Hi All! Started hobby 6 months in - now i have 3 tanks :)

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.
See posts with no answers
Status
Not open for further replies.
O

Omar_Salkic

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Nov 7, 2013
Messages
64
Hi Everyone,
My name is Omar and me and my partner Josh started with our first aquarium! We got so addicted that we bought another two and now they surround us in our living room.
I'm in the finance sector and Josh is in Retail.


These are our tanks.


Tank1: 227.50 litres. 101 x 49 x 50
Tank2: 100.00 litres.
Tank3: 70.00 litres.


All have live plants, rocks, driftwood and ornaments.
We've enjoyed it everyday since.


We have over 46 fish and some of our favourites are: Featherfin Squeaker Catfish, Pleco, Angelfish, Blotched upside down catfish and moonlight gourami! But they are pretty much all favourites!


We've joined this community to share information and chat about fish stuff.


Ive attached a video of our big tank and will be posting up all my fish pics. Glad to be a part of this community!


Cheers
Omar


From Australia
 
I see many issues. Keeping goldfish with tropicals... and two male dwarf gouramis? They fight. Also, I saw a goldfish nip your angel's tail. That causes stress. And your tank looks overstocked.
 
mistersprinkles said:
I see many issues. Keeping goldfish with tropicals... and two male dwarf gouramis? They fight. Also, I saw a goldfish nip your angel's tail. That causes stress. And your tank looks overstocked.
Click to expand...

Yeah the gouramis have been moved now and they dont fight, the goldfish incident was a once off. They dont have nips in there tails, the goldfish was sucking and got him. We watch them close to about 2 hrs a day. Little baby swordtails are also living in there and growing pretty quick and the angels seem to be ready to lay coz they are cleaning and protecting their area now. I will post a new video soon that one was before the changes we made.
 
Omar_Salkic said:
Yeah the gouramis have been moved now and they dont fight, the goldfish incident was a once off. They dont have nips in there tails, the goldfish was sucking and got him. We watch them close to about 2 hrs a day. Little baby swordtails are also living in there and growing pretty quick and the angels seem to be ready to lay coz they are cleaning and protecting their area now. I will post a new video soon that one was before the changes we made.
Click to expand...

Your fish did not look unhealthy but try to thin the stock out from what it was in the video. It was too much. How often are you doing water changes, how much are you changing, and what filter with what media do you have on that tank? Just curious. Maybe I can help u.

I'll give you an example of what I consider to be a reasonable stock level for a community tank. In a 55gal (200L) I had a pair of angelfish, 10 bleeding heart tetras, a bushynose pleco, and about 8 corys. Most of those fish are 2" or so. Pleco is about 4" max. Angels were about 7" tip to tip.
 
Water changes are done every 2-3 weeks depending on the look of it and its about a 20% water change. The filter has sponge and carbon media. There are a few baby size algae eaters that are cleaning the tanks which we will remove once they get too big.
 
These are the fish in Fish Tank 1, if you look in my photos i have one of these for each tanks. Thanks and this is cool being able to chat about fish!
 

Attachments

  • image-3511813195.jpg
    image-3511813195.jpg
    244.6 KB · Views: 79
Omar_Salkic said:
Water changes are done every 2-3 weeks depending on the look of it and its about a 20% water change. The filter has sponge and carbon media. There are a few baby size algae eaters that are cleaning the tanks which we will remove once they get too big.
Click to expand...

That's not enough for a heavily stocked tank like that. You should be doing weekly water changes in the 30% range.

I looked at your stock list. WAY too many fish, and way too many KINDS of fish. Aquariums look and run better when you keep it to 4 or 5 species at the most.

You really ought to get rid of most of those fish. Maybe start over with a more reasonable list that people here could suggest for you. Your fish are packed so tight they keep having to get out of eachother's way. That's what I saw in the video and it's just no good. You can't run a tank like that.
 
I see what you're saying but the water is clear and the ph is always spot on and no fish have died yet and we've had them for 6 months now and they have grown quite a bit. Most of them wont get bigger than 5-10 cm except the goldfish plus we have three tanks if we need to swap them around. They all seem happy at the moment with their current environment. Have a look at my profile. I tend to them quite a bit a make sure they are all healthy. I do have a question about my Pleco, he is in a 70ltr tank and is about 17cm long. What size can he get to in that tank before i have to move him. Attached photo.
 

Attachments

  • image-1885257000.jpg
    image-1885257000.jpg
    152.2 KB · Views: 87
And the fish were all in each others way coz i came up to the tank and they thought i was going to feed them. They have plenty of room. They would've all died by now if the conditions weren't good enough. We've studied their behaviour and they are all normal together.
 
Omar_Salkic said:
And the fish were all in each others way coz i came up to the tank and they thought i was going to feed them. They have plenty of room. They would've all died by now if the conditions weren't good enough. We've studied their behaviour and they are all normal together.
Click to expand...

You don't want to listen to advice?

http://s110.photobucket.com/user/111olbap/media/100_4698.mp4.html

This is what happy angels look like. Nobody's bothering them. Nobody's getting in their way. I don't know what you consider "enough" room, but your fish don't have it.

Fish do respond to their environment. The better the water conditions, the better the fish and the better your experience as a fishkeeper. I had those angels virtually alone in a 55gal with water changes every 3 days using remineralized ph/gh/kh balanced water I made myself. They spawned every 7 days. Constantly. For years. That's an extreme, overkill example, but you get my point. Obviously you can keep angels with other fish, it just has to be within reason.

There should have been, for example, in your tank, an entire top right or left corner of the tank with a floating plant devoted to the (one) male gourami so he could make a bubble nest. There should be a broad leafed plant for the Angels to spawn on, and room for them to do it. But you don't want to listen to me so that's all I'll say.

One more thing- I notice you're trying to grow lots of different plants without CO2. You might want to try plants that do well in no co2 low light conditions like anubias and java fern. you'll have better luck with long term plant growth and wellbeing.
 
There are amazon plants in there that u cant see in the back etc etc i wont go into it they are alive and happy and each fish has a hiding place. If you saw the tank live non stop like i do you would see. Its not like any other typical tank. It works perfectly. Thanks for the advice.
 
Omar_Salkic said:
There are amazon plants in there that u cant see in the back etc etc i wont go into it they are alive and happy and each fish has a hiding place. If you saw the tank live non stop like i do you would see. Its not like any other typical tank. It works perfectly. Thanks for the advice.
Click to expand...

Will you at least increase water changes to once a week? I didn't see the sword plant. Too many fish to look at.
Have you tested your Nitrates? I bet they're off the chart due to the stock level and infrequent water changes. I'm just trying to help your fish out.

Also about your pleco in the 70 ltr tank. That's under 20 gallons. The pleco is over 6 inches. It's already high time to move him. If you had more space in your bigger tank I'd say put him in there but there's no room at that inn.
 
Ive done this all before. When i first got my tank we were doing regular changes and vacuuming weekly but we've worked out that fortnightly is enough coz all the filters get cleaned about every 3-4days.
 
We've also tested the nitrates and its all normal. Don't know what else to say. They are all doing great in there for 6 months now. We have Apple snails in the tank too which eat a lot of the fish droppings that cause the nitrates and the snail droppings aren't harmful to the tank at all.
 
Omar_Salkic said:
Ive done this all before. When i first got my tank we were doing regular changes and vacuuming weekly but we've worked out that fortnightly is enough coz all the filters get cleaned about every 3-4days.
Click to expand...

You clean your filters every 3-4 DAYS??? Dude you should be cleaning your filters once every other (of your) water changes, (once a month I mean) and even then, only lightly rinsing about 1/3 of the media in tank water in a bucket. Otherwise you lose too much beneficial bacteria. If you have CANISTER filters, once every 3-6 months for cleaning.

Honestly dude. The more I hear... :nono:

Test your nitrates. Go get a nitrate kit, test your nitrates, come back and tell us what they are. I'm certain they'll be too high.

Doesn't it stand to reason that if I've been doing this for 12 years and I worked in a pet shop with a very high end aquarium section, I'm going to know more than you, and you should listen to my advice? You say things are fine the way you're doing them, but they're not. Sorry.

If you had a very light stock list, you could do a water change every 2 weeks or so, but you have a ridiculously highly stocked tank. If I had that many fish in that tank I'd be changing 30% every 3 days.
 
I know about filter bacteria, i dont wash out the filters like a maniac. I use the tank water as well to wash the media's.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

J
I am returning to the hobby after a long absence, need advice on restarting
Replies
9
Views
437
fishingBuds
fishingBuds
marchmaxima
Preparations for a new tank have now begun
2 3 4
Replies
62
Views
8K
Purrbox
Purrbox

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom