Elsabe
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
I bought a 60litre (13gallon?) tank about 3 months ago and I must admit I made a big mistake by trusting the shop ownwer to know everything! I didnt do my homework beforehand cause I thought he would know best, being in the business for 35 years and all so I ended up with the wrong fish. At least he told me to wait two weeks after putting natural bacteria into the water and only gave me the fish and plants after he tested the water PH and nitrates, but he failed to tell me I cant put tap water into the tank so I ended up with some fatalities. I think there was a disease that got into my tank from the tap water. These days Im doing my 10% water change a week with bottled spring water and the remaining fish seems to do fine. What I have left in my tank now is 1 Marble Angel male, one cory, 4 mountain minnows (2male 2female) and 2 Bala sharks (I know now that he shouldn't have given me those for my size tank so I hope to get a bigger tank once I get the hang of this or give them away as soon as they get too big)
Now my question is, what to introduce next and when... My last platy died a week ago and they all had the same disease that I cant find on the net... They got skinny and their backs all arched... Not in an s like fish TB so I have no idea what it was. How long should I wait to make sure the disease is not in the other fish? None of them show the first signs (fins tucked in and hiding behind plants) yet.
As to what fish.. I thought of getting my male angel a friend again... Hes such a sweetheart and i feel so sorry for him. Then also another cory friend for my cory. After that I would like to have some more colour fish as none of these I have left has any colour. Im scared to have platys again as they really suffered from this disease... Do you think if i get them again they will get the disease again? I really loved them! The guppies seemed to fight with some of the fish... Dont know who cause i never saw any fighting, they just started to loose parts of their tail fins and then the rest of the fins and then they died. At first I had a male and a female and when they died I got two males who died the same way. One actually just vanished. Could it be fin rot? I did treat them with green medical fin treatment and salt but they died too soon to see a difference.
Also when I start to introduce new fish, how many should i bring in at a time? And how many can I get? All my fish are still very small so Im thinking of stocking to 13 fish, then they still have some growing space as I have a 13gallon and a few smaller than 1inch fish like minnows and corys... Also keeping in mind I absolutely wont keep the Balas forever in that tank so thats minus two for later??
So basically i think I have space for 5 more?? So can I first bring an angel (male or female??) and cory, and then later 3 platys??
Ps sorry I know this post is very messy
Now my question is, what to introduce next and when... My last platy died a week ago and they all had the same disease that I cant find on the net... They got skinny and their backs all arched... Not in an s like fish TB so I have no idea what it was. How long should I wait to make sure the disease is not in the other fish? None of them show the first signs (fins tucked in and hiding behind plants) yet.
As to what fish.. I thought of getting my male angel a friend again... Hes such a sweetheart and i feel so sorry for him. Then also another cory friend for my cory. After that I would like to have some more colour fish as none of these I have left has any colour. Im scared to have platys again as they really suffered from this disease... Do you think if i get them again they will get the disease again? I really loved them! The guppies seemed to fight with some of the fish... Dont know who cause i never saw any fighting, they just started to loose parts of their tail fins and then the rest of the fins and then they died. At first I had a male and a female and when they died I got two males who died the same way. One actually just vanished. Could it be fin rot? I did treat them with green medical fin treatment and salt but they died too soon to see a difference.
Also when I start to introduce new fish, how many should i bring in at a time? And how many can I get? All my fish are still very small so Im thinking of stocking to 13 fish, then they still have some growing space as I have a 13gallon and a few smaller than 1inch fish like minnows and corys... Also keeping in mind I absolutely wont keep the Balas forever in that tank so thats minus two for later??
So basically i think I have space for 5 more?? So can I first bring an angel (male or female??) and cory, and then later 3 platys??
Ps sorry I know this post is very messy