'd have needed to drag me out of Pier Aquatics. I visited the shop after I got fish when visiting my parents and my husband refused to call in there to buy fish on the way home

 

[777james777]

MTS is Multiple Tank Syndrome - some people suffer it but me and my 5 tanks are fine...

Which shop are you going to at the moment? You have quite a few very good options pretty close by - including IMO the best in the world Pier Aquatics in Wigan... I'd guess half an hour from you? Blimey it would be dangerous for me if I lived that close!

With fish keeping and aquariums there are a lot of different ways of doing things lots of different opinions and also for lack of a better phrase different moral compass. I think this forum is very lucky due to the number of qualified scientists and people who have worked in the industry all over the world, we have as members and as such 'our' way of doing things is led more by those analytic minds we have here. Over the years of this forum we've amassed such a living library of people trying things and depths of discussions that you can see things play out on the forums over the period of years and learn from it to say this works, that sort of works, that doesn't work.

One example is how 'strict' this forum is around hardness, most people focus on the ph but we've seen and shared peer reviewed papers on the effects of hard water on soft water fish (they end up with kidney stones and get organ failure...) and the effects of soft water on hard water fish (they don't grow properly), a lot of people say oh they just adapt but we've got members that kept soft water tetras in hard water and they lived for about 18 months, they then switched to RO water to give them soft water and now their new tetras are 6 years old. And its not just the fish that benefit from this way of thinking, fish kept outside of their optimum are more stressed and more prone to diseases so you can see how thats going to effect you as a fish keeper - more maintenance, more to deal with with medications, more fish loss, more stress. But its just one example where

Wills

Well i just did a google image search on Pier aquatics... Wow, what a shop that looks. Yeah wigan is about 20 minutes down the road from me.
The shop that I have currently been in is called fish cove. Ahh MTS haha i understand now. Im kicking myself i didnt get the 50cm tall fish tank now as it wasn't much more ££

When referring to the soft and hard water... is this to do with PH levels or?

I have a friend who lives in Newcastle and their water tasks vile. They call it "hard water" im guessing this is no coincidence to what we are talking about?

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

From my stupid ape brain, pH is in regards to whether water is alkaline or acidic... gh is in regards to the amount of dissolved minerals in water. PH tends to be higher in harder water. @Essjay is the chemist amongst us so she can explain it in less ape brain terms

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

I used to live in Lowton back in the 1980s and if I'd kept fish then you'd have needed to drag me out of Pier Aquatics. I visited the shop after I got fish when visiting my parents and my husband refused to call in there to buy fish on the way home

I'm so sorry you have to be subjected to such cruelty from your hubby I hope you put fish flake in his parsley sauce that night to get your own back...

 

[Essjay]

I didn't really expect him to call in at the start of a 2 hour journey as he wanted to get home


@777james777 There are three interconnected parameters - GH (hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH.
Of the three, KH is the least important as it doesn't affect fish directly. It stabilises pH. If it's high it is almost impossible to change pH; if it's low it is easy to change pH.
GH is a measure of calcium and magnesium in the water. Fish have evolved to cope with the amount of minerals in the water they come from. Soft water fish have evolved to hang on to the few minerals in their native water and in hard water, with lots of minerals, they continue to hang on to them causing deposits in their organs. Hard water fish have evolved to remove the minerals, which they take in with the water, from their bodies. Put them in soft water they continue to remove them but there aren't enough minerals in soft water to replace them so they suffer mineral deficiency. This is the most important parameter to look at when choosing fish, we should aim to keep fish which come from water with similar GH to our tap water.
pH is important but second to GH. The pH of our tap water can be outside the range found in the fish's native water as long as it's not way out. Having stable pH is important though, so no adding chemicals to change pH then having it bounce back again.

Because the three are interconnected, changing one of them usually means changing all three, something not advisable for a newcomer to the hobby.


Assuming your hardness is similar to that in Golden Square (the bank I checked for GH), you have the choice of fish from South America, African rivers (but not the Rift Lakes) and most of Asia. That's a huge choice of fish to suit your water. It means avoiding most rainbowfish and livebearers like guppies, platies and mollies though as they're hard water fish.

 

[777james777]

3 weeks later and my water cycle is almost at the end. -

How long after adding plants can I add the fish? Or is it straight away?

 

[Byron]

3 weeks later and my water cycle is almost at the end. -

How long after adding plants can I add the fish? Or is it straight away?

Can you post a photo of the entire tank so we can see the extent of the plants?

 

[777james777]

Can you post a photo of the entire tank so we can see the extent of the plants?

I haven’t added any plants yet, I’m still in the water cycle, or did you want to see a picture of it empty ?

 

[Byron]

I haven’t added any plants yet, I’m still in the water cycle, or did you want to see a picture of it empty ?

From your question, I assumed you had plants and were asking how long before fish. Fishless cycle then, so what are ammonia, nitrite and nitrate testing?