New fish tank

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Discussion

Mark A B

Original Poster:

166 posts

148 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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So I decided I would get our twins a pet fish or two for their birthday next week.

Nothing too fancy I thought but something that'll look quite nice in the house.

So I picked up a smallish tank today. I've put the gravel in it and a few "plants" and filled with water. I've also bought one of those bubble machine things to put more air into the water so it's bubbling away and I'm waiting on the water settling.

Am I correct in thinking I'll be ok to put fish in by Tuesday?

Also any suggestions on what fish I could go for? Goldfish seem a little boring looking so any other ones I should look out for? I'm based in Glasgow if that makes any difference on what I can get my hands on?

kiethton

13,883 posts

179 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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I'll get flamed for this but it'll likely be ok if just 2 fish...

If cold water how about those bobbly eyed ones? Pretty hardy and look weird! - come in diff colours too!

davejnr

6 posts

116 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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Hey,

Tuesday should be ok - Just ensure the water is clear and only one lil fella will do.

There are some pretty cool goldfish that I'm sure you will like :-)

D

davejnr

6 posts

116 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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Hey,

Tuesday should be ok - Just ensure the water is clear and only one lil fella will do.

There are some pretty cool goldfish that I'm sure you will like :-)

D

ViperDave

5,520 posts

252 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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Do you actually have a filter plate under the gravel and is the air stone in the tube. If not do you have any other type of filtration? Its not clear from you post if that detail was omitted from the post or from the tank and if its the latter then its fairly important.

The bubbles don't put air in the water as such, The gas exchange takes place at the water surface and the bubbles are there to create movement so the water is moved to the surface/mixed. When the air stone is in the under gravel filter tube it creates a current up the tube which draws water down through the gravel base where filter bacteria develop and grow. Of course there are plenty of newer alternative ways of filtering since the air stone under-gravel filter, but that's a whole other discussion.

I'd also suggest you start small with any fish, You can get away better with substandard/immature filtration the lighter you stock, so a couple of juvenile fish will probably be fine even if they look lost, but two full grown adults who are used to A+ water and represent 90% of the tanks stocking potential will likely end with a shoebox burial or flushing funeral.

Of course its now days not seen as the right thing to do to put fish in before performing a fish-less cycle and testing the water to prove its purer than two freshly bonded H atoms with an O atom, but I'm not going to flame kiethton, I run a marine tank, do water changes when i can be bothered and hardly ever test anything and my clownish will be able to vote in the GE next year if only he could get the the pooling station and hold the pen.


Turn7

23,502 posts

220 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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Please read, and try to understand, this :

http://www.firsttankguide.net/newtanksyndrome.php

ViperDave

5,520 posts

252 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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Turn7 said:
Please read, and try to understand, this :

http://www.firsttankguide.net/newtanksyndrome.php
Something that doesn't mention with water changes is De-chlorination and temperature matching (although it may be linked to) It is important when you do water changes to either aerate the new water for 24 hours or use a de chlorination/conditioner additive. It is also important that the new water when it goes in the tank matches as close as possible the temperature of the water in the tank so as not to shock the fish. We are talking about within a couple of degrees here not, "well that's the temperature of my tap water"!

On that note, you also need to float the bag the fish come in for 20 minutes before releasing the fish, this is so they can acclimatise to the tank temperature slowly, In marines we also start replacing some of the water over a longer period to acclimatise the chemistry as well, but that's not such a big deal with freshies.




Galsia

2,167 posts

189 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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You are aware that Goldfish can get huge and live for over 20 years, right?

extraT

1,740 posts

149 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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Please, please, please do not get gold fish, unless you tank is big enough. One goldfish needs around 9L of water. They produce a large amount of poo, so you need a really good filter.

A few days for getting a tank set up in not enough- read up on cycling. Basically, the ordinary tap water contains chlorine, which kills off bactria- however, in a tank, the bactria is essential to filter out all the poop and other bad stuff the fish produce. By not cycling a tank properly, you are going to put the fish in a bad environment- this will affect their quality of life, colour etc...

That said there are fish that are quite hardy if you REALLY want to set it up, if you go tropical, Zebra Danios and Neon Tertas are the way forward.

Mark A B

Original Poster:

166 posts

148 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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Thanks for the replays so far guys. Have seen those neon tetras and thought they would look pretty cool and keep the kids happy with something to watch now n again.

So what methods have people used for cycling? One I read mentioned having a few fish in there to start off with and help? Is this correct?

I bubble thing I has a pump that pumps air into a little cone shaped thing that has a few stones in the bottom of it and a mesh like cone in the top?

paintman

7,669 posts

189 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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Neon tetras are tropical fish so you will need a heater to maintain the temperature of the water. They can also be a PITA & die for their own amusement.
I do keep cardinal tetras, but that's in a 2' cube tank which - in old money - holds 50 gallons of water. Heated, planted, external filter, weekly 25% water change etc etc.
Don't consider fish to be an easy option as far as pets are concerned. They aren't.
As already said, small tanks are entirely unsuitable for goldfish which is why they die well before their lifespan in more suitable environs

extraT

1,740 posts

149 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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Big tip: After a day or two of your fish being in the water, you will see a white cloud develop. This is bacterial bloom and is exactly what you want! Please do not try and remove it. Just leave it in there, your fish will be happier.

The poster above said do not consider fish to be an easy pet, that is exactly right. You will learn a little (or a lot, depending on how much you throw yourself into this) about: Biology, ecology, chemistry, aqua-chemistry, oxygenation, aqua-landscaping, and lots of fun things smile

Dr Mike Oxgreen

4,101 posts

164 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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I'm going to be brutally honest.

OP, you are not ready to keep fish of any sort, yet. Your level of knowledge is clearly zero; you think it's about filling a tank and chucking any type of fish in. If you do that, the chances are that your fish will have an unhealthy, short, miserable life. You don't even seem to know about the difference between cold water and tropical fish, so there is even a risk that you might buy marine fish and put them into freshwater!

Keeping fish is, if anything, more complex than keeping any other animal. Most pets can live in basically the same environment that we do, but this is not the case with fish. You need to understand at least a little of the biochemistry going on in their water, otherwise you cannot provide for their basic needs.

I urge you to buy a book about fishkeeping, or read lots of web sites, before you buy any fish to go into your tank. You need to learn about important things like the nitrogen cycle and how bacterial action works; filtration; heating (for tropical fish); aeration; feeding; water changes and other basic care and maintenance.

budgie smuggler

5,359 posts

158 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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If you aren't going to do a proper fish less cycle, at least use tetra safe start (this exact product, not an equivalent from another brand - TSS is the only one which contains the correct bacteria) to get the cycle going properly. Leave the fish in while it cycles is fking cruel IMHO. Open an ammonia bottle and get the merest hint of a sniff, that is what they are swimming about in until it cycles.

Eta:didn't mean to sound such a preachy dick cheese, I used to do fish in myself before I realised what was happening. Lost various fish and others were never well for the rest of their lives (gill damage etc)

Edited by budgie smuggler on Sunday 27th July 08:49


Edited by budgie smuggler on Sunday 27th July 08:53

Dr Mike Oxgreen

4,101 posts

164 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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The first time I tried "fishless cycling" many years ago, I read lots of web sites about various chemicals to create the initial ammonia load. People seemed to be over-complicating it, and it was perfectly obvious to me that there is a freely available water-based, natural "organic" substance available to everyone with plenty of ammonium salts in it - think about it - so that's what I used, about an egg-cup full per day in a 10 gallon tank. Balancing on a stepladder was tricky though. (Joking)

As expected, the ammonia level went sky-high and stayed like that for about 5 days. Then one day it suddenly tested zero. I thought I'd done the test wrongly, but a repeat gave the same answer. The nitrite test gave a high-ish reading, and then the next day everything was reading zero, except the nitrate had gone up slightly. Water change, then stocked with fish. Everything was healthy right from the beginning.

I'm not taking the piss. (Or perhaps I am.) But this is how I've done it for every tank I've set up since then. It works!

So: buy yourself a test kit that can do ammonia, nitrite and optionally nitrate (the latter is less important). Add a tiny bit of er... water... and start doing ammonia/nitrite tests each day. Quite suddenly you'll see the nitrogen cycle in action, and when your ammonia and nitrite are both zero you're ready to put fish in straight away. I guess it'll take a bit longer in cold water.

Dr Mike Oxgreen

4,101 posts

164 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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A further thought regarding what fish to keep...

You mentioned neon tetras. These are tropical, so would require a heater/thermostat to keep the water somewhere in the high twenties centigrade. But they are easy to keep and pretty robust, having been tank-bred now for generations. Don't be tempted by the classier-looking cardinal tetras, which are slightly sleeker and have the red stripe extending along the whole length of their "fuselage" - personally I prefer cardinals and would always choose them myself, but they're not as robust and are better suited to a more experienced fish keeper. Cardinals really require soft water for best health.

Also, it's worth noting that the bright blue neon stripe relies on reflecting the light - so you really need some proper lights in the hood of your aquarium otherwise the neons will look as dull as ditchwater.

But if you decide to go down the route of keeping tropicals, neons are a good beginner's choice.

By the way, what size tank have you got? That will shape any advice we can give. To be honest, a very small tank is harder to keep than a moderate size, because it only takes a small change to upset the balance in a small body of water. For a beginner, I'd recommend somewhere in the region of 40 to 150 litres for a tropical tank - less than 40 becomes vulnerable to change, and large tanks become logistically more challenging (e.g. size of water changes etc).

Mark A B

Original Poster:

166 posts

148 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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Thanks for the detailed replies.

The tank is about 30L. I wasn't under any impressions that keeping fish was easy. I've had a few tanks in the past but all have been gold fish. Also had a pond in the garden which was about 7ft by 5ft but again was goldfish.

Also my family used to breed tropical fish and had roughly 20 tanks on the go in a heated shed but we're quite a distant family these days, so I thought I'd ask on here as the experience is much broader and you hear about more experiences.

I never had any intentions of popping Into pets at home and picking ten fish and chucking them all in the tank along with a fist full of flakes and a few maggots for the "gains" and standing back.

I've even had the offer of a much larger tank that I'll probably take once I get more experience as what I've read so far seems pretty interesting and let's face it is a lot more fun than crawling around under a car in Scottish winters!

So I'm not against getting a heater for the tank but can we use two scenarios?

One cold water and one tropical?

What cold water fish would you guys recommend and why?

Same question again with tropical?

I'd be happy with just a couple just to get us (me) started for now.

lufbramatt

5,318 posts

133 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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I'd go for the bigger tank straight off to be honest, more water volume means the tank will be much more forgiving to mistakes. 80 to 150 litres is ideal. More than that becomes a bit of a chore with water changes due to the amount of water you have to swap.

28Valves

1,926 posts

208 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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[quote=extraT]Please, please, please do not get gold fish, unless you tank is big enough. One goldfish needs around 9L of water. They produce a large amount of poo, so you need a really good filter. quote]

9 Litres per fish? Really?

Goldfish should be kept in a pond. If you absolutely must keep them in a tank then you will need a minimum of 180 litres for the first fish then 50 litres for every extra fish after that.