Newbie - MY FIRST TANK! Please help!

[efisher]

Hi ALL,

Yesterday I have purchased my first aquarium a Jebo r331 ( JEBO Aquarium Parts & Accessories Importer and Wholesaler: R3 Series Curved Glass Aquariums). This is a 20L aquarium. I have 2 main queries:

1.) How many fish and what type of fish I should get? (I am still not sure if to get a couple of guppies only or else if to add some zebras, some neon tetras, a small catfish (scavenger) and some glass shrimps. If I add the other fish would they eat the guppy fry?

2.) I am having a problem setting up my aquarium filter as I was supplied with ceramic rings and there is no place to put them in the top filter. Should I place them under the gravel? (I have attached a diagram of the filtering system.)

Thank you,

 

[neilanh]

Welcome to AA!

Please read the articles in my signature about the nitrogen cycle and fishless cycling, those provide invaluable information for your new tank.

Fish choices are really up to you. Try to stick to smaller fish since you have a somewhat small tank.

The ceramic rings can go anywhere in there that you can cram them. Don't put them under the gravel, for them to be beneficial they need to be in the filtration somewhere where there's a decent amount of water flow.

 

[Alaris]

This is a 20L aquarium. I have 2 main queries:

1.) How many fish and what type of fish I should get? (I am still not sure if to get a couple of guppies only or else if to add some zebras, some neon tetras, a small catfish (scavenger) and some glass shrimps. If I add the other fish would they eat the guppy fry?

20L ~ 5g
All of those fish would be too many for your tank. You could get a couple of guppies, OR about 5 neons, OR shrimp. Cory cats and oto cats like to school and you could add 2-3 with the guppies or the neons. And guppies tend to eat their own fry as well as other fish might. I don't think neons will, though. You don't really want more than 1 or 2 fry to survive in a small tank anyways.

You don't want more than 5 fish in your tank, and it's better if you only kept maybe 2 or 3. Of course this all depends on the adult size of the fish, the adult aggression of the the fish, and the messiness of the fish.

Please read the articles in my signature about the nitrogen cycle and fishless cycling, those provide invaluable information for your new tank.

I agree.

 

[JohnPaul]

Zebras (I assume you mean Zebra Danios) are very active, fast swimmers...a 5 gallon tank is simply too small to hold them.

Some stocking possibilities I could think of...

* a single betta (male or female)
* a half dozen or so White Cloud Mountain Minnows
* a handful of Endler's Livebearers
* 2-3 guppies
* a pair of killifish

Besides any one of the above, you could add to it some sort of a bottom cleanup crew. I'd suggest a few shrimp--ghost shrimp or something more colorful like Red Cherry Shrimp (RCS) or Yellow Shrimp--for that, or perhaps one (or several) colorful snails. Or maybe something like 3 small cory cats, though I think that is less ideal because corys are schoolers and really ought to be in groups of 6+, yet 6+ corys is too small for a 5g tank.

The only potential issue with the Endler's or guppies is that, assuming you have a mix of males & females, you are going to have babies...and lots of them. Which is fine if you have some way to offload some (give them away to others with larger tanks, or have a LFS that is willing to buy them from you), but not fine if you just keep them all in your tank because before you realize it you're going to have 30 fish swimming around in your little 5 gallon tank and the thing is going to crash and everyone will die. So if you're going to mix pink & blue , make sure you have something to do with all the purple.

 

[efisher]

Hi,

Thanks alot to all for your immediate and useful help!

 

[neilanh]

20L - when I read that I thought he meant a 20 gallon Long tank - whoops!

 

[JohnPaul]

20L - when I read that I thought he meant a 20 gallon Long tank - whoops!

Yep, I had the same sort of reaction at first..."does he mean 20 long, or 20 liter?"