New, 5Gal starter

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

fireman731

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jun 10, 2013
Messages
184
Location
TX
Hey there,

Well first I would like to introduce myself as I am new to the forum, My name's Carl and im a 23 year old firefighter/paramedic from Texas. I recently purchased my first tank, a 5 Gallon tank with LED's and a whisper filter with biobag. I also purchased a small heater. Currently I have 2 Female betas, 1 blue gourami, 2 pepper cory catfish and 2 snails. They all seem to be doing well after the first 24 hours. The pepper cory catfish seem to be doing the best, but I hear that they do better in groups of at least 4+ and on sand instead of gravel? The red beta is the most aggresive and dominate, puffing its fins out and pushing the other smaller white beta around a little and some times snipping at the snails shells, but no real fighting yet. The blue gourami I believe to be a male, he isnt very aggressive and seems to be doing fine by himself, maybe timid of the more aggresive red beta, but wanted to add a friend for him. I was wondering if I should remove the red female beta and leave the more dosile white female beta while adding another gourami or pepper cory as well as some sand under the bridge where the pepper cory like to hang out? I understand that it is a very small tank, and do not want to overcrowd the tank, but the guy at petco was saying the the pepper cory catfish usually tend to stay out of the way, and dont really use up alot of the 1" per gallon space rule of thumb. Do you Think I already have my tank maxed or would it be safe to add more with the filter that I have? I wanted to add either more pepper cory catfish, another gourami, or two black skirted tetras or some thing of the like.
 
Hi welcome, personally I think you are over stocked right now or really maxed out. For a 5
Gallon usually only a few small fish can fit.

Also did you cycle the tank first? If not I suggest you do very frequent partial water changes for the next few weeks to avoid losing the fish
 
i set up the tank and added the start zyme, PH balance and dechlorinator and let it run for 24 hours before adding the fish.
 
does all of that fish are in the same tank?., your overcrowded., bettas are aggressive fish and may bully your other fish.. And one more thing a one day cycling is not enough..
 
Ok, I was in your shoes a few years ago when I got back into the hobby. The general consensus on the "Bactria in a bottle" is that they really don't work well if at all. Do you have a test kit

In my opinion you are going through a fish in cycle. You need to built up the beneficial bacteria up in the filter. You need to change water often, I'd say about 25% a day. You need to match the temp as close as possible an add the water treatment. Most people use prime it really works well.

You should be ok, a fish or two might get sick but if you keep up with the water changes and buy a test kit to monitor your water conditions things will be ok
 
so I came home from work today and my 5 Gal tank was cloudy/sludgy, the guy at petco said not to freak out because it would do this, but I kinda freaked out haha but remembering what he said I didn't do anything stupid rapidly. I tested the water, and these are the results I got for the most part, the strips were kinda hard to read.

Ammonia was between 0 and 0.25
nitrate was 0-.5
nitrite was 0
hardness was soft at 75

this is where the colors got kinda hard to read, but I believe the PH was between 6.8-7.2 and the Alkalinity was between 80-180.

I just got another 1.5 Gal tank to separate the red aggressive female beta by herself, I have a fitler set up and running and have dechorlinated the water as well as added the bacteria in a bottle, Now my next questions are is that if I need to cycle a tank for just a single beta or if I can introduce the fish and do a fish in cycle?

Also, do I need to do a 25% water change on the 5 gal tank that's cloudy?
 
Right now I figure for the well being of the other fish I would put the betta in the new tank and do a fish in cycle. As for the original tank for sure do I 25% change ASAP you always want the ammonia at 0.

Once you finish those test strips I recommend the API master liquid test kit it's much accurate and easy to read
 
Welcome to the hobby! I was in a similar situation when I got back into keeping fish. I didn't know about cycling and had overstocked my tank. My suggestion: start searching Craigslist for a used 20 gallon- you can get them for almost nothing. You can move everything over to the smaller except maybe the more aggressive betta. I haven't kept female bettas myself, but I know there is some finessing involved to keeping more than one. I do know they don't have enough space in a five gallon to stake out their own territories. In the larger tank you will have room to get a few more cories and a busy for the gourami. I would highly suggest getting some live plants to help with your cycle. They will absorb some of the toxins while your tank is cycling. Water changes daily are your best friend.

+1 on the API test kit - the strips are inaccurate and confusing.
 
Okay so I set up the 1.5 Gal tank, dechlorinated it and let it run for a few hours while the temperature settled to 80, where the 5 Gal tank was sitting at. I moved the more aggressive red beta over to the 1.5 G tank and immediately saw a difference
In the blue gourami and the smaller white beta. They started swimming higher where the red beta previously ruled. The white beta and the male blue gourami seem to be hanging out together with no problems sharing the hollow log space together. I also moved a snail into the 1.5 with the red beta. I don't think I'll put any of the Cory cats in there. Question though, I am doing a 20% water change on the cloudy 5 G tank and was wondering if I needed to add more start Zyme as well as the dechlorinater? I wasn't going to mess with the PH treatment
 
I would just add the declorinator, and just keep up on the water changes
 
Can you hurt them by adding TOO much dechlorinater? It says one drop per gal but a few extra drops won't hurt?
 
I am not certain about the one you are using but I know with prime it is safe to use 5 times the dose daily without any issue. I have had to in the past when my tank crashed
 
I added two draws African frogs with the red beta in the 1.5 and they get along great. I added a female blue with the male blue in the 5G tank and they got teritorial again with the male chasing the female off. Ill probably remove the female blue and only have the one blue with the white female beta, they get along great by themselves. It kinda stinks I picked such picky fish to start with!
 
I don't need to be adding the dechlorinater daily do I!? I thought it was only with water changes?
 
You need to add it every time you do a water change which right now should be daily until al your water parameters are good. Also I think you should stop adding more livestock. A 1.5 gallon is way too small for a betta and 2 frogs

Most people on here will say for your current stock you need a 10 and 20 gallon tank
 
Back
Top Bottom