Fish & advice needed for new tank!

$tormer

Hi, I am totally new to having fish as pets. I got a new tank over the Christmas and only have limited knowledge about keeping fish. I plan on having fresh water fish as I hear they're easier to keep. The tank has a capacity of around 90 litres. Does anyone have some fish that they don't need or don't want, before I go to a store and buy some? (Connaught area) Also I need advice on what breeds of fish to get, what to feed them and when, how often and how to clean the tank etc. Any help would be much appreciated!

TooManyDogs

ok, first of all SLOW DOWN

The best tip I can give you for successful fish keeping is to do everything slowly. If this is the first time you have set up this tank you'll need to season it. You'll have to fill it with water, turn on filter and heater, put in all plants and ornaments but NO fish and leave it for a few weeks.

After 2 - 3 weeks you can add fish that will condition your tank, danios are the best, they give out some substance that will help other fish later on. Leave the danios as the only fish for at least a month, it'll give your water good basis to add more fish later.

Then I'd talk to a reputable fish supplier to get fish that can be put in a new tank, some fish like tetras do best in a mature tank and you shouldnt really add them until the tank it is at least 6 months old. Only add fish slowly, 2 or 3 fish a week is plenty! It's so hard to only add a few fish at atime but it is worth it, I promise!

I wouldnt take fish from other people until you're more experienced, it can be so easy to bring an illness/disease into your tank and you'd have no comeback if they infect all your other fish. Most reputable fish sellers will offer some sort of guarantee if the fish dies within 24/48 hours providing your water quality is ok so check that before you buy from that shop.

Anyway, best of luck, it's a worthwhile hobby but remember to take baby steps!

Pimp Ninja

Too Many Dogs is kind of right, but not entirely. Slowly is the way to do it, but filling the tank with water and doing nothing for 3 weeks will not start the cycle.

What you have to do is called cycling your tank.

Basically, as soon as you put fish into your tank, they start swimming in their own urine. (not a pretty picture, but the truth). The fish excrete ammonia which is poisonous to them in small quantities.

This is the beginning of a process called the Nitrogen Cycle. The Nitrogen Cycle is the process of the ammonia being broken down in to nitrite (also harmful to your fish) and finally nitrate (less harmful)

Partial (10-20% - but will also depend on other things) regular water changes keeps the nitrate levels in check.

Cycling a new tank, helps to build up the benificial bacteria that colonise your filter to break down the ammonia. Im not going to go through the whole thing, but instead Im going to post a link to an article on another site which explains it very well (if this is OK)
- http://www.irishfishforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=321

TooManyDogs

Pimp Ninja wrote: »

Too Many Dogs is kind of right, but not entirely. Slowly is the way to do it, but filling the tank with water and doing nothing for 3 weeks will not start the cycle.

And for years I though I was helping settle the water by leaving it empty for the first few weeks, so annoying! You feel like a complete fool when people peer into the tank and ask where the fish are!!!

Magenta

Pimp Ninja wrote: »

Too Many Dogs is kind of right, but not entirely. Slowly is the way to do it, but filling the tank with water and doing nothing for 3 weeks will not start the cycle.

What you have to do is called cycling your tank.

This is correct.
Basically the way your filter works is, bacteria live on the sponge in it. When the filter sucks in water, the bacteria process the fish waste.
You won't get these bacteria from filling the tank with water and brand new plants and gravel, this is where cycling with fish comes in.
If you know anyone who can give you some used gravel that would help too.
You can also buy a product called Nutrafin Cycle which can help speed things up a bit but the tried and tested method with a small number of fish (like Pimp Ninja suggested) is probably the best.
Aside from danios, mollies and platies are good hardy fish and great for beginners so maybe a couple of them.

lrushe

Magenta wrote: »

If you know anyone who can give you some used gravel that would help too.
QUOTE]

This is an excellent way to cycle your tank and its usually how I do it, I prefer it to using chemicals, but as a last resort they are fine too. If you can get some Black Skirt / Black Widow Tetra they would be a great first fish and they are fairly easy to find in most fish shops, god knows my four survived some tough times when I was first starting off and they are still alive to tell the tale

MotteDai

Hi All

Some good advice here, we upgraded here from the small 8L fish bowl (€10 job) to a 60L today, I know nothing about keeping fish or setting up a right tank. So thanks for the adivice.

I of course threw the gravel in straight away and filled it up, only to notice the internals of the Tank resembling the sahara on a windy day!

Following your links I restarted and cleaned the Gravel and the Tank internals, I have a coupe of questions though,
- The water I added was straight from the tap and I havent used any de-clorinator, should I have? I dont have any so..
- Im planning to leave it circulating for 4-5 days and then move the two goldfish into their new home, surley thats okay, goldfish Im told are pretty resilent?
_ I would like a few more fish what types can I get or am I stuck with goldfish?

Thanks a great thread with good advice!

MotteDai

Oh and two final question, water is a samll bit cloudy still, Im assuming the filter will remove this?
When should one require an oxygenator?

Magenta

MotteDai wrote: »

- The water I added was straight from the tap and I havent used any de-clorinator, should I have? I dont have any so..
- Im planning to leave it circulating for 4-5 days and then move the two goldfish into their new home, surley thats okay, goldfish Im told are pretty resilent?
_ I would like a few more fish what types can I get or am I stuck with goldfish?

Thanks a great thread with good advice!

Hi MotteDai,
I am just wondering why you are leaving the tank running for 4-5 days before adding the fish? It will not achieve anything. PS You do need de-chlorinator, you can get it in any pet shop.

MotteDai wrote: »

I would like a few more fish what types can I get or am I stuck with goldfish?
Oh and two final question, water is a samll bit cloudy still, Im assuming the filter will remove this?
When should one require an oxygenator?

Not really because the filter works by using bacteria that you won't have in a brand new tank. It is probably just dust from the gravel and it will settle itself.

As for fish you could have, you could get some white cloud mountain minnows, they're small and pretty nice. You could also have a weather loach. Goldfish are much more... pooptastic than tropical fish though so if you are looking at any websites about how many fish can fit in your tank, remember to check specifically for goldfish

Best of luck.

MotteDai

Magenta wrote: »

Hi MotteDai,
I am just wondering why you are leaving the tank running for 4-5 days before adding the fish? It will not achieve anything.

Thanks Magenta

I was leavig it running for the few days as your woman fromt he shop suggested it? also other websites seem to suggest for a new tank a 'cycle' to let the envoirnment build.. honestly I have no idea, and sure when the two goldfish were bought for the origional bowl a month or so ago they were just thrown in.. so maybe your right..

FAYESY

You can also buy some treatments that will help with the setting up of a new tank - fresh start is one - cycle is another - there are others but I can not think of the names.

Magenta

MotteDai wrote: »

Thanks Magenta

I was leavig it running for the few days as your woman fromt he shop suggested it? also other websites seem to suggest for a new tank a 'cycle' to let the envoirnment build.. honestly I have no idea, and sure when the two goldfish were bought for the origional bowl a month or so ago they were just thrown in.. so maybe your right..

Heya,
Basically the way your tank works is, your filter works by sucking in water. Bacteria (friendly ones) live on the sponge inside your filter. When fish waste and old food (which pollute the water) are sucked into the filter, your bacteria will process it and make it more fish-friendly.
So the way you get these bacteria is by putting in a small number of hardy fish. You could also take some used gravel (I don't know if you have any friends that keep fish) or even used plants.
The bacteria will build up and up, so your filter will become more and more efficient, and your tank will be able for more and more fish.

That's the gist of it anyway. If you have a look at some fishy websites, you will see advice that will say to never wash your filter's sponges in brand new water, or worse, washing up liquid! That's because it would remove the bacteria. You will also see advice saying that once you've your fish in the tank, not to change all the tank's water in one go, i.e. emptying it completely and refilling it- for the same reason.

At the moment, if you add some dechlorinator into the water, your 2 goldfish should be OK- goldfish are usually quite hardy. There is a product called Nutrafin Cycle that has the bacteria you need in it, if you wanted to use that too- it would help things along, but it isn't essential since you have your goldfish. I'd say leave it a couple of weeks before getting any more fish.

I hope I've made sense

MotteDai

Thanks Mag

Fish have been moved, water declorinated and everyone seems very happy especially my 6 yr old..
Plan to buy a few more goldfish or varietys that may go with them in a few weeks..

Cheers

Magenta

MotteDai wrote: »

Thanks Mag

Fish have been moved, water declorinated and everyone seems very happy especially my 6 yr old..
Plan to buy a few more goldfish or varietys that may go with them in a few weeks..

Cheers

Brilliant!

In another 2 weeks or so you'll be able to add another couple of fish. It's addictive! My aunt started with 1 tank and is now close to her 4th... her house is like SeaWorld hahaha!!!

godtabh

Magenta wrote: »

This is correct.
Basically the way your filter works is, bacteria live on the sponge in it. When the filter sucks in water, the bacteria process the fish waste.
You won't get these bacteria from filling the tank with water and brand new plants and gravel, this is where cycling with fish comes in.
If you know anyone who can give you some used gravel that would help too.
You can also buy a product called Nutrafin Cycle which can help speed things up a bit but the tried and tested method with a small number of fish (like Pimp Ninja suggested) is probably the best.
Aside from danios, mollies and platies are good hardy fish and great for beginners so maybe a couple of them.

Put a pinch of fish food in every day/couple of days. It breaks down and the bacteria feed on it. No need to distress the fish

Magenta

godtabh wrote: »

Put a pinch of fish food in every day/couple of days. It breaks down and the bacteria feed on it. No need to distress the fish

Is this before or after adding fish?

godtabh

Magenta wrote: »

Is this before or after adding fish?

before

Magenta

godtabh wrote: »

before

But you would need to get the bacteria first from another source like used gravel or a cycling product. It's not a bad idea

godtabh

Magenta wrote: »

But you would need to get the bacteria first from another source like used gravel or a cycling product. It's not a bad idea

the fish food decays because of the bacteria. Its always there. It just prospers when you feed it under the right conditions.

MotteDai

I have the fish in the tank now they seem happy and i've added another dash (as per recommendation) of that cycle stuff.. water lookis a lil cloudy but much better than where they came from..

godtabh

takes a couple of days for the water to clear. A lot of whats in the tank needs to settle

MotteDai

Right guys, after 3 weeks Ive changed the water. My feable testing kit had ointed out high amonia levels and I changed about 30% of the water.

It looks a little cloudy after the water change but looks good, can anyone recomend a good water testing kit or is one nessecary? I have the 6in1 tape thing you dip in and read after 30 secs.. its crude kinda hat we used to use in the leaving cert days , being a technophobe id prefer some electronic propbe that could give me accurate results..

MotteDai

Howdy all again

So after 4 months your advice was working out well, cleaning the fish tank off and on. We have 2 goldfish since the start of the thread and no losses as yet, however this morning I noticed the commet one had most of his tail 'gone'!
I'm assuming his mate ate it off of him as hes gotten bigger than him now. He's about 1.75 times his mate if not 2 times but both were kinda equal at the start.
I have removed out the commet and put him into the origional bowl we had.

So heres some questions
- Don't laugh, but do tails grow back?
- Do ye reckon the other guy ate the tail off him
- Was I not feeding them enough?
- What can I do now with him?

He can only live in fish hospital for so long, maybe I should remove the other guy and donate him to a pond of a friend..

As you can imagine the small people in my house will have many more questions when this is noticed later today

Kalahari

Don't laugh, but do tails grow back?

Yes, if they are kept in clean water and treated for any infection which may result due to the damage.

Do ye reckon the other guy ate the tail off him

Did the tail vanish overnight or did you just notice it but are not sure when it happened? If it happened suddenly then the other fish probably nipped it away, but if it happened gradually it is possibly fin rot and would need treatment.

Was I not feeding them enough?

If the other fish nipped the tail, possibly, but it may have nipped it for other reasons. How much do you feed them?

What can I do now with him?

First get him out of the bowl, the ammonia will build up too fast in the bowl and the fish is very susceptible to infection right now due to the damaged tissue. If the tank is cycled it is better off in there if the other fish doesn't seem to be acting aggressively.

Comets grow massive, and will very soon outgrow your tank anyways, so if you have an option to give the goldfish to a friend with a pond it would be great for them. What type of goldfish is the other one? Maybe you could give both to your friend and get smaller fish more suited to a 90 litre? A 90 litre tank can't support 2 large goldfish in the long term, you'll constantly be battling ammonia as they get bigger and it will be a lot of work to try keep the water healthy. If you stick in a heater there would be a bigger variety of fish to choose from. Best of luck with the injured comet. A bit of stress coat and melafix should help its tail heal.