Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => General Fishkeeping advice => Topic started by: TraceyH on May 23, 2013, 10:33:37 PM
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Hi Everyone
I am new to this site but would really like some advice on restocking by tank
I am currently in the process of restocking my Jewel 180 Vision. It is a planted low tech tank and I currently have -
1 Dwarf Rainbow ( the lone survivor )
5 Amano shrimps
I have also just put in 13 Microdevario kubotai which I planning to increase to at least 20 in total.
Readings are Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrates 20 ppm and PH 8.0
I would love to add more shrimps maybe cherrys but I have heard the amanos would be aggressive - is this true?
Ideally I would like to add 5/6 corys, but not sure which to get, and another shoal of small fish.
All recommendations and advice welcome.
Thank you
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Hi Tracey.....and welcome!
I have a bit of a weakness for Cories......I would have 100's if I could! ;) I have just got some Panda Cories, who are absolutely gorgeous...and SO cute! I defy anyone to see them and not love them. They bumble about and you can't help but smile. :) Also, I have some Peppered Cories, and they are really pretty the way they shimmer, they also are really busy fish. There are loads of different ones to choose from depending on your tank and water conditions. Bear in mind also, that you really need to have a sand substrate if you have any Cories, so as to protect their barbels.
Anyway, IMO everyone needs Cories in their lives....remember too, that you need to get at least 6 for them to feel happy and secure.
Good luck and let us know what you decide on...and send piccies too!
Resa
:)
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Having added 4 more Peppered corys this week to my community tank i have to agree they are the cutest things and fun to watch.
Adding Red Cherries with Amanos should be fine. The Amanos are bigger and can get very aggressive during feeding, so just ensure that you put enough food in for all the shrimps and it should be fine.
I enjoy large shoals of small tetras (black neons) If you get 18 plus they behave differently to say 6 plus and are visually pleasing.
Good luck with whatever you decide
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I would just like to add - make sure you keep an eye on those ammonia and nitrite levels. You have gone from 1 fish & 5 shrimps to 14 fish & 5 shrimps in one go. That's a huge jump in bioload and it will take a few days for the numbers of bacteria to catch up.
Your pH is on the high side - is your water hard as well? If it is, you will need to choose fish from those that can cope with hard alkaline water. Some Amazonian fish don't do well in this kind of water, check on any species' requirements before buying.
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How do you feed shrimp without fish eating it all!? My fish have been after my poor shrimp's food all week and have developed gravel forraging to eat it!
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I have the same problem with my fish going after the corie's and oto's sinking wafers...greedy little things! :D
So, I drop more in, then worry about nitrate levels...stressfull, this fish lark ???
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That's the thing.. you dont want to feed too much because of water conditions! Very complicated ha
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I crunch flakes up small. Lots of bits = more time needed to find it all, so the greedy fish can't get round all of it before the slower fish and shrimps get some.
My main tank isn't a problem as all the fish are active food hunters and the amano shrimp aren't slow in coming forward either. The 50 litre has endlers (very fast to chase food) and pygmy cories which take ages to realise there is food in the tank. But they do find food on the bottom that the endlers miss - I feed crunched up flakes and crushed sinking tablets. Apart from the one I think I squashed :-[ the cories seem to be thriving so they must be eating something. This tank also has a lot of algae and the cherry shrimps seem to fine food particles caught in the algae.
The betta is a bit different. He's the only fish in the tank. I presoak his pellets in an plastic egg cup - he knows when I do that his food isn't far away and waits for me to drop them in one by one with a pipette. If I'm not quick enough he'll suck the pellet out of the pipette. He does that with bloodworm too; all I need to do is dangle the end of the worm in the water and he snatches it. Bettas are well known pigs when it comes to food ;D
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Thank you everyone for your comments. I really appreciate all your advice
I think Corys are really cute but am spoilt for choice :) I don't have a sand substrate though - would smooth gravel be OK?
I have quite hard water so am quite wary of what I choose for the other shoal which is why I was thinking Penguin Tetras. . .
Sue - I will not be putting anything else into the tank for a good week even though by new additions are tiny not even 1cm long at the moment! I think the next addition will be the shrimps so as not to overload the tank.
Resa - I will try and take pics but although my little fishes swim so fast they come out as a green blur ;)
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I did reply this morning, clicked 'post' and everything but it seems to have vanished. Oh well, see if this one loads.
Penguin tetras prefer acid water but they can cope with hard water so they may be OK in your tank since hardness is usually more important than pH.
Cories are OK on gravel provided it is smooth and rounded. And provided you keep the gravel clean. Cories are OK on sharp gravel in the wild, it's in tanks they seem to suffer. I do wonder if this is because in the wild any muck will be swept away by the stream while in tanks it can accumulate in the gravel, and could cause an infection in a nick from sharp gravel.
Raindowfish could be another choice. I know you have one surviving dwarf, but there are plenty of other species from the larger ones like boemani to featherfin rainbows and Pseuodomugils (http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/search/pseudomugil)
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I have looked at rainbow fish varieties and they are tempting but I really wanted to keep smaller fish this time around.
I have also been looking at the Golden Pencil fish as another option. What do you think?
It maybe that I revert back to my Dwarf Rainbows as they are lovely fish, my only concern is the old man in the tank maybe aggressive due to any new stock being quite small in comparison to him!
Thanks for all the pointers.
Tracey
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The Pseudomugils are small :D
Golden pecilfish would work. They have a different way of swimming and are interesting for that reason. In the shop tank the fish will be quite pale and it may be hard to see the difference between males and females. Males also have white tips to the fins on the underside, that makes it much easier to tell than just the amount of red on the fish.
I had some of these fish a few years ago. I found the hard way they can be sensitive to some medications. Another fish was not well and I couldn't decide what was wrong so I added Melafix and Pimafix together (it says you can on the bottles). Within an hour all six pencilfish were dead. I don't know if it was one med, the other or the combination that was the problem. API deny the internet rumour about pencilfish and these meds, but it did happen to me. Get them by all means, they are lovely fish, just don't use either of those 2 meds.
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Sorry I missed the link to Pseudomugils ;) I am sold, now all I have to is find them as I can't say have seen them locally.
Thanks once again for the tips it is really appreciated.
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Hi Sue
Do you think 2/3 Honey Gouramis ( 1M & 2F ) would be OK in this mix or a pair of Apistogramma cacatuoides?
I have had pearl gouramis before but think they are too big and will be tempted by the Green Kubotai Rasbora never mind the shrimps!
I love your Apistogramma cacatuoides and bettas but I don't think a betta would be a good idea in this tank. I can definitely see how people get MTS ;)
Thanks
Tracey
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The gouramis or apsitos could work - the main problem would be your water.
Of all the apistos, cacatuoides would cope best, though they might not breed. I have pH 7.4 but softish water (7 german degrees/125ppm with the API GH tester but 5 deg/90ppm on my water company's website). This is a common thing for south american fish, the ones that can live quite happily in hard alkaline water can't breed because the calcium that makes the water hard does things to the eggs. Although in a community tank the eggs, and fry if they last that long, would be eaten quite quickly. Fish that have been commercially bred will be more likely to do well in your water than wild caught ones. It is quite easy to tell the difference as with these cockatoo cichlids the wild ones don't have as much colour.
The only confliction might be if you did get cories and the apistos spawned. The female can get quite aggressive defending her eggs. But I have dwarf chain loaches, another bottom dweller, and my female apisto hasn't harmed them, she just chases them away.
Honey gouramis do prefer a slightly lower pH than yours but can cope with a hardness up to ~14 german deg/270ppm. These fish are all commercially bred, and it is very hard finding any wild coloured ones these days. I can only assume no-one breeds this colour as the female is silver-beige and people want colourful fish. Mine are the yellow form, and there is also red.