My First Tank

[Newbie fishkeeper]

Hi Jack how's it going?

[TropicalFishForums]

[Jack Dixon]

Everyone has settled in great, no Cory pictures as I can't get a focus on them with my phone but the BN has really found his feet. Thanks for the cracking fish.

[Newbie fishkeeper]

The BN are funny characters. I seen one attached to a detached annubias leaf earlier and it was blowing all round the tank in the flow. I bet it was the ride of a lifetime lol.

[Newbie fishkeeper]

Just to let you know. The BN will be grateful for fresh veg whenever you can give it. I find courgette and cucumber are faves but they will give most veg a good munching.

[Jack Dixon]

Hopefully he'll make use of the veg clip I bought because my BN in the 200 won't touch any veg I put in. I'll try him on some tomorrow night.

[Jack Dixon]

The Corys are more active now https://youtu.be/EmcjCwvCC7c

[Outliar]

Nice looking tank, and some lovely fish in there too.

I love the Amano shrimps too: they're hilarious to watch.  I find they love to re-arrange all my AquaSoil and put it places where it shouldn't be.  They swim around frantically, and bump into my WCM minnows in the mornings and evenings...

Out of interest, do you have a circulation pump creating flow at the bottom?  I'm just curious about other people's experience of playing with flow rates at the bottom of the tank.  I keep moving my circulation pump, and experimenting to see what the fish like and how much flow seems to suit the plants...

I've not played around too much with the flow, the U4 lets you set it top, bottom or spray bar but I've just kept it at the top for aeration purposes. The Amano shrimp are fascinating to watch but the most comical fish in there are the Botia Striata (Candy Loach), they're such characters and always busy. It's funny because I didn't really want them and knew nothing about them but I'd got a snail problem and one of our many LFS highly recommended them as snail eaters. Within 24-36 hours I'd not got a single snail and they'd really coloured up into 2 beautiful fish. The Snakeskin Barbs are lovely fish as well, I wanted some barbs but a lot had undesirable traits, it seems snakeskins are a fish rarity because they're one of the easier keepers in their family but are also one of the most attractive. A lot of fish I looked into involved a trade off, negative traits for pretty fish lol.

I think I'm at my stocking limit now in the 200L by the time the fish grow. Still working on the wife for another tank as I've enjoyed aquascaping almost as much as the fish keeping but she's not keen on discus which is what I'd like really. I've got ideas in my head for a high tech 400L with some discus, cardinals and some Otto's.

Ha ha yes this is an addictive hobby for sure... I'm also thinking of another tank for the living room...

Do any of your fish eat leeches?  I've got these horrid things in my gravel; the gravel siphon gets most of them out, but I guess they're breeding so it's an uphill struggle.  They don't do any harm, but just give me the creeps.  Hardly ever see them.  The Peacock Gobies will pick at them, but the big ones at least are too big for these juveniles to eat and they just swim off (brilliant swimmers the leeches, they swim like snakes - quite spectacular actually).

[Jack Dixon]

Nice looking tank, and some lovely fish in there too.

I love the Amano shrimps too: they're hilarious to watch.  I find they love to re-arrange all my AquaSoil and put it places where it shouldn't be.  They swim around frantically, and bump into my WCM minnows in the mornings and evenings...

Out of interest, do you have a circulation pump creating flow at the bottom?  I'm just curious about other people's experience of playing with flow rates at the bottom of the tank.  I keep moving my circulation pump, and experimenting to see what the fish like and how much flow seems to suit the plants...

I've not played around too much with the flow, the U4 lets you set it top, bottom or spray bar but I've just kept it at the top for aeration purposes. The Amano shrimp are fascinating to watch but the most comical fish in there are the Botia Striata (Candy Loach), they're such characters and always busy. It's funny because I didn't really want them and knew nothing about them but I'd got a snail problem and one of our many LFS highly recommended them as snail eaters. Within 24-36 hours I'd not got a single snail and they'd really coloured up into 2 beautiful fish. The Snakeskin Barbs are lovely fish as well, I wanted some barbs but a lot had undesirable traits, it seems snakeskins are a fish rarity because they're one of the easier keepers in their family but are also one of the most attractive. A lot of fish I looked into involved a trade off, negative traits for pretty fish lol.

I think I'm at my stocking limit now in the 200L by the time the fish grow. Still working on the wife for another tank as I've enjoyed aquascaping almost as much as the fish keeping but she's not keen on discus which is what I'd like really. I've got ideas in my head for a high tech 400L with some discus, cardinals and some Otto's.

Ha ha yes this is an addictive hobby for sure... I'm also thinking of another tank for the living room...

Do any of your fish eat leeches?  I've got these horrid things in my gravel; the gravel siphon gets most of them out, but I guess they're breeding so it's an uphill struggle.  They don't do any harm, but just give me the creeps.  Hardly ever see them.  The Peacock Gobies will pick at them, but the big ones at least are too big for these juveniles to eat and they just swim off (brilliant swimmers the leeches, they swim like snakes - quite spectacular actually).

I've not seen any of those in my tank yet, they sound creepy.

[Outliar]

I've not seen any of those in my tank yet, they sound creepy.

Yes something about their movement... they have a rear sucker and then elongate their bodies to move before letting go the sucker end and pulling forward.  They do this stretch and feel movement, and can stretch about 3x body length. 

They don't seem that common, as people mostly talk about flat worms and the like. I got them from live food I think, or possibly on plants... difficult to tell.

[Newbie fishkeeper]

How's it going Jack?

[Jack Dixon]

It's going great so far, the Cory's have all doubled in size. I'm quite shocked how fast they've grown tbh but they are all very active eaters. My 200L had its first fatality while we were away over the weekend which was quite upsetting, it was one of our 2 Electric Blue Rams (we had one in each tank as we had to split them up). Oddly enough he was the more dominant aggressive of the 2. I did a rather panicked water test and everything was fine, the only anomaly being Nitrates on the higher end of acceptable but that's not surprising as it was water change day and I've been experimenting with ferts lately.

I did a bit of reading up on Electric Blue Rams and it seems they can be a real pain in the arse to keep and have a tendency to drop dead for what appears to be no reason. It's a real shame as it was a beautiful fish. I'm now back to the drawing board for a centrepiece fish in the 200L. Sarah really wants a Betta but I worry that the Snakeskin Barbs might nip his fins so I'm considering another Dwarf Cichlid.

[Newbie fishkeeper]

I am glad that cory are doing well.

If she really wants a betta then get a little tank for it to have to it's self, I cannot stress enough how important that is. You don't want to be taking a gamble with little lifes.

I would recommend getting some apistos  (cockatoo cichlid).
They make a great centrepiece and behaviour is very different to others.

[Jack Dixon]

I've not been on here for a while but didn't realise it had been this long! I've condensed back down to one tank now and scaped for very minimal plants as it was becoming too hard to maintain the plants and achieve the look I wanted. Mainly hardscape now with rocks and bogwood with moss for a bit of interest. The tank and all of the fish seem to be doing great. I've been considering upgrading filtration to something external for the last few months as I think I could really use the extra media based on the condition of my sponges when I do water changes. Other than that though I still have all of the fish I had when last on here (plus a few others due to poor impulse control at Wharf). I keep hoping I'll stumble across something bigger for sale as I'd really like to go up to something 400L next time around, too many nice fish and not enough water.

[Ric]

Time flies, indeed.

Thanks for the update - even better with pics :D

And good luck sourcing an appropriate external filter. I always have a look on second-hand sites (gumtree, preloved, aquarist classified) and more often than not something turns up.