Hello! Newbie to tropical, longtime Goldfish keeper

[Little-Fish]

Hello!

I'm so glad to  have found this forum. It seems like a great place.
I'm 27 and from the East Midlands, and have always enjoyed keeping fish.

I've kept goldfish over the years and currently have a tank with 4 goldfish.

My mission now is to venture in to the world of keeping Tropical fish and the plan is to get a nice wooden AquaOak tank, specifically the cube version.

I am aware I cant keep certain fish that require lots of length to swim as this is a deeper rather than long tank.
I'm hoping to have small shoals of neon tetras, etc, make it a nice community tank.

My question to you all is:

1. Anyone got any experience with what lighting I should go for?
LED looks good but not sure where to start.
The lighting needs to be for show only really as I'm not having much plantation and the lights will not be on that often.

2. Heaters. I read that it is about 1watt per litre so should a 150 watt be able to work with a 155 Litre tank or should I go for 200 watts?

3. I'm leaning towards sand instead of gravel and keeping it quite a thin layer. That sound ok?

Thanks for any help and tips you can give me.

Sophie.

[TropicalFishForums]

[Gingerlove05]

Welcome Sophie
This forum is pretty handy, lots of helpful members that only give sound advice
With regards to your questions i can answer 2:
With your heater always go over capacity (or i do) for example my 100l tank has a heater capable of 300l.
Sand is generally a better option as it is easier to clean as all the "dirt" doesnt go between the particles as easily, but id say dark sand instead of light as it shows colours of fish and plants better.
Are you doing a fishless cycle on this tank to set it up? And what is your water hardness and ph (can be found on your water supplier website) but if your from the east mids (anglian water?) i guess it would be hard water same as mine but itll help when it comes to stocking :D

Iain


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[plankton]

Hello Sophie
I'm from the East Midlands as well, but, if you check the Severn Trent site, don't believe everything it says when you put your postcode in to find out the ph and hardness. My water is supposed to be hard and alkaline, but is pretty neutral with a dGH of 8 and ph of 7.0.
You just need an LED that fits the lid with the tank if it's not that important. You could just have some "easy" plants like amazon sword, crytocoryne wendtii, anubia, Java fern, Java moss.
With sand you have more choice of lower fish as it won't hurt either barbels or sucker mouths.

[Stephen]

Hi Sophie and welcome 

[Little-Fish]

Thankyou for the welcome. and for the helpful advice.
I really appreciate it and look forward to learning more as I go along.

I will go for a bigger heater then I think.
Having never had a heated tank before would one heater be sufficient to heat water equally throughout the tank?
 I will get another for emergencies too.

I like the sound of black sand and am definately going for that. Thanks Gingerlove05.
I plan on doing a fishless cycle and then introducing the fish gradually.

Plankton, I am indeed on Severn Trent for water and the site says it is slightly hard. PH is 7.3

Heres a link to the tank I'm getting:
https://fishkeeper.co.uk/product/aqua-oak-large-cube-aquarium-and-cabinet-aq65c

I'l have a look into LED lights and report back.

Thanks again for the help,

Sophie.

[Gingerlove05]

Looks like a nice tank
One heater would be enough as long as its capable of heating the required amount of water, so for that tank you'd need one heater capable of heating 155l (think thats right). Funnily enough I got my eheim that i use in the 100l for less than the smaller one (£20 odd), and thats capable of heating a 300l tank.
Heres a link for setting up (if you haven't already seen it):
https://www.tropicalfishforums.co.uk/index.php?page=setting%20up%20your%20new%20aquarium

And one for the fishless cycle:
https://www.tropicalfishforums.co.uk/index.php?page=fishless_cycle



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[plankton]

A bit of info for you about tanks like that. Remember that just because they're tall you can't fit big fish in, as there still isn't a lot of swimming room.
Nice-looking tank though
Oh, and I would definitely test the actual tapwater to see what you're really working with

[Little-Fish]

Hi,

Its been a few months since my original questions and with a few things going on, I had to put my tank plans on hold.

It is now time to get this project rolling again and I'm about to buy everything.

The advice here has been great so if you dont mind I have a few more questions...

1. Tank cycling. I plan on using Tetra Safe Start.
Am I right the product alone won't work and that I need fish in before?
Some people say to use SafeStart and then add fish 24 hours later yet others say to add fish, and 24 hours later add SafeStart.

2. What fish would you reccommend as tank starters that will be hardy enough during the tank inititalisation process.

3. My plan is to stock the tank with:
6 Diamond Neon Tetras.
12 Cardinal Tetras.
2-4 Pearl Gouramis.

4. What is the best "hoover" fish that will eat up algae and that gets along (won't have a go) at my other fish?


Many thanks for your help.
This is a great forum!

[xxSJTxx]

Hi there, good to hear plans are moving along

Although it requires patience the best way by far to cycle your tank will be to do a fishless cycle. This involves buying some ammonia (most people uses Jayes Kleen Off Ammonia easily avaliable online) and adding that to the tank.

Rather than trying to explain it if you go onto the home page on here and read the fishless cycling post it explains it all (I will post a link shortly). There is also an ammonia calculator on the left hand side which will tell you how much of the ammonia you need to add. (All will be clear once you read the cycling post).

The problem with using safe start etc and adding fish is it is still pretty cruel to the fish; hardy or not, and in the long run they often suffer. Fishless cycling enables the tank to be ready once fish are added and although it requires patience and a few weeks time it is much better in the long run especially for your fish.

Once the tank is cycled there are numerous people who will help you with stocking suggestions etc.

Links for you - (there is further information in other posts too within that topic)

https://www.tropicalfishforums.co.uk/index.php/page,setting%20up%20your%20new%20aquarium.html


https://www.tropicalfishforums.co.uk/index.php/page,fishless_cycle.html

Also just noticed your tank - it's a good quality and good looking tank however if you have the room you will be better off getting a rectangular tank - this will result in more swim room, more opportunities for what fish you can have. The tank you looking at isn't cheap and so there will be numerous you could get instead for example a Fluval Roma or Jewel Rio both of which also have cabinets - nothing worse than getting a tank and later wishing you had gone for a different shape to allow more options. (Just my 2 pence worth)

[plankton]

I agree about doing a fishless cycle with ammonia, but.....
If you do use Safestart, follow the instructions to the letter, otherwise it doesn't work properly.
I can't remember what they say now, and haven't seen a bottle for so long.......

[Little-Fish]

I'm aware I won't be able to keep certain types of fish due to the size of the tank but it has taken me a long time to settle on a tank and this is the one I have chosen.
Space in the room is limited too so that is also a factor as well as the wooden cabinet design.

It looks like fishless clycling is the way to go then.
I'm unsure about where to start with amonia and wondered if using the SafeStart and adding fish food daily for two weeks would work?

I currently have a coldwater tank and wondered if squeezing the spoonges from that is would also help.

I guess bumping up the temperature would also help in the cycling process?

Thanks again for your help everyone.

[the_storm]

Hello and welcome.
Surely the easiest way of cycling will be to add up to 30% of the mature media into your new filter? Pretty much instant cycle! This way you can start adding fish from the get go and gradually build up.

[plankton]

The coldwater munchers may help, but they will need to adjust to the temperature.
The Safestart won't help with fish food, you have to follow the instructions.

[kup128]

Hi Sophie and welcome.

You are in the right place, all the forum members here are very helpful and friendly.

I recently managed to get my tank up and running (with a lot of help from everyone here!).

Definitely go for a fishless cycle if you can. I did, but mine failed after the big water change and I could not get it going again - I think I took too much water out.
Don't let this put you off a fishless cycle!

I ended up using Tetra SafeStart with 3 small fish, the instructions are so minimal now that it just says to dose the tank with SafeStart depending on capacity - they are not very helpful. - I watched a few you tube videos and they all dumped the entire bottle in(!)... So I did the same, and closely monitored all the important values for the first few weeks, and the fish seem healthy and happy now. According to a few other forums, there was no harm in "over-dosing" the SafeStart.

For "hoover" fish, have you considered shrimp? - I added 5 Red Cherry Shrimp to mine on Saturday and they do a top notch job of keeping things clean, plus minimal bioload. Only thing is the Gouramis may try to eat them?

[the_storm]

The coldwater munchers may help, but they will need to adjust to the temperature.

With the current summer temperatures, the adjustment won't be huge. If the op removes 30% of their mature media and builds the temperature up gradually, it'll be fine. They are after all the same bacteria.