Hi there,
Last weekend I finally started stocking my new 400l tank, it took a few weeks to cycle, I started a much smaller (Quarantine) tank cycling at the same time, both with seed media from my existing 200l, the QT cycled in a matter of days, the 400l cycled the ammonia pretty quickly but the nitrite spike lasted about 2 weeks (I'm starting to think now when seeding you should seed twice, once for the ammonia spike, and once for the nitrite spike as the nitrite consuming bacteria probably died off some while waiting for the ammonia to be cycled.
anyway. It is a heavily planted tank, I have a thin layer of JBL aquabasis, covered with a thicker layer of JBL manado and an even thicker layer of sand over the top of that. 4x54w T5s (set on overlapping timers at the moment 1400h-2100h and 1600h-2300h), the two external filters that came with the aquarium (aquience 1500r), one with purigen added and on full flow, the other with JBL bionitratex and going out through a vecton 600 uv steriliser, set to an extremely low flow, and both have hydor 300w ETH for redundancy of heating. A 200l water tank is in the nearby cupboard, that is fed off the mains cold water and can be heated, aerated and pumped into the tank for water change. At the moment dosing Profito Easy Life ferts, and Flourish Phosphorus and Flourish Excel
Anyway enough showing off about the setup. I currently have in my 200l:
7x boesemani rainbowfish (4m, 3f)
3x celebes rainbowfish (3f, had males but I lost them an a female or two one by one a while back, was traumatic :O )
4x sterbai corys
In my quarantine I have what should be completing the boesemani school, 2 juvenile females (got the gender right this time, think they are slight hybrids with a red, probably Irian Jaya, though)
And the weekend just gone I started my new 400l with the following:
Saturday -
4x celebes rainbowfish (2m 2f)
3x pearl gourami (1m, 1f, 1???) - I will be posting a photo up of the ??? soon, as it is closer in size to the other female, but I'm unsure as it seems to be pesting the other male a bit, and has a longer dorsal fin than the other female, but doesn't have an obviously frayed anal fin like the larger male.
Sunday -
4x sterbai cory
4x emerald catfish
4x celebes rainbowfish
End goal, I will up the numbers of the corys and catfish, and put the fish from the other two tanks in resulting in:
9x boesemani rainbow
10x sterbai corys
8x emerald catfish
11x celebes rainbowfish
3x pearl gourami
Aqadvisor suggests this is fine, slightly understocked, I figure with a heavily planted tank and can easily add more filtration as and when I need I can have a few more, was thinking celebes halfbeaks to fill out the top some more.
But, if I have indeed ended up with 2m 1f pearl gourami, I'd like to address this - I think I'd have a devil of a time trying to catch the smaller male and swap him at my LFS for a female, plus I feel really bad taking a fish out of my beautiful tank and sending him back to the shop to go who knows where, so if there's no pressing reason not to (prepared to remove one male if aggression gets bad, better that than one killing the other or making its life a misery) I'd like to just add more females. I could give up on the halfbeaks/other top dwellers and have a small school of pearls (as they spend most of their time at the surface), say 2m5f. Having had the pearls for a day or so, they are amazing fish and I think a larger number of them would make them as much as a centerpiece of the tank as the boesemani will be (man those boesemani REALLY look amazing once they grow out)
Oh fyi I'm on hard tap water hence this stocking is aimed at fish that should be fine with it, aqadvisor suggests my upper ph is 7.8 and my tank usually is just slightly above that.
I'm going to post a more specific thread on my pearl gourami question but just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts or just wanted to say what an awesome stock list this is and how amazing it will look.
Photos will follow once/provided the fish have all settled in happily - new tank stockings always make me nervous.
Cheers
Last weekend I finally started stocking my new 400l tank, it took a few weeks to cycle, I started a much smaller (Quarantine) tank cycling at the same time, both with seed media from my existing 200l, the QT cycled in a matter of days, the 400l cycled the ammonia pretty quickly but the nitrite spike lasted about 2 weeks (I'm starting to think now when seeding you should seed twice, once for the ammonia spike, and once for the nitrite spike as the nitrite consuming bacteria probably died off some while waiting for the ammonia to be cycled.
anyway. It is a heavily planted tank, I have a thin layer of JBL aquabasis, covered with a thicker layer of JBL manado and an even thicker layer of sand over the top of that. 4x54w T5s (set on overlapping timers at the moment 1400h-2100h and 1600h-2300h), the two external filters that came with the aquarium (aquience 1500r), one with purigen added and on full flow, the other with JBL bionitratex and going out through a vecton 600 uv steriliser, set to an extremely low flow, and both have hydor 300w ETH for redundancy of heating. A 200l water tank is in the nearby cupboard, that is fed off the mains cold water and can be heated, aerated and pumped into the tank for water change. At the moment dosing Profito Easy Life ferts, and Flourish Phosphorus and Flourish Excel
Anyway enough showing off about the setup. I currently have in my 200l:
7x boesemani rainbowfish (4m, 3f)
3x celebes rainbowfish (3f, had males but I lost them an a female or two one by one a while back, was traumatic :O )
4x sterbai corys
In my quarantine I have what should be completing the boesemani school, 2 juvenile females (got the gender right this time, think they are slight hybrids with a red, probably Irian Jaya, though)
And the weekend just gone I started my new 400l with the following:
Saturday -
4x celebes rainbowfish (2m 2f)
3x pearl gourami (1m, 1f, 1???) - I will be posting a photo up of the ??? soon, as it is closer in size to the other female, but I'm unsure as it seems to be pesting the other male a bit, and has a longer dorsal fin than the other female, but doesn't have an obviously frayed anal fin like the larger male.
Sunday -
4x sterbai cory
4x emerald catfish
4x celebes rainbowfish
End goal, I will up the numbers of the corys and catfish, and put the fish from the other two tanks in resulting in:
9x boesemani rainbow
10x sterbai corys
8x emerald catfish
11x celebes rainbowfish
3x pearl gourami
Aqadvisor suggests this is fine, slightly understocked, I figure with a heavily planted tank and can easily add more filtration as and when I need I can have a few more, was thinking celebes halfbeaks to fill out the top some more.
But, if I have indeed ended up with 2m 1f pearl gourami, I'd like to address this - I think I'd have a devil of a time trying to catch the smaller male and swap him at my LFS for a female, plus I feel really bad taking a fish out of my beautiful tank and sending him back to the shop to go who knows where, so if there's no pressing reason not to (prepared to remove one male if aggression gets bad, better that than one killing the other or making its life a misery) I'd like to just add more females. I could give up on the halfbeaks/other top dwellers and have a small school of pearls (as they spend most of their time at the surface), say 2m5f. Having had the pearls for a day or so, they are amazing fish and I think a larger number of them would make them as much as a centerpiece of the tank as the boesemani will be (man those boesemani REALLY look amazing once they grow out)
Oh fyi I'm on hard tap water hence this stocking is aimed at fish that should be fine with it, aqadvisor suggests my upper ph is 7.8 and my tank usually is just slightly above that.
I'm going to post a more specific thread on my pearl gourami question but just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts or just wanted to say what an awesome stock list this is and how amazing it will look.
Photos will follow once/provided the fish have all settled in happily - new tank stockings always make me nervous.
Cheers
