new aquarists need help with two 36 gal. bowfronts one fresh one brackish

[MandM]

Hello forum,

Recently my girlfriend and I bought two 36 gal. Bowfront aquariums with full spectrum lighting and 4 stage filters from aqueon and set about the task of beefing up the shelving in the built in bookshelves on either side of the bed for the added 700 pounds we have two 10 gallons (one community freshwater and one aggressive brackish tank) now that are cycled stocked and frankly getting crowded that we bough as starters we loved so much we decided to upgrade. We are slightly new to the hobby and could use some advice with the following problems. Our community tank has some African dwarf frogs, neon tetras, mollies a leopard guppy and a Cory catfish, any suggestions on some nice community fish that would be good for the new large tank considering the mollies will be gone and I need something compatible with frogs as well. Pointers ont cycling quickly to get the new tanks ready for fish fast wold be great. My next question is for my aggressive brackish tank currently I have two cetnolucious hujeta about 1.25 inches there are four tiger barbs 1 inch (who I have come to understand can do fine with the salt?) And one "freshwater" flounder 1 inch any advice on the proper method amount and type of salt to use to bring the tank up slowly to the proper true brackish salinity and any advice on quickly getting the new larger tank cycled and seasoned as well would be greatly appreciated. Lastly I noticed recently that my tiger barbs are flashing on the sand not often only seldomly every few hours or so more during feeding time I even noticed one of the hujetas do it once, again it was during feeding time only once though does anyone know what this means or if it means anything. Any and I mean any and all advice with my flounder would be greatly appreciated as I hear they can be difficult so far he seems to be doing very well eating and so forth, and any betta breding advice would also be great. OK well I think that covers it thank u very much look forward to your advice and tips.

Thank you,
Mike and Michelle aquarium crazy

 

[librarygirl]

Hi and welcome! My comments below in blue....

Hello forum,

Recently my girlfriend and I bought two 36 gal. Bowfront aquariums with full spectrum lighting and 4 stage filters from aqueon and set about the task of beefing up the shelving in the built in bookshelves on either side of the bed for the added 700 pounds we have two 10 gallons (one community freshwater and one aggressive brackish tank) now that are cycled stocked and frankly getting crowded that we bough as starters we loved so much we decided to upgrade

We are slightly new to the hobby and could use some advice with the following problems. Our community tank has some African dwarf frogs, neon tetras, mollies a leopard guppy and a Cory catfish, any suggestions on some nice community fish that would be good for the new large tank considering the mollies will be gone and I need something compatible with frogs as well.
So all of these fish are currently in a 10 gal tank? Good job on upgrading then! How many neons do you have? They do better in larger schools and you'd have the room to get more if you'd like. Corys like to be in groups as well so a few more of those would be good (ideally the same species as yours). You have a lot of options for community fish in a 36 gal. Harlequin Rasboras come to mind. There are also many types of Tetra that would work. Have you seen anything that interests you?

I'd be concerned about the ADFs in a 36 gal. They come up for air and aren't the best swimmers so the 36 may be too high for them. Also are you feeding them by hand? It might be best to leave them in one of the 10 gals. You could try them in the larger tank but be prepared to move them out if it's too high for them.

Pointers ont cycling quickly to get the new tanks ready for fish fast wold be great.
I'm assuming you have filters on the 10 gal? What you could do is either move the filter from one of the 10 gal tanks and run them on each the 36 gals along with the new filters or you could just remove the media from the 10 gal filters and place them in the new filters and then fill the new filters up the rest of the way with the new media it came with). This should instantly cycle the tanks. Keep in mind that the filters you have now have enough bacteria to sustain your current stock, so if you add more fish you may see some temporary toxin spikes. I'd move everything over as said above and let the tank fun for 2-3 weeks to give the new filters time to seed from the old ones before adding fish and when you do add slowly and test the water daily and do water changes as needed if anything spikes.

My next question is for my aggressive brackish tank currently I have two cetnolucious hujeta about 1.25 inches there are four tiger barbs 1 inch (who I have come to understand can do fine with the salt?) And one "freshwater" flounder 1 inch any advice on the proper method amount and type of salt to use to bring the tank up slowly to the proper true brackish salinity and any advice on quickly getting the new larger tank cycled and seasoned as well would be greatly appreciated. Lastly I noticed recently that my tiger barbs are flashing on the sand not often only seldomly every few hours or so more during feeding time I even noticed one of the hujetas do it once, again it was during feeding time only once though does anyone know what this means or if it means anything. Any and I mean any and all advice with my flounder would be greatly appreciated as I hear they can be difficult so far he seems to be doing very well eating and so forth, and any betta breding advice would also be great. OK well I think that covers it thank u very much look forward to your advice and tips.
Sorry I can't help much with the brackish info, hopefully someone else will chime in. Are these all also in a 10 gal tank? Have you checked for white spots or any signs of illness on the flashing fish? Do you have a test kit to test your water parameters and what is your water change schedule?
Thank you,
Mike and Michelle aquarium crazy

 

[MandM]

We change water quite often 25-50% changes weekly all the fish are inch or so very small and no other than an occasional flash from the barbs everyone looks great and eats well black worms, blood worms, brine shrimp, and feeder minnows along with freshwater multipack frozen. No changes in water quality or anything looks normal need to get it tested haven't in like 2 weeks but no ammonia or anything. they are all being moved to a 36 gallon bowfront tank and I will be adding a few more ( tips on cool fishes would be great bear in mind its an aggressive tank thats stocked with small fish that will grow larger) thanks for all the advice we really appreciate it will add pics of the tanks soon as they are complete have alot of requests for pics of flats Waller the flounder lol hopefully someone will chime in with tips on the bracksh.

 

[KaylNeko]

Tiger barbs are a strictly freshwater fish, hon. They can handle aquarium salt used for medicating freshwater tanks, but they're not a brackish fish.

For the cetnolucius hujeta, do you mean the freshwater barracuda/gar characin? That's what popped up when I did a search on the species name. Those aren't brackish either, and will probably eat anything smaller than 4 inches or so once fully grown--10 inch+ carnivorous fish, and it's recommended they get put in a 4 ft tank or longer, so you may need to upgrade again as they get older.

The flounder should do all right with a sandy bottom and sinking meaty pellets and a SG of 1.005 or so. What I've read actually says that so long as conditions are met, they're fairly hardy.

For the brackish, since you already have a substrate dweller, maybe look at mollys, Celebes Rainbows, and bumblebee gobies, and orange chromides.

 

[MandM]

From what I understand from reading online the gar are under about a hundred common names I bought them as silver gar but they are sold online as rocket gar and if u want aquarium info they call them characin gar or "freshwater" barracuda or hujeta gar or a number of other names when I saw the "freshwater" barracuda title I sorta began to wonder about salinity because I know anything sold with that "freshwater" prefix is usually brackish ie. The flounders, puffers, "freshwater" morays or snowflake eels' that sort of thing when I began searching the only website I could find that had them listed under their scientific name said they were not technically brackish but that they liked a bit of salt and that "they" used (the website) 1/4 cup per ten gallons which is like 4 tablespoons per 10 gallons not sure whether to do this or not? That's why I figured they would be okay with the little flounder cause they are big pushovers to anything that won't fit in their mouth (the flounders are brackish and way too big to eat) and they would be happy with a mild brackish solution but not positive wanted some conformation.