Advice On Settling In New Fish Please

I was previously cycling a 75 litre tropical tank but I have gone out and bought a 200 litre tank complete with fish, filter , everything. How do I help them to settle into their new home?
My husband wants to put the lights on but I thought I read somewhere to leave them off for the first day is this right?
It is a community tank and one of the residents is a shrimp, not sure what kind it is but it's quite small and pretty much see through with done dal colouring. Will he be ok on his own or should there be a few shrimps together?
My water is soft but where they came from it is slightly hard. Should I add something to the water when I do a water change or will the fish adapt to my water? Luckily we took with us every drop of the tank water so they are ok for now just need to know for future.

Forgot the shrimp.

Most shrimps do better as a group. Does the original owner know what it was? There are some pics on here to help ID it.

They do better with shrimps of the same species, or at the least, the same genus. Cherry shrimps are Neocaridina; tiger, crystal red etc and amanos are Caridina (amanos are now C. multidenta rather than C. japonica as in the database on here); ghost/glass shimp are Paleomonetes.

The problem you might have, even if you find out what yours is, could be locating more of them. In that case, don't worry too much. My last amano has been by himself for several months now and doesn't seem to be suffering.

In that case, I'd just keep it as the one shrimp.


For IDing fish, you could post some photos on here and we can see what we can come up with between us.

What have you got?

As Richard said in the other thread some tanks are horribly stocked: fish that shouldn't be kept together, fish with totally different water requirements, fish that are too big for the tank, shoaling fish in ones and twos (though that can be due to the rest of the shoal having died)

Once we know exactly what you have, we can maybe suggest some ways of dealing with the fish.

200 litres, that's what - 3.5 or 4 feet long?

As you no doubt realise, the rainbowfish, tetras, loaches (except the sucking loach) and rasboras all need to be in groups of at least 6. Either the previous owner was one of those who get a couple of this, a couple of that; or these fish are the last survivors of larger shoals and could possibly be quite old.

Serpae tetras are well known fin nippers. They are less trouble in large groups when the aggression is more between themselves, but they are still nippy fish. I had some once, but not for long.

Red eye tetras also have the reputation for fin nipping.

The sucking loach is another nasty fish. As they grow, they stop eating algae and develop a taste for the slime coat of other fish. They also get quite large and need a tank at least 150cm long.

The ruby shark (aka rainbow shark) needs a tank at least 120cm long. The only problem with this fish is when it is kept with similar looking fish, or other bottom dwellers.

Clown loaches need a tank of at least 180cm long. Despite being a bottom dweller, Seriously Fish does report that clown loaches can form an alliance with the shark!

Yoyo loaches, sometimes called Botia lohachata, sometimes B. almorhae. Seriously fish recommends a minimum tank length of 120cm.

Plecs. I find these very hard to identify. Some will stay small, others will grow enormous, and there is the risk that yours are juvenile huge ones. Have a look at planet catfish see if you can recognise any pictures.

Swordtails and platy. These fish can interbreed, and a male of one will chase a female of the other. You need either all the same sex or more females that males, in your case 1m 2f.



Water conditions.

The rainbowfish, swordtails and platy all like hard alkaline water. The rainbowfish likes it warmer than most other fish.
The rest will cope with quite a range of pH, from low to around 7.5 and there are no fish that must have soft water. They will all cope with anything other than very hard. Of these remaining fish, the gold barbs prefer it a bit cooler than the others.



What to do.

If this was my tank, I would definitely rehome the clown loach and sucking loach. They both need a bigger tank, and the sucking loach could damage the other fish.
I personally would also rehome the serpaes and red eyes, because I don't like nippy fish.
I think I would also rehome the rainbowfish as its needs, both water and temp, are so different from everything else.

If you got more of: black neons, black phantoms, lemon tetras, harlequins and barbs (to have six of each in total) they, together with the shark, would bring you to just about half stocked. Then there are the plecs. These will add a lot to the bioload of the tank and could wipe out the other half of your stocking allowance at one stroke. And possibly push you well over 100% if they are one of the big species. Try to find out what they are, and if necessary rehome them too.

The swordtails and platy (provided the sexes are right) should be OK with the other fish, and won't add much to your stocking.




Or alternatively, rehome everything and get your choice of fish.

Could hunger be causing the rainbow fish to be a pest ? I have been feeding them a small amount if flakes everyday and the had frozen blood worm about 3 days ago. I am primarily a horse keeper so if I go by horse behaviour they can get into trouble when they are hungry . Fish could be nothing like that though!

So having got rid of the loaches. Still got the sucking loach and the shark at the moment. I bought 4 mollies 2 harlequins and 2 black phantoms . The mollies because they looked nice and the others to boost the numbers of my existing groups up to 4 of each. I'm getting quite find of the rainbow fish , would it be a mistake to get a rainbow fish friend for it? Not sure whether it would be wrong to attempt to keep mixing between the cooler barbs and the hot rainbow.

The problem is the temp requirements of the rainbow, and their need for hard water. Despite liking them, I would opt for rehoming it. The alternative would be another tank that you can keep warmer.

Yes, rehoming a fish can just mean passing the buck to someone else, especially if it is taken by your LFS. Who knows where it might end up?