Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => General Fishkeeping advice => Topic started by: glitch74 on June 12, 2017, 10:23:35 AM
-
I have a 25g tank with lots of plants and lots of hidding places, so far I hsve in the tank
7 male guppies
2 male platys
3 rams
2 sterba corys
4 otocinclus
1 female betta
but what to get next?
-
One thing stands out from that list - you need to get at least 4 more sterbai cories and 2 more otos. Both of these are sholaing species, and cories in particular need to be in a fair sized group.
Once you have increased those fish numbers, you will be fully stocked.
-
If I can't get sterba corys will other breeds of corys suffice....
-
Cories prefer their own species but if necessary another species of similar adult size would be OK.
With two cory species, should you ever have eggs that actually make it through to adults there is a possibility of them being hybrids. Should you ever have fry grow up in your tank and you want to move them on, you would need to make it absolutely clear that they could be hybrids. Passing hybrids off as pure breeds is highly frowned on.
-
but what to get next?
More fish tanks! ;D
-
You seem to have hard water and soft water fish together...
Rams being soft water and the livebearers being hard water.
I'd advice thinking about matching any future purchases to your water parameters for better long term health.
My meaning is not to have a rant but to give some steer for which way to go with your stocking...
-
I live in a hard wzter area, but so far my rams seem to be doing well, I've had them 3 months now and they seem to be growing and have formed a pair,
they're starting to get a bit territorial so I'm hoping for some eggs.
-
My electric ram
-
Wish you all the best with your rams... they can be tricky fish but they are a favourite for me. Absolute characters and beautiful.
You may find tours have a shortened lifespan as the hard water will affect their liver function. Do you know your water hardness from your water company website? I can advise if you are in their preferred range or not...
-
Degrees clark 18, degrees german 15, calcium carbonate 260ppm. Does that help
-
That is pretty hard for rams, even those that have been tank bred for many generations. Seriously Fish recommends no more than 10 German deg, 179 ppm (aka mg/l calcium carbonate)
-
I've got some tetra kh minus so I might give that a go
-
Please do not add any chemicals to the tank. They only increase total dissolved solids (TDS) which is the opposite of what you want to do.
It is GH that needs reducing not KH. The only way to do that is by diluting the water with pure water such as RO water. if you do go down that route, the water needs diluting slowly at first to give the fish chance to acclimatise.
-
Thanks sue