Starting an Aquarium

What are you gonna put in it?


Also I'd love to see pics of all you guys' tanks, I myself have been keeping fish for about a year now, I have a hundred gallon aquarium with an Oscar, Green Terror and a Flowerhorn along with four African Cichlids and a fifty-five gallon with a Frontosa three Africans and an Electric blue Malaiwa and a birchir.

I don't know if this will work but here is a pic of my Front he's my pride and joy

 

Well it works on other boards, is this because I'm not a contributing member?

 

Here's a link, don'tknow if that will work either.

link

 

Forget it, glad you are up and running Pun

 

not bad Pun...only took ya a month or so.

just remember...add them slowly. and do not allow the water from the petstore to be added to your aquarium.

After adding small portions of your water to the bag as it floats in your tank....when you have them acclimated to the temp and the ph of your water...take the bag to your sink and pour the fish into a net...and them add the fish to your tank.

this way you dont risk allowing someone elses potentially bad water to your tank. Im not saying that the water will be bad..I just dont like to take chances.

have you decided what you are going to get?

SSG,

you got Frontosas? Nice! I dont see them around that often..and last time I did..I didnt have any free space to put them in.

I only have a couple of tanks running right now...one is devoted to a 10" Oscar and a striped Rapheal cat.....and the other is a Angel tank..

but my local petstore is starting to stock mucho saltwater fish and coral....and so Im slowly getting my salt stuff back together..
Gonna load that puppy up with live rock...and some anenomes, cleaner shrimp....and then decide what fish to go with.
I was just in there yesterday dfor some feeders for my Oscar, and they have this owesome clown trigger...I want it!...the only problem si that you really cant keep anything else withthem since the are so agressive and they have that powerful beak that will chow down on just about anything else that you put with it.

 

yes...the glo fish things are not what they are cracked up to be...

but hey...give em a chance...maybe they will grow into something decent.

when you get the swords...make sure to only et one male(with the long tail) and multiple females...then you might get some little uns..

good luck

 

danios are egg layers...IIRC, they scatter the eggs in bunches of plants...

they are very prolific breeders..as easy or easier to breed than livebearers.

here is a link for more information on them.

http://groups.msn.com/Breedingtropicalfish/zebradanios.msnw

 

Fish behave differently, but it may not take too long for a fish to die due to ammonia poisoning. Ammonia poisoning usually is fairly quick to notice. But different fish behave differently when ammonia "poisoned"... they all end up the same way, though. Don't forget you need to watch out for nitrite poisoning, too. In danios you can sometimes tell if they're suffering from nitrite poisoning by looking at their gills - they'll kind of stick out and curl up. This may happen with other fish, too.

 

with my tanks being setup as long as they have been...and the bacteria colonies as established as they are....and with careful feeding(to ensure all food is eaten and not ending up on the gravel)....I only change 15% a month...and I vacuum everytime..

one good tip so that you dont have to vacuum the entire bed everytime is to slope your gravel so that the low end is at the front of your tank...then most of the excess stuff sits at the front and you cna just suck it right up.

absolutley do not change both the filter and the water at the same time....you have bacteria in the water and in the filter...if you get rid of that amount of bacteria(especially with a new tank) you could cause a ammonia spike..

DoD handled the other questions you had...one thing to be noted about the baby fish thing....most of the time newborns will stay at the bottom..so it doesnt hurt for them to be born in a community tank...as long as you dont expect to keep every one of them...if you want to maximize their survival chances...move them to a small tank with minimal water movement immediatley after after birth....even btter would be to learn how to tell if the female is expecting and put her ion her own tank with the bottom coated with large pebbles for the young to hide among...or even special plant mats that allw them to hide since most fish will eat their young if given the chance.(there are a few exceptions to that tho)

no to snails

if you want to give the pleco a little somethin somethin....go with deadwood and bottom feeder food( green discs) that are made up of plant materials that they love to eat.....

ammonia/nitite poisoning:

they will be listless...discoulored...breathing heavily(gills flapping more than usual)...and may even have trouble swimming straight...you should continue testing your water a couple of times a week with your ammonia and nitrite kits for at least the next month or so just to ensure that the tank is getting settled in...after that..you can get away with testing once or twice a month just to keep an eye on things.

 

re: food floating to the bottom.

not a good idea..you should only feed them as much as they can eat in 5 minutes.....and do it at a rate where no food gets a chance to float to the bottom..sometimes a little will even if you are ultra careful...that isnt that big of a deal....but if you just dump alot of food in there and figure that your bottom feeder will cleanup after you....then you end up with a lot of food decaying on the bottom....which then converts to ammonia as it decays.
Keep an eye on the tank for a little while after feeding to make sure they eatup everything(or as much as possible)....

the reason why I recommend the bottom feeder tablets is that if you drop one or two in the same place everytime,and you do it while feeeding the rest of the fish..the bottom feeder will in time know that is where the food will be.

Example: when I come along and feed my oscar between the times I get him feeders, my striped rapheal cat senses the activity of the oscar...and comes out to the corner where he knows I will soon be putting in his food...I have to feed him while the oscar is distracted otherwise the oscar will eat everything I put down


re: overeating

maybe some fish will...but I have never given them the chance to prove it. afterall..you control how much food they get...stick to the as much as they can eat in 5 minutes guideline..and it shouldnt be a problem

re: ammonia

should you be surprised? not at this point.
as long as there is life in it producing wastes....there will be ammonia.
the trick is to make sure nothin bad happens to the bacteria that convert it to other things(nitrite>nitrate)
Your tank is still relatively new...and until the bacteria gets seriously builtup in evry cranny of the tank.....the risk is always there.

the quickest way to dilute an excessive ammonia reading is to do a minor water change.....there are products on the market that claim to get rid of ammonia...but I havent used them so I cant say how effective they are...maybe someone else can chime in on that.

btw....just do a google on "pregnant danios" and see what comes up...I dont have enough experience with that breed to be able to tell you for sure what the defining characteristics of a pregnant danios are. (extuded belly is suree to be one of them....also possibly a large dakened area at the back of the bellly)

 

Good advice. Think about how the fish you have eat in nature. They get a little at a time as opportunity arises. If you happen to be around, then feed them a little a few times a day, but check to make sure it's getting eaten. When in doubt, underfeed, imo. (If you have larger fish who eat smaller fish, this may not apply... what they don't eat will be swimming around until they get around to it, so it's not really a problem)

 

two words

Clown Loaches

i don't vaccuum

they do the job for me they are machines

 

had a serious ammonia problem a few years back.... think a dead very large bristle nose was the cause... i didn't know it was dead and only found it later, from what i have read when they die all the crap they have eaten/cleaned comes abck out..

i was doing 15% water changes twice a day for about a week

there is certainly some great products to help with Ammonia, couple years ago there was close to nothing, i use Ammitrite Down, it contains active bacteria..... works really well, but there are plenty other options, including types of Stone/gravel that you put in front of your filter....