Nearly at the end of my fishless cycle...

[LozzyBear]

Wry excited now!
So I was just wondering what kind of fish I should be going for...?
I like the guppies, mollies, tetras... But I've read that guppies don't go well together in a tank...
I also want to get a couple of pleco's too

Can anyone offer me some good, compatible fish to have to start with?
I know tetras can be quite difficult, but there's some lemon tetras that I like the look of in my local pet store

Thanks in advance for any help, it's all welcome!
I'm a complete newbie so any help is awesome ^_^

LozzyBear x

[LozzyBear]

Supposed to start my sentence with "very"... Oh dear spellcheck. Sorry guys

[LozzyBear]

I actually meant guppies and mollies. I'm not sure what compatability goes with the tetras. Sorry, I probably should've read what I wrote through first before posting :p

[librarygirl]

What size tank?

[LozzyBear]

It's 3ft by 1ft.

[Pton46]

Originally Posted by LozzyBear

It's 3ft by 1ft.

Strictly Guessing you probably have a 30 gallon?

How "tall" is it? it is a Foot deep right?

You can get a nice assortment in a 30 gallon once I transfer my Africans to their 55 I am thinking some GBR's and Bolvians Rams (Dwarf cichlids to give you an idea).

[butterfly_koi]

Originally Posted by LozzyBear

I actually meant guppies and mollies. I'm not sure what compatability goes with the tetras. Sorry, I probably should've read what I wrote through first before posting :p

I have a 29 with emperor tetras, guppies, platies, a neon tetra, and balloon Mollies and they all get along great. I think it all depends on the type of tetra. Some tetras are more aggressive than others

[LozzyBear]

It's 36 inches lengthways, 12 inches width ways and i think it was about 17inches for it's height/depth so it's about 120 litres/or 26G

[librarygirl]

Guppies are fine together but if you get a mix of males and females they will breed often and overrun the tank with babies so have a backup plan if you want both sexes. Mollies and guppies don't generally go well together. Mollies are also large messy fish so they'll take up a lot of your stocking space limiting what else you can put in there.

You could do something like:

6-8 lemon tetra
2 brislenose pleco (get a smaller species of pleco like bristlenose; do not get commons) - note that plecos need real driftwood to munch on for digestion
1 dwarf gourami (as a centerpiece if you like)
4-6 guppies (I'd suggest all males)

What filter do you have on the tank?

[LozzyBear]

Sorry about the REALLY late reply! Stuff just got on top of everything!
Anyhoo, I have a fluval filter that was suggested to me by the pet store. It's got enough capacity for the tank anyway.

[LozzyBear]

Also, my dad and I went to a pet shop and bought some fish. I didnt want to as the levels in the tank weren't quite right, but he was getting annoyed at just looking at the empty tank.
We went into the store and bought:
2 plecos
5 guppies
2 MOLLIES
And then we got an extra fish in the bag with the plecos for free that just got caught in there, but I don't know what it is.

Anyway, now I only have the mollies, plecos and the random left.
Reading up on mollies I've read conflicting stuff about them getting along with guppies or they bully them or the guppies bully the mollies.
The speckled mollie bullies all the other fish in the tank, and it kept eating the guppies tails, then they would eventually die.
It even picks on the other Mollie in the tank now.
It can't catch Random as it's too fast.
I've been and bought more plants and more decorations with hidey holes in for the fish to hide in but I'm worried that the Mollie will just bully any other fish...
What do I do? :s

Thanks in advance

[LozzyBear]

Also, if Mollies and guppies don't get along then why did the petstore sell them to us...?

[librarygirl]

Originally Posted by LozzyBear

Also, if Mollies and guppies don't get along then why did the petstore sell them to us...?

To get your money, unfortunately. Some LFS don't care about the fish, they just want to make a sale.

So the molly killed all the guppies? If it's that aggressive see if you can return it to the store.

What kind of Plecos are they?

Can you post a pic of the random fish so we can ID it?

[LozzyBear]

Stupid pet shops...
Yeah I'll try to get it

[LozzyBear]

And yes, I think the Mollie did. Or could it have been that the water was at 8.2ish? Is that pH too high for guppies?

[librarygirl]

Originally Posted by LozzyBear

And yes, I think the Mollie did. Or could it have been that the water was at 8.2ish? Is that pH too high for guppies?

No, fish willl adjust to your PH. How did you acclimate them? If you just floated the bag and then put them in the changes in water parameters from their tank at the LFS and yours could have shocked them but if all 5 died and their tales were frayed it's possible it was the Molly. Hard to say for sure.

[Bettafanatic]

WAAAY to many fish to add at one time! You shouldn't just buy everything and drop them all
In there. It should be distributed between intervals of 3-4 weeks so the bacteria can catch up.

[librarygirl]

Originally Posted by Bettafanatic

WAAAY to many fish to add at one time! You shouldn't just buy everything and drop them all
In there. It should be distributed between intervals of 3-4 weeks so the bacteria can catch up.

Normally, yes, but when fishless cycling with ammonia you can add all of the fish at once at the end; because of dosing ammonia at such a high level there is a lot of bacteria which can support a full load of fish.