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kayla.l.ryan

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Apr 27, 2014
Messages
3
Location
Galesville, WI.
Hello everyone!

I am wondering how I am doing with my tank. I'm new to this :)

I have a 55 gallon planted tank... I use 216W HO T5 lights. I have to marineland 350 filtration systems.
Use a heater to keep water at 79 degrees. My water quality seems good with 30% water change once a week

PH: between 7-7.5
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
GH: 60
KH: 80


I do put 1 tablespoon of aquarium salt per 5 gallon.

Stock:
9 neon tetras
7 von Rio tetras
2 oto cats
3 clown loaches
3 ram - 2 blue, 1 gold
2 paradise gouramis
1 angelfish

I am new to this... Got our tank set up and cycled about a month ago and finished adding fish today.

Does this look OK? Am I maxed out on fish? Is there anything else I should consider doing/adding?



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I am making assumptions based on several things I am seeing so please let me know if I am wrong about something.

Well some thoughts on your overall situation:


Stocking -

Paradise gourami - They are aggressive fish and don't really fit with your stock of more peaceful community fish. I would suggest returning them both. At the very least you will need to return one of them because they will gleefully fight each other.

Oto Cats - These are a highly sensitive fish that really should only be put in mature tanks as they tend to die quickly otherwise.

Clown loach - they get far too large for a 55g tank. I would suggest returning them or rehoming them.

Rams - Only stick with a pair or they will generally fight and kill each other otherwise. 1 male and 1 female pair for the smaller tanks such as the 55g.

Angel - Get him a mate! :brows:

Parameters - Since you don't have a reading for ammonia I am going to assume you are using the test strips. Imho you will need to buy liquid tests ASAP as your tank is possibly still cycling since you are showing 0 nitrates. Your ammonia could quickly build up to toxic levels killing your fish in short order. The plants can help with this but It doesn't look like you have enough plant material to do the job.

Salt - Skip it. It's not necessary.

Light - 4t5ho bulbs is an extreme amount of light for a new tank. Unless you are heavily dosing excel, ferts, and co2 then you are going to run into problems with algae. Imho I would only run two of the bulbs until you get the plant / fert situation figured out. (I run 4t5ho on my planted 55g and am having a heck of a time keeping the algae demon at bay)


My biggest piece of advice to you is to do a lot of research before adding things to your tank. Most of us learn the hard way and don't seek advice until there is a problem... Like I did :whistle:

It looks like you have the beginnings of what can be a fantastic tank. I am looking forward to seeing you around :)
 
Hey!! Thanks for the advice! My ammonia is 0. We did have an ammonia and nitrate\nitrite spike about 4 weeks. We spoke to the local aquarium owner who gave us a filter from his tank to help with the cycling process and within a week all of our levels were good (although there was a pretty algae bloom in the process) :)

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Hey!! Thanks for the advice! My ammonia is 0. We did have an ammonia and nitrate\nitrite spike about 4 weeks. We spoke to the local aquarium owner who gave us a filter from his tank to help with the cycling process and within a week all of our levels were good (although there was a pretty algae bloom in the process) :)

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

Ahh, that's good to hear :) I lost far too many fish due to lack of knowledge and those darn test strips. They really need an ammonia tab.
 
I have the "mastertest kit" that I use weekly but when we had that nasty algae bloom I bought the strips because they are so much quicker for daily monitoring. I have seen the 6-1 strips before I believe but when I went looking for strips I couldn't find them...

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Be careful salting the water with your loaches, they don't like it and can make them sick. Your tank looks great!!
 
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