Child’s first fish(es)
Discussion
Sway said:
Exactly that.
Fish eat food, 'produce' ammonia. Super toxic to fish.
Certain bacteria eat ammonia, produce nitrite. Really toxic to fish.
Other bacteria eat nitrite, produce nitrate. Moderately toxic to fish.
Plants eat nitrate.
Yep, was aware it was all linked. Just wanted to be sure the increased growth was a result of increased stock which I assumed it was.Fish eat food, 'produce' ammonia. Super toxic to fish.
Certain bacteria eat ammonia, produce nitrite. Really toxic to fish.
Other bacteria eat nitrite, produce nitrate. Moderately toxic to fish.
Plants eat nitrate.
Looks like around fifteen fry have survived past the point of being eaten so I guess we’ve got some thinning out to do.
Crossflow Kid said:
Sway said:
Exactly that.
Fish eat food, 'produce' ammonia. Super toxic to fish.
Certain bacteria eat ammonia, produce nitrite. Really toxic to fish.
Other bacteria eat nitrite, produce nitrate. Moderately toxic to fish.
Plants eat nitrate.
Yep, was aware it was all linked. Just wanted to be sure the increased growth was a result of increased stock which I assumed it was.Fish eat food, 'produce' ammonia. Super toxic to fish.
Certain bacteria eat ammonia, produce nitrite. Really toxic to fish.
Other bacteria eat nitrite, produce nitrate. Moderately toxic to fish.
Plants eat nitrate.
Looks like around fifteen fry have survived past the point of being eaten so I guess we’ve got some thinning out to do.
Might be worth having chat with local fish store - a little store credit is always better than death by Armitage Shanks (which I'd never recommend, if culling is the only solution, neat clove oil is the humane method).
Maybe the plant life has just improved anyway and taken a little while to catch up?
Agreed on not going down the Big White Porcelain Aquarium route.
Next question.....how big do the offspring need to be before I can realistically offer them for re-homing?
They’re all around the 1cm mark at the moment, with some a little fatter than others.
Agreed on not going down the Big White Porcelain Aquarium route.
Next question.....how big do the offspring need to be before I can realistically offer them for re-homing?
They’re all around the 1cm mark at the moment, with some a little fatter than others.
It's a closed system - so unless floating plants, they can only have grown based upon the conditions available.
If there had been the available nutrients before, but the 'proper' plants weren't sufficiently established to take advantage of it, you'd have seen fairly rampant algae growth.
So it's more likely the plants have grown to the environmental constraint - in most aquarium environments, that's nitrate.
Different fish stores will take them at different sizes. My excellent local store have an entire behind the scenes section for growing on/breeding their own and customer's excess stocks. That's quite rare, and so they will more likely only want to take ones large enough to be viable stock immediately (or rather, hopefully, post quarantine!).
If there had been the available nutrients before, but the 'proper' plants weren't sufficiently established to take advantage of it, you'd have seen fairly rampant algae growth.
So it's more likely the plants have grown to the environmental constraint - in most aquarium environments, that's nitrate.
Different fish stores will take them at different sizes. My excellent local store have an entire behind the scenes section for growing on/breeding their own and customer's excess stocks. That's quite rare, and so they will more likely only want to take ones large enough to be viable stock immediately (or rather, hopefully, post quarantine!).
Crossflow Kid said:
Maybe the plant life has just improved anyway and taken a little while to catch up?
Agreed on not going down the Big White Porcelain Aquarium route.
Next question.....how big do the offspring need to be before I can realistically offer them for re-homing?
They’re all around the 1cm mark at the moment, with some a little fatter than others.
Our independent LFS suggested they’d take them at around 1cm - the chains (Maidenhead etc) didn’t want to take them at all.Agreed on not going down the Big White Porcelain Aquarium route.
Next question.....how big do the offspring need to be before I can realistically offer them for re-homing?
They’re all around the 1cm mark at the moment, with some a little fatter than others.
So here we are, coming up for six months in and all is now well. Too well.
In addition to the three adult fish that started this whole thing, we now have one juvenile (around 2cm long now) plus an astonishing 13 baby fish (all around 1-2cm) and they are all thriving.
Can’t find homes for the latest recruits so one day next week we’ll be having a cull, which truth be told makes me a bit sad, after all the issues we had getting the tank up and running.
No one wants them. LFS isn’t interested (as expected) due to possible infection.
Swim! Swim! Swim little fishes, while you still can!
In addition to the three adult fish that started this whole thing, we now have one juvenile (around 2cm long now) plus an astonishing 13 baby fish (all around 1-2cm) and they are all thriving.
Can’t find homes for the latest recruits so one day next week we’ll be having a cull, which truth be told makes me a bit sad, after all the issues we had getting the tank up and running.
No one wants them. LFS isn’t interested (as expected) due to possible infection.
Swim! Swim! Swim little fishes, while you still can!
essayer said:
Crossflow Kid said:
Maybe the plant life has just improved anyway and taken a little while to catch up?
Agreed on not going down the Big White Porcelain Aquarium route.
Next question.....how big do the offspring need to be before I can realistically offer them for re-homing?
They’re all around the 1cm mark at the moment, with some a little fatter than others.
Our independent LFS suggested they’d take them at around 1cm - the chains (Maidenhead etc) didn’t want to take them at all.Agreed on not going down the Big White Porcelain Aquarium route.
Next question.....how big do the offspring need to be before I can realistically offer them for re-homing?
They’re all around the 1cm mark at the moment, with some a little fatter than others.
Did the place you got them from not inform you they would likely breed? Surely they should have and if not they should take the babies back? (The fact they didn't mention about a heater makes me think probably not...)
Perhaps you could swap all of them including the adults for some that wont breed, as this will be an ongoing issue obviously, which will only get worse as the babies grow and reproduce themselves.
Perhaps you could swap all of them including the adults for some that wont breed, as this will be an ongoing issue obviously, which will only get worse as the babies grow and reproduce themselves.
Ah PH, why didn't I come to you for the advise I needed late last year when buying a tank for my daughter... well to be fair I tried but the search functionality let me down, just glad to have stumbled across this topic yesterday and now had chance to read through it all.
I've always enjoyed looking at fish but my last foray into ownership was in the 80s when I won one at the local fair. Fred lived for around 8 years in a small basic bowl.
So when I started looking at getting some goldfish at my 8 year-old daughters request as her birthday present I thought it would be relatively straightforward, then I found out "you can't keep goldfish in that tank, they grow to the size of cats". First lesson done.
So we ended up with a 60L "Home 60" from what I thought was a local independent specialist, it turns out it's a Maidenhead Aquatics with no branding that's part of a garden centre. We have this:
https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/home-60-aquarium
We were informed that it was a good cold water tank and that some Gold White Cloud Mountain Minnows and Variatus Platy Fish would be happy in a "temperate" environment at the tank wasn't going to be too close to a heat source or impacted by sunlight too much.
Having read all the posts here I now suspect that was poor advise.
So before buying any fish the tank was setup, gravel, some ornaments, a couple of live plants, water treatments and left on for just over 3 weeks, the shop recommended 5 days would be enough but because Christmas came along and then things got busy afterwards there was a delay. I'm glad that happened now I've read more.
In the meantime a small black grain of sand wandered out of one of the live plants, we'd acquired a free snail, I'd read they weren't too tolerant of poor water conditions so expected the worst.
Water tested, all seemed to be in order, two Gold White Cloud Mountain Minnows and Variatus Platies (supposedly two females) were added. The snail continued to grow and seemed happy.
A month on the fish seem content and the snail is massive but the water did have a brief period of going cloudy, then within 24 hours it was completely clear. I've been doing weekly cleans (I got a vacuum) and water changes but get a bit of a brown film on the white filter housing now and again. I also had a bit of a hair algae phase but that seems to have passed now (I removed as much as I could manually).
I'm not convinced I'm getting it right, especially now I think I should have a heater, but things are still alive and I'm convinced I've seen baby snails.
So, I should have waited longer, I need a heater, I probably need a more extensive testing kit (thanks for the earlier links) and I also need to seek out a proper local specialist instead of using Pets at Home and Maidenhead Aquatics.
I'm enjoying it though, I always knew this would end up being my hobby rather than my daughters
thetapeworm said:
So before buying any fish the tank was setup, gravel, some ornaments, a couple of live plants, water treatments and left on for just over 3 weeks, the shop recommended 5 days would be enough but because Christmas came along and then things got busy afterwards there was a delay. I'm glad that happened now I've read more.
In the meantime a small black grain of sand wandered out of one of the live plants, we'd acquired a free snail, I'd read they weren't too tolerant of poor water conditions so expected the worst.
Water tested, all seemed to be in order, two Gold White Cloud Mountain Minnows and Variatus Platies (supposedly two females) were added. The snail continued to grow and seemed happy.
A month on the fish seem content and the snail is massive but the water did have a brief period of going cloudy, then within 24 hours it was completely clear. I've been doing weekly cleans (I got a vacuum) and water changes but get a bit of a brown film on the white filter housing now and again. I also had a bit of a hair algae phase but that seems to have passed now (I removed as much as I could manually).
As usual from a fish shop that's sIn the meantime a small black grain of sand wandered out of one of the live plants, we'd acquired a free snail, I'd read they weren't too tolerant of poor water conditions so expected the worst.
Water tested, all seemed to be in order, two Gold White Cloud Mountain Minnows and Variatus Platies (supposedly two females) were added. The snail continued to grow and seemed happy.
A month on the fish seem content and the snail is massive but the water did have a brief period of going cloudy, then within 24 hours it was completely clear. I've been doing weekly cleans (I got a vacuum) and water changes but get a bit of a brown film on the white filter housing now and again. I also had a bit of a hair algae phase but that seems to have passed now (I removed as much as I could manually).
tty advice!What's the fecking point of leaving the tank sitting completely empty? If you don't at least add fish food or a prawn or something there will be no ammonia to start the cycle off.
They should just have done with it and send you away with a bit of media that's already cycled. It would require virtually no effort on their part, just a tank with a load of media and a power head in it that they occasionally drop some fish food into.
White cloud mountain minnows are definitely suitable for unheated tanks, and what I think the shops should be selling people if they're telling them they don't need a heater. The platies are a bit more borderline, may be OK in a warm, stable room, but we can see the difference that adding a heater made to the OP's fish.
Lazermilk said:
Did the place you got them from not inform you they would likely breed? Surely they should have and if not they should take the babies back? (The fact they didn't mention about a heater makes me think probably not...)
Perhaps you could swap all of them including the adults for some that wont breed, as this will be an ongoing issue obviously, which will only get worse as the babies grow and reproduce themselves.
Nope. They never mentioned breeding Perhaps you could swap all of them including the adults for some that wont breed, as this will be an ongoing issue obviously, which will only get worse as the babies grow and reproduce themselves.
at least not as prolifically as this, and have stated they don't take in stock of any species under any circumstances.Grrrrrreat
People on here talking about Nitrate...
A really good plant is a Pothos or Devils Ivy (can be toxic to dogs) - you can get it at home base, take a few sprigs and dangle the root or just the end of the vine in the water and allow the plant to sit outside the tank...it eats Nitrate like you would not believe and does not use CO2 from the water.
I use it on my stingray tank
A really good plant is a Pothos or Devils Ivy (can be toxic to dogs) - you can get it at home base, take a few sprigs and dangle the root or just the end of the vine in the water and allow the plant to sit outside the tank...it eats Nitrate like you would not believe and does not use CO2 from the water.
I use it on my stingray tank
otolith said:
White cloud mountain minnows are definitely suitable for unheated tanks, and what I think the shops should be selling people if they're telling them they don't need a heater. The platies are a bit more borderline, may be OK in a warm, stable room, but we can see the difference that adding a heater made to the OP's fish.
White Clouds need unheated - around 19-21C.However, that doesn't make them easy!
Naturally, they live in fast flowing, very clean and highly oxygenated water.
A "normal" aquarium is not the place for them!
They are however, utterly stunning, and look incredible in a 'biotope' type tank setup specifically for them.
Caddyshack said:
People on here talking about Nitrate...
A really good plant is a Pothos or Devils Ivy (can be toxic to dogs) - you can get it at home base, take a few sprigs and dangle the root or just the end of the vine in the water and allow the plant to sit outside the tank...it eats Nitrate like you would not believe and does not use CO2 from the water.
I use it on my stingray tank
Oh yes! Pothos is a great nitrate sink. A really good plant is a Pothos or Devils Ivy (can be toxic to dogs) - you can get it at home base, take a few sprigs and dangle the root or just the end of the vine in the water and allow the plant to sit outside the tank...it eats Nitrate like you would not believe and does not use CO2 from the water.
I use it on my stingray tank
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