Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => General Fishkeeping advice => Topic started by: uv on October 16, 2018, 11:42:05 AM
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As my tank is now cycled I need to think about adding more fish in batches. I wanted to seek your expert input so I can get the right/amount fish to my tank. I have 54 liters, 60x30x30 cm tank with an internal filter and gravel substrate. I have both live and artificial plants. I am living in hard water area and my GH is between 8 to 15 dH and PH on average 8.4.
At the moment I have 4 male guppies in the tank. I am looking for:
4 male platies
2 to 4 honey gouramies (either male or female but not mixed)
I am also interested in the below fish; not limited - but not in large groups
mollies
female betta
Otocinclus
Corydoras
Hillstream loach
Any good suggestions?
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With your hard water, honey gouramis (https://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/honey-gourami.html), otocinclus (https://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/otocinclus.html) and cories (https://www.thinkfish.co.uk/article/corydoras-catfish) are not a good choice as they are soft water fish.
Mollies (http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/article/guppies-and-molly-tropical-fish) are too big for a 60 cm long tank, I'm afraid.
Hilstream loaches need a strong water flow, while guppies with their big tails need a slow water flow.
Betta females can be just as aggressive as males, and the guppies would be at risk with those long tails.
Now that I have totally destroyed your list, here are a few small hard water fish.
The platies (https://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/platy.html) could work, your tank is right on the minimum size for them
Celestial pearl danios (https://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/celestial-pearl-danio.html) A shoal of at least 10, but not if you get platies as these fish are very timid and platies could well stress them being so much bigger. CPDs need lots of hiding places, real or fake.
Celestichthys erythromicron, sometimes sold as emerald rasboras. But not with celestial pearl danios as they are related and could interbreed (google the Latin name for more information)
X ray tetras (https://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/x-ray-tetra.html) are OK in hard water, and your tank is the minimum size for them
If you aren't put off by creepy crawlies, shrimps and snails do well in hard water. Cherry shrimps are the easiest species, and nerite snails make wonderful algae eaters.
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Thanks Sue, Indeed my list gets destroyed! That's why I am here for advise.
How about Panda Cory - I believe they thrive in very hard water and a single male Dwarf Gourami?
The site profile also says Otocinclus can live in VH water.
I really need Platies so cannot choose CPDs.
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I like Cherry Shrimps but cannot withstand of their growing number. Snails are not my choise, sorry!
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Don't get dwarf gouramis unless they have been bred locally. Virtually all dwarf gouramis in shops were bred in the far east and they are known to be infected with dwarf gourami iridovirus and some sources also say they are infected with tuberculosis. The iridovirus is incurable and results in the death of the gourami a few months after purchase.
Panda cories are OK up to hardness 12 degrees. Can you pin down your hardness as 8 to 15 degrees is a large range. Have you looked on your water company's website? if you can find it, make a note of the unit as well as the number. Panda cories need a group of at least 6 with 10 being better.
Otocinclus are OK up to 10 deg hardness. However, they should not be added to a new tank; they need to wait till the tank has been running at least 6 months and has algae growing. Some individuals will never eat any other kind of food and without algae they can starve.
Otos commonly just die shortly after purchase. This is because they are not fed properly between capture and the shop. They have bacteria in their intestines which help them digest their food, and if they starve too long these bacteria die. then no matter how well fed they are, they cannot digest the food without the bacteria. When buying otos, wait until they've been in the shop at least 2 weeks so that the weak ones will already have died when you buy them. Choose the specimens with nice rounded tummies. You'll need at least 6 as they are shoaling fish.
Personally I like both shrimps and snails, though I do appreciate they are not everyone's cup of tea :)
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This is what I get from my water company https://www.affinitywater.co.uk/docs/water-quality/TV046.pdf. The Total Hardness they say includes KH as well. My tank GH never beyond 13 and KH always 20. The PH is 8.4 while its 7 is what my water company says.
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The hardness is expressed as mg/l calcium carbonate. Those doesn't mean that it includes KH. My son used to work for a water testing company and he explained what hardness means.
Hardness is the amount of divalent metal ions. In practice this means mostly calcium, some magnesium and trace amounts of other metals. But they can't give a number with the unit being "mg/l calcium plus mg/l magnesium plus mg/l x plus mg/l y " so they give the number as what it would be if all the metal ions were calcium. They call this mg/l Ca (my water company uses this unit). But they also have a unit mg/l calcium carbonate which means this is what it would be if it was all calcium carbonate, and this is the unit your water company uses.
So after all that waffle, the number you need is 350 mg/l calcium carbonate. This unit is the same as ppm, so your hardness is 350 ppm which converts to 19.6 deg (or dH) - these are the two units used in fish keeping. This is very hard water, too hard for cories and otos, I'm afraid.
We do have other members with very hard water who will be able to help you - @Littlefish is one.
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Thank you for your advice, this helps! My test readings for Total Hardness (GH) never crossed 13 dH and for Carbonate Hardness (KH) always at 20 dH so I thought the Hardness mentioned in my PDF report could be of KH.
Let's wait if some one from hard water area could advise further meanwhile I could start with Platies.
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The entry in the table says "Hardness (total)" which means GH. If they had an entry for KH it would be called alkalinity. UK water companies rarely give KH.
Hardness and KH (alkalinity) are measured by different test. Hardness cannot include KH in a water company's tables.
GH - they measure the total amount of divalent metal ions, and call this total hardness.
KH - they measure how much acid it takes to lower the pH to 4.5, and call this alkalinity.
GH is what used to be called permanent hardness, KH is what used to be called temporary hardness as it can be destroyed by heating.
Amazing what we can learn from our children ;D
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The entry in the table says "Hardness (total)" which means GH. If they had an entry for KH it would be called alkalinity. UK water companies rarely give KH.
Hardness and KH (alkalinity) are measured by different test. Hardness cannot include KH in a water company's tables.
GH - they measure the total amount of divalent metal ions, and call this total hardness.
KH - they measure how much acid it takes to lower the pH to 4.5, and call this alkalinity.
GH is what used to be called permanent hardness, KH is what used to be called temporary hardness as it can be destroyed by heating.
Amazing what we can learn from our children ;D
True, I completely agree!
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I forgot to ask - is there an upper limit for GH in your tester? If there is, it will show that highest level no matter how high the reading really is.
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Wow, someone with harder water than me. :o
Mine is 17dH. :)
If you really want platies, go for them. I've got some V. platies in my temperate tank. I would suggest a single sex group, otherwise you will have lots of babies in quite a short amount of time. Platies are also very colourful, and active in all areas of the tank, so it might be worth considering just platies, rather than a mix of fish species.
You could also consider a couple of amano shrimp. They are a lot bigger than cherry shrimp, but the numbers won't increase.
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I forgot to ask - is there an upper limit for GH in your tester? If there is, it will show that highest level no matter how high the reading really is.
Highest goes to 16dH but I use Tetra mobile app to read the readings for me so it tells the exact number.
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Wow, someone with harder water than me. :o
Mine is 17dH. :)
Thanks, I was waiting for your response. There will be always someone to cross. ;D
If you really want platies, go for them. I've got some V. platies in my temperate tank. I would suggest a single sex group, otherwise you will have lots of babies in quite a short amount of time. Platies are also very colourful, and active in all areas of the tank, so it might be worth considering just platies, rather than a mix of fish species.
I am going for 4 male platies with different colours/breed. I think I may have space for another 2 to 4 fish so I prefer having a 3rd specie. Any other recommendations like sparkling/crocking gourami, Gobies.....
You could also consider a couple of amano shrimp. They are a lot bigger than cherry shrimp, but the numbers won't increase.
I come across this, bit expensive but have in my list.
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I will have a look through some information that I have, to see if I can find some small fish that will be suitable for both your tank size and your water.
:)
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Your water is classed as very hard rather than just hard.
Sparking gourami max hardness is 215 ppm (yours is 350), croaking gourami similar.
Gobies - depends on the species. Some are brackish (ie slightly salty) and others are marine. But of the freshwater gobies:
Brachygobius sabanus, one of the bumblebee gobies (there are a few species of bumblebee goby, research before buying!) is OK at your hardness but is a small fish which may be intimidated by platies and out-competed for food
Brachygobius doriae, another bumble bee goby. Comments as for above.
There are other gobies that would suit your water but either they need a bigger tank or they would eat the guppies - there are comments about them being voracious eaters.
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How about a small group of endlers https://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/endlers-livebearer.html
Or even a few x-ray tetras https://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/x-ray-tetra.html which should be ok up to 20dH.
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How about a small group of endlers https://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/endlers-livebearer.html
Or even a few x-ray tetras https://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/x-ray-tetra.html which should be ok up to 20dH.
Endlers look too small for me. Sue suggested x-ray tetras before - looking at this several times I started likeing. Perhaps I should go for it! (assuming they don't fin-nip my guppies)
Thanks to @Sue and @Littlefish for you valuable advise!
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X rays are not on the known fin nipper list :)
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I think x rays will look great with platies. :)
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Community creator says they are fin nippers though they did not mention in the profile.
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I checked with another reliable website, and they don't mention nipping. I think the CC is a bit over cautious when it comes to things like this, possibly because fish that have a tendency to nip are more inclined to do so if there are too few of them. The CC had to be written to take into account those people who keep the odd one or two.
If you get at least 6, they should be OK - but don't overstock the tank ;)
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I checked with another reliable website, and they don't mention nipping. I think the CC is a bit over cautious when it comes to things like this, possibly because fish that have a tendency to nip are more inclined to do so if there are too few of them. The CC had to be written to take into account those people who keep the odd one or two.
If you get at least 6, they should be OK - but don't overstock the tank ;)
Thanks for looking into this.
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I've found that staff in LFSs tend to consider x-rays as fin-nippers and certainly wouldn't advise them with snails or some species of fish such as gourami. Having said that, often it boils down to the individual fish personalities. I have them, albeit in dwindling numbers now, and particularly like their striking fin colouring. In the 4 years I've had them, I've only been aware of one fin-nipping episode among their own species (quite recently) but I did notice that they hovered around my pygmy cories to avail of any debris they dug up - the pygmy cories did ultimately end up with tailrot but I can't be certain how much it was due to the x-rays inadvertently nipping them and how much it was due to their own species during mating. I think they are lovely fish, though, but would second the advice of my LFS that it's best to get more females than males - and I'd probably advise getting more than the 6 I had in my original shoal.