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Beginner

confusedman

Member
Joined
30 Jan 2021
Messages
151
Location
London
Hello everyone

I have never owned fish before. and this is my very first thread in UKAPS.
I feel a bit overwhelmed cause everyone seems to be very technical so please be patient with me.
We bought a small tank, a Aquael Leddy 60

We have a piece of drift wood, fourf little rocks and gravel
Plants: 1 Anubias Barteri, 1 Hemiographis Colorata, 1 Ophiopogon Japonica Pussilus and 3 Anacharis
Fish: 1 Angel fish, 1 Platty, 1 Swordfish, 1 Albino Corydora, 2 Electric Blue Ram, 1 Silver Molly, 1 Black Molly, 1 Dalmatian Molly, 3 cardinal Tetra, 1 Honey Gourami and 3 male Guppy

Tank has been running from Monday, temperature set to 26 degrees. Plants introduced on Thursday. Fish were placed yesterday.

Any general advice welcome.

Specific questions

1- can we introduce a few shrimps, if yes, what type and how many?
2- can we introduce snails, if yes, what type and how many?
3- are the number of fish we have suitable for the size of the tank? could we add more?

Thank you in advance for your help!!


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Hi confusedman, snails are a good option for beginners in any tank as part of a clean up crew. I've had a nerite for a few years now and he does a good job of keeping the glass clean. Personally, I wouldn't introduce shrimp until I'd become a bit more used to how my water behaves in my tank.

As far as stocking goes, i'm no expert but it does seem quite heavily stocked for the size of tank you have.
A good starting point is https://aqadvisor.com/
If you put your tank dimensions in and select your filter or an equivalent one with the same turnover ie how many lph it will give you a capacity for how many fish you can have safely in the tank. You can then add the species and quantity of fish you want to introduce and it will tell you when you're getting close to maximum capacity for your tank.
The one thing you want to avoid in any fish tank is ammonia spikes and with a lot of fish in a small tank, it won't take long for waste to build up and cause these ammonia spikes. Changing water and using a water conditioner such as Seachem Prime will remove waste products with every change.

One thing that does slightly concern me is you're tank has been running from monday and you've already got a large volume of fish in there. Have you cycled your tank with some old filter media?
 
Hi
Welcome to the UKaps!
Hemiographis Colorata, Ophiopogon Japonica Pussilus.
The above plants are not aquarium suitable....they will foul your water!
Remove them asap and put them in plant pots.
Have a look at this thread below!
 
Hello please return the angel fish to the store you bought it from. The tank is too small for it and they shouldn't really be kept alone. I would have expected any fish store to have advised against it. In terms of time the tank has been running. This is not long enough for the filter to be mature. You are risking fish loss if you are not adding beneficial bacteria. Again I would have expected the fish store to have advised against adding fish so early. Its frustrating you haven't been given better advise as its is very simple stuff and common mistakes with new fish keepers. If you keep your angel fish you will need at least a 200l aquarium as they grow very quickly. Also take the advise above on the plants.

Other than that welcome to the forum. I hope fish keeping becomes a hobby you love as it has for me over many years
 
Welcome, it's good to have you with us at the beginning of your planted tank adventures :)

It's a nice looking set up, but I'd definitely advise you to do some reading, it'll help you continue your journey in the right direction. There are plenty of good beginners aquarium guides, for instance The Complete Aquarium Encyclopedia of Tropical Freshwater Fish was my bible growing up, it's a bit dated but still one of the best books on the subject I've ever read. And George's book might be a good option if you want to start aquascaping.

It's a shame, but very few fish stores can be relied upon to offer good advice. Many of the folk running them aren't very well informed themselves and will nearly always put their bottom line above animal welfare etc. For instance selling plants that are not aquatic and unsuitable fish.

But you've found the right place to learn; there is a lot of information and help to be had on UKAPS. Perhaps start by looking at the Tutorials page and trying to get to grips with some of the information there ;)
 
Hi confusedman.
First things first don't panic.

As others have suggested you definitely need to to start doing some research regards ideal tank sizes, water conditions, stocking levels and group numbers for the various types of fish you have in there.
The angelfish is definitely going to have to go back at some point and I'd be surprised if the rams make it to Easter, they're quite sensitive fish at the best of times and really shouldn't be added to immature tanks.

For now whilst you read up and gather your thoughts you need to start doing water changes, I'd suggest about 30% to 40% every other day for now and treat with seachem prime.

Don't forget ~ Don't panic.

Cheers.
 
Welcome confusedman, it's nice to meet you, I'm a fellow Londoner!

Sadly I think that you have missed some fundamental concepts which are extremely important in fish keeping, and are what makes an aquarium a liveable place for fish. Your LFS should have helped you with this before you bought all those fish, so it's understandable that you wouldn't realise. If you can, you should make some big changes for the sake of those beautiful fish.

The first thing you need to know about is cycling/maturation. This is a process which takes a month or longer, where you grow a colony of beneficial bacteria in your aquarium. These bacteria digest waste (also called ammonia and nitrite), and so keep the water from being toxic for your fish to live. You have not gone through this process, so your fish are all in danger of suffering and even dying. If you don't want to return all your fish, and want to keep them safe, you should do 30 - 50% water changes (using your tap water and dechlorinater) ideally every day, or every other day for the next month. If you know anyone IRL with an aquarium, ask them for some filter media from their aquarium, this will help grow your essential colony of bacteria.

The second thing is that you must research every fish before you buy it, my favourite website for this is https://seriouslyfish.com/, and AQ Advisor . Many of the fish you have already bought are too big, or will grow too big for your tank. Several of these species also need to live in larger groups, you shouldn't just keep one. Different fish need different water parameters (in London we have hard water), which makes some better suited for your water supply than others. You should return the angelfish, the corydora, the rams and the tetras if you can, as all of these species are not right for your tank - they are difficult for beginners with particular needs, and also need a larger tank. The guppies and mollys might be hardy enough fish to survive the cycling process, they are happy in hard London water.

The third thing which you have started (which is great), is that a planted tank is a stable, beautiful tank that both you and your fish will love. The two species in the right of your tank are not actually water plants, they should be taken out, but the other two are great and should thrive. You should look at ordering some new plants from a website like aquarium gardens - Aquarium Plants from Aquarium Gardens UK | Live Aquatic Tropical Tank Plants. I suggest that you look at floating plants, epiphytes (like your anubias) which don't need soil, and cryptocorynes, which like our hard London water. If you keep some of the fish you have, adding lots of plants will help them a lot by keeping the water cleaner, and providing a nice habitat for them. The Soil Substrate or Dirted Planted Tank - A How to Guide How to plant a low-maintenance Nature Aquarium

If I were you I would ideally look at returning all the fish (or as many as possible), so that I could cycle the tank, add and grow new plants, and get it really balanced and beautiful. During this time of waiting I would research the fish I wanted a lot more, really work out what few species you love which are not too big, and like London tapwater, and get these once your tank has matured. For example, you could definitely keep some lovely cherry shrimps and snails, as well as one or two of the species of fish you have now in slightly larger numbers. I live in SE London, I'm happy to give you some filter media & floating plants to help if you are close and wanted to pick them up.

I know this may feel very overwhelming, as there's lots to learn. I personally visited the forum for the first time last year after accidentally killing my first fish and not understanding why, but now my tank is well balanced, and my fish are happy and breeding. It's definitely worth doing more reading and changing it up, even though it seems like a lot of effort it's worth it!
 
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Wow, thanks for all of that. I am feeling already guilty.
I purposely avoided Pets at Home because for the rest of the animals they are famous for not having a clue. So I went to my local Aquatic shop and I asked them what to do and I followed their instructions. They told me I could get up to 30 fish and I decided to be cautious and have only 16. I bought all of them in one go but even thought they mention the Angel might outgrow the tank in 3 years they didn't say anything about keeping any of the fish in pairs/groups.
Regarding the plants, I both the two wrong ones in quite a big Aquatic shop in North London (again it wasn't a "pet shop" but a Aquatics only shop).
Ill se what I can do. Ill keep reading.

Thanks again
 
Nothing to feel guilty about whatsoever, to be honest the blame lies with the aquatic shop you visited.
If you can't return the fish for whatever reason, google 'fish in cycle'. Its a method of cycling that will help you mature your tank while having fish in there. I've never tried the method myself but it is an option. As shangman mentioned earlier though, I would be looking to return at least some of the larger growing/less suitable fish back to the store.
If there's anything you need help with along the way, you'll find plenty of people here willing to help.
 
100% agree with CalRe, you did your best and followed advice you thought would be right, and it should have been! It isn't your fault - it is the shop, who did nothing to help you at all. This is the downside of the aquarium hobby - not every shop is ethical enough to give you good advice. Luckily, we are all here to help :)

That shop might be following the rule of 1cm of fish per cm of tank (so they said you could have 30 fish, that would mean 30 2cm fish), but that is quite an outdated way of thinking about it now, there is now a lot of information on the internet about many different species and their particular needs, we can work out a better way of stocking our aquariums. On the other hand, they could just be charlatans trying to sell you as many fish as possible!! When you buy fish for your aquarium, it's best to buy a few at a time, 1 species at a time so your tank doens't get overwhelmed. Totally weird that they sell non-aquarium plants to go in tanks.

Let us know any more questions that pop up :)
 
I purposely avoided Pets at Home because for the rest of the animals they are famous for not having a clue.
That's fairly ironic, my local P@H shop is very strict about animal welfare, they require customers to register and run a gauntlet of questions. But most couldn't give a monkey's
 
Welcome! :)
It's so infuriating when people get bad advice from shops. :mad: You certainly should NOT feel guilty.
You've got lots of good advice above, and a kind offer from @shangman, if you can take him up on it, - a bit of matured filter medium would get your filter off to a flying start and floating plants are a great help too.
The more partial water changes you can do the better. Remember to treat the new water with tapwater conditioner. The one called Seachem Prime also neutralises ammonia which is good.
Don't panic, you will get it sorted out and we will help you. :)
 
Hello Shangman
Excellent stuff, we appreciate the input and you personally trying to rectify a bad situation!:thumbup:
Cheers
hoggie
 
Welcome,

This is unfortunately seen far to often in this hobby, and as many have said before this is not your fault. The shop have given you very bad advice and you followed it by putting your trust in them. Stick with your posts on this site, a huge wealth of knowledge and guidance here from all different levels of understanding.
 
Confusedman picked up some filter media and a few plants from me earlier, and very kindly gave me a bottle of wine for it :)

Hopefully it'll make a good difference!
The wine was nothing, I was so relieved that we could do something to improve the environment. Thank you for the advice and the filter media and plants!!
 
Well done @shangman and @confusedman

Even with some cycled filter media, I’d still try to do daily 25% water changes ... or 50% alternate day water changes, or 25% alternate day water changes, or 30% third day water changes ... in other words, lots of clean water means healthy fish :)
And it’s much easier to change water than to treat sick fish, and you’ve a good number of fairly big fish in there - really the shop should be charged!

You can also feed fish alternate days (ignore the pathetic begging)
Feed only very small amounts of food - much less than you think the fish will need (most aquarium fish are overfed) - with those types of fish, food should be all gone in ~10sec (NOT a minute)
Fish won’t get sick or die from short rations for several weeks, and you can gradually move to more frequent feedings (most fish benefit more from twice daily small amounts than a single larger feed)

It will be somewhat of a challenge to ensure sufficient food for that single Corydoras but wait until the aquarium has settled in (at least 2-3 weeks) before feeding bottom foods such as catfish pellets (which are usually meant for a group of Corydoras not a single fish)
Of course most of your other fish will want to help eat that wonderful catfish pellet, dropping the pellet in when the tank is well dark (and room has been dark for at least 30min) should help ensure your Corydoras gets enough food - you can just feed this twice a week, a healthy Cory will constantly scour the bottom for food

Unfortunately those pebbles will allow food to sift through to the glass bottom, so you’ll need to use a decent siphon tube to clean out food and fish waste
There are loads of videos on various ways to do this, but Cory and the Aquarium Co-op team have some skills ;)
(and that’s probably much like the gunk you’ll see as your aquarium settles in)

 
Fish: 1 Angel fish, 1 Platty, 1 Swordfish, 1 Albino Corydora, 2 Electric Blue Ram, 1 Silver Molly, 1 Black Molly, 1 Dalmatian Molly, 3 cardinal Tetra, 1 Honey Gourami and 3 male Guppy
Angel fish - return when possible

Swordfish - return when possible, he should get quite large for this tank (you could keep a small group of fancy linebred swords which remain much smaller but these are also quite delicate expensive fish)

Molly - different colour variants may have quite different breeding (many domestic lines of molly, sword, platy are hybridized to varying degrees) so size can be more variable AND they can be quite successful breeders so you’ll soon have multiple generations (if you’ve both sexes). Depending on your particular fish, they may easily grow 4-6inches, and they are largebodied (unlike many tetras) ... again I’d likely return these eventually
The blacks often remain smaller and are slower growing

Guppy- these are perfect for a 60cm (54 litre aquarium) and you could have a good sized group, eg, 10-12 boys
(if you add girls, then you should keep 2-3 females per male, and will soon be overrun with millions of guppies)

Tetras - these should be kept in groups of at least 10-12 (some species are happy intermixing but most do best as species groups)

Corydoras - these are usually happy in single species groups of 6-8, they vary somewhat in size (length and depth) and preferred temperature, water parameters etc so check out particular species you’re interested in
(they prefer a group of similar looking fish if you want to do more than 1 species)

Honey gourami - should do very well in this tank size but again they’d like some company (I’d keep at least 1M 2F, note that “red robin” variant is a hybrid that grows larger and is often more aggressive)

(all these fish notes are just my opinion! read them - or not - and then make your own choices)

It’s quite usual for first time fishkeepers to end up with a tank of “singles” and most fish manage just fine :) - just check for compatibility and be prepared to isolate (and rehome) fish that aren't doing well
Dealing with a shop that accepts returning fish, makes it much easier to explore the hobby

The most important thing is that you have fun and enjoy your new hobby
 
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Feed only very small amounts of food - much less than you think the fish will need (most aquarium fish are overfed)
That's a good point @alto.
@confusedman ; it's very different to feeding people, or dogs, cats etc. A large part of what we eat is fuel to keep our body temperature constant. A fish's body temp is controlled by its environment so it doesn't need nearly as much food. Also, most of what we eat is largely water, whereas most fishfood is dried, so a flake contains much more nutrition than a piece of, say, cabbage of the same size.
That's me just trying to emphasise, - VERY small amounts of food are plenty. It can be hard to get your head around this.
I know there's a lot to take in at first, but it will all come together. :)
Don't get down-hearted. Please keep us updated with developments, good or bad.
You're on the way to a nice tank there, with the way you've arranged the wood, Anubias and Anacharis.
 
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