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New Tank

I wanted to start a new aquarium. But I want to only have a couple tanks devoted to fish. I want to limit down my pets. As I enjoy, dart frogs, geckos, and snakes. But these are taking up way too much room. But they are a must have for me. As I just love pets.

So I was wondering what do you guys thing I should have.
I want like a community tank, where its not just one species. I had oscars before, but its hard combining things with them

So I want a couple lively and brilliant fishes. I'm going to have a couple tanks, maybe 2, 55 1, 90 gallon, and a couple small 10 breeder. So any advice is wanted. I had several different type of fishes. But so far I have no preference. I want to learn more about the fish rather than just having them.
 
Killifish!! You can keep them in a 10 gallon.

If i start getting fry from mine, i'll collect some eggs and send you them.

Did you ever find a local aquarium society?
 
I'm still looking, I have 3 in mind, but I never heard anything about them from other forums and such, so I'm not really sure, I email them, but I still didn't get a reply. And some are a little far, so after I join, I might not be able to go to the meetings. So still looking for the right one. I really want to try killifish. Is there any reason local petstores dont' carry them?
 
Yeah there is. Read the long post i made in the thread about my new killies. It has a lot of good info about them, including why they aren't found pet shops often.
 
Hi DKim128,

You don't have to join the societies to attend a few meetings to see how you like them. Just get a friend and go check them out. If you like them join up. They are very informal and easy going.
Killies are a great choice as they can be kept in small low tech tanks and offer endless opportunities for study and learning. They have fascinating breeding habits. All you need is a tank, plants, soft acid water, a sponge filter and a good tank cover. They eat frozen, live and some dry foods. They can be shy but not all are and they are the most beautiful of all freshwater fish. You could drop your big tanks and just have a few small species tanks. Feed them and change water and killies are happy.
If you want lively big fish try gouramis, severums, port cichlids or rainbows. I think killies are prettier and infinitely more fascinating.

Bobby
 
well, if you are going community... I would say in the 55 that the following are cool fish I would want in a community:

1 or 2 Golden/Blue Rams (south American Cichlid)
Rosy Barbs
Head & Tail Lights (sorry, don't know specific names)
Bushy Nosed Plecostomus
Armored Catfish
Neons
Cloud Tetras
Danios
Swords

Now, unless things have changed, it's 2 inches of fish per gallon of water... I think you can fudge that either way, obviously, for something large like an oscar you want less fish, more water they are massive creatures, but for something like a neon, you don't have a lot of mass and can probably put a few more in than you think.

Remember to add slowly...

Heres the thing though... with fresh water communities you have a couple of choices... chichlid community, predator community, non predator community, breed specific community, and flat out put what you like in it.

I think for your 55 you should go for color and movement, don't mess with live plants, put in silk plants, fine gravel, and some well washed bog wood. add some small snails or apples as well, if you don't mix with the apple snails, you could get a Hammers Cobalt Blue Lobster which is relatively peaceable for a crawfish, and won't eat your fish. (as long as they are fast enough to get away.)

For something truly dazzling, your 90 gallon, I think, especially since your here on a plant lovers forum, you should do a planted tank. They are harder to keep, but are worth the reward.

You will want to put a product like flourite in as your substrate (i think covering the flourite with a normal gravel is a good idea too, helps to control algae.) Cycle the tank with a fish you want to keep, I would reccomend a cat fish, they are tough little suckers...

Then put in amazon sword and val (there lots of varieties of val that are gorgeous, including some cork screws) put crypticorns and some other midlevel plants infront of the taller swords and vals, (don't forget bog wood) and the cover the bottom with micro-sword (these are easy plants to start with, when you can keep them alive, you can move on to some of the harder stuff that is really awesome! (not that these plants are not awesome.)

for invertebrates, I say malaysian trumpet snails, they will breed in the substrate and provide algae control, also stirring the substrate keeping it aerated. For Fishy Algae Control, about 10 SIAMESE algae eaters. It is important you get siamese, as chinese will kill each other, and don't eat black hair algae. Siamese algeae eaters are essential, tiny, and you won't really notice them unless you look for them. Put in a few cory cats, and then, the apex species of your tank, discuss. They are the crown jewel of many eyes for fresh water aquariums.

Couple reccomendations when doing a planted tank:

use RO water if you can, especially if you can UV sterilize it... sure it's going to get dirty in the tank, that's fine, you want to minimize the transport of diatomic algaes into the tank, since you will be fertilizing it... eventually, your plants will soak up nutrients in the tank like a sponge, and out compete the algae, but you will want every bit of help you can get.

CO2 injection is a great way to make your plants grow, and there are simple ways of doing it. If you are injecting CO2, you will want as little disturbance of the water as possible during the day, and when the lights go off, you will want an air pump to come on (as plants breath the same as animals at night, Oxygen in, Co2 out... during the day, it's Co2 in, Oxygen out. This keeps everyone happy in the tank.

The discuss will appreciate a planted tank and will look beautiful against the backdrop. I would reccomend no more than 4, and keep the tank lightly stocked, a few neons or neon like fish that school would probably look nice as well. I have always felt if your going to put neons in a big tank, you should put in enough to get schooling behavior.

Is that enough of a reccomendation?
smile.gif
 
Oh, and as pointed out in the other topic, with RO water, you will want to use either a mix of RO and tap, or you will want to use full RO and a product called RO right.

Otherwise, things may be unhappy.
 
I love Bichirs... I used to have one that was over a foot long...

You need to know that bichir's are predators, mine loved to eat ghost shrimp... which I would gorge on fish food that was in turn soaked in a vitamin solution before feeding to the shrimp, and introducing them into the tank... and... bichirs look really really cool slipping through beds of crypticorns and micro-sword.
 
  • #10
Pure RO water is very very very bad!
fish will not survive in it, it is TOO pure!
shoudl mix 50/50 with tap.
that will make nice soft water for discus.
and discus will survive in (most) pure tap anyway..
you only need really soft water if you intend to *breed* discus and raise the young..
but just for keeping adult discus, you dont need any RO water at all..(unless your tap is unusually hard)
For most fish, its not worth messing with RO at all..
If you want to keep Discus, or angelfish, or soft-water cichlids, then yes it would be beneficial to the fish to use a 50/50 RO/tap mix..
if you have it, use it!
(if you really need it for the fish)
but never use it straight..

scot
 
  • #11
never use it straight UNLESS your doing marine... then your ocean mix will take care of buffering it.

(And let it be noted, I will defer to Scotty's judgement 99 times out of 100 cause he is one smart fish dude. I agree no RO for just fish tanks... but I think experience has learned me it's essential for planted tanks to help control those microscopic algae... and in marine aquariums... in san antonio if you use tap in a marine tank your almost guranteed to deal with a free floating diatom scourge that will make your water look like pea soup.) I guess it's because we have lots of silica in our water. (Or so they say.) I don't know...
 
  • #12
Ok this is what I came up with.

Tropical Tank mixture, HUGE MIX, prolly using the 90 gallon tank. LOTS OF PLANTs

Oscar Tank, Just cause I wanted one. I'm trying to figure out what oscar is bueatiful, and what combination of other thing

20 gal Killifish tank

10 gal any fry/breeding/plant/daphnia/brine shrimp/maybe some aquatic ultrics =D.

Then in the future, when I figure out all the ph/and all aovbut the chemistry and things.
Moving on to Discus and salt water =D
 
  • #13
oscars beautiful? ok... maybe... allright.. yeah.. they have a 'beauty' about them.

I am partial to the Tigers personally.

Oh, and I would encourage you to try to develop your 90 gallon community as an eco-system. i.e. if you go with an amazon river bed, try and populate it with plants and animals and decorations that one would find in the amazon. I find that tanks done in this fashion are always the most stunning.
 
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