Aquanano 40 - 55 Litre

Hi y'all,

We have the following fish in our tank:

2 Black Phantom Tetra
3 Red Phantom Tetra
1 Cory Sterbai (Alan)
1 Peppered Cory (Marty)
1 Cory Agassizi (Oscar)
2 x Red Flame Gourami (Joey and Lola)

Tetras and Agassizi added first. Then other corys later. This weekend saw the additions of the Gourami.
Any advice to some budding aquarists would be appreciated! We have had the first fish since 6th July 2013.

Just added some moss balls and floating plants to the tank where we already have live plants and bogwood. We already have a bubble nest (The day after adding the floating plants, 3 days after adding the Gourami) - we're not quite ready for the fry yet!

Hi Gilkins,

Resa has just about covered everything I would have said.
She refered to cycling - depending on how you did that you may be fine or you may have problems coming. Shops and tank manufactureres very rarely tell you anything useful about cycling. This is the process of growing bacteria in the filter which remove toxins from the tank. One species uses the ammonia secreted by the fish as food, and turns it into nitrite, the second species uses that nitrite as food and turns it into nitrate. It takes several weeks to grow these bacteria in sufficient numbers to keep both ammonia and nitrite in the water at zero.
Most shops won't tell you about this, or they'll tell you to add bottle bacteria. But the majority of these bottles don't work.

If you just let the tank run, then got the first fish, it is quite possible that you had ammonia and nitrite in the tank for a few weeks. It has been a few weeks since then, so you may have enough bacteria by now. But if there was either of the two toxins in the tank at the beginning, the fish could have been affected and be more likely to become sick.



Resa mentioned the number and type of fish you have, and I agree. Apart from the gouramis, you have several shoaling species in numbers that are too small. Shoaling fish are those that live in groups of hundreds, if not thousands, in the wild. When there aren't enough of them, their instincts tell them that the rest of the shoal must have been eaten so they are constantly looking out for the predator. This is very stressful, and stressed fish get sick very easily. It is reckoned that fish lose count around six, and any number at or over six is regarded as a shoal. So to be 'happy', you need 6+ red phantoms, 6+ black phantoms and 6+ of each of the three cory species. Yes, you need 18 cories if you want three species.

I've looked at your post in this thread, and the one in Resa's thread about her gourami, and I can find anything about your tank size (though of course it does take me a couple of hours to wake up properly in a morning and I might not be seeing what is written there  )
Both black phantoms and red phantoms need a minimum of 70 litres and a length of at least 60cm. You'll see in those links that at least six each are remommended, with at least 10 of each being better.
Cories need a tank with a biggish footprint - that is a long rectangular tank rather than a cube shaped one.

I wouldn't worry about any fry from the gouramis - the chances are the tetras would eat any eggs before they hatched, and certainly any fry once they got big enough to swim on their own. The biggest risk is the male gourami attacking the female if he wants to breed and she doesn't.

Can I ask a silly question? You definitely have a male and female gourami? Some shop workers don't know the difference. If both your fish are red, you have 2 males. Female dwarfs are silver with a hint of colour.

Yep - I have one of those, a lovely tank with great filtration..... but frustratingly small. I have 5-band barbs (x9); cherry barbs (x5) and guppies (x2) in mine. I did have a honey gourami in there as well but he popped his clogs a few weeks ago.

DJT has one of these, too, and I think he has/had different stocking to me.

Hi All

Thank you for your advice - it is really useful.

Before embarking on setting up our aquarium we sought lots of advice from our LFS and various forums as a result we think we cycled the tank properly and have a mix of bottom, middle and top swimmers. All seem to be getting on well with the both red and black phantoms schooling together and the Corys seem to be pretty friendly as well even though different species    We went for dwarf/small species as we had done some research in to what was appropriate for our tank. We have got various live plants including moss balls and Amazon frogbit floating plants. Mr Gourami seems to have taken it upon himself to take the roots off to build himself a bubble nest!

Thanks DJT for the advice on the filter sponge. One question is how is it best to get the pump out so that we can clean it. Ie screwing, pulling etc. It seems quite stiff and we are worried it might get damaged.

We are doing another gravel clean tomorrow but want to be careful not to over clean. What is the recommended gravel clean frequency and to what extent?

We appear to have a really thin film of algae building up on the inside of the tank. It is easy to wipe off but would it be best to leave for the fish?

Thanks again for all your advice, it is really helpful!!!!

One question is how is it best to get the pump out so that we can clean it. Ie screwing, pulling etc. It seems quite stiff and we are worried it might get damaged.

Colin may have some advice on this too from experience?

I clean the pump during a water change. I take the outlet head off 1st, then i put my hand into the filter section where the pump is and pull the pump it upwards. Sometimes a suction cup will come off but they go back on fine. Then I take apart the pump and clean it in some of the tank water I have removed. The pump is robust and ive had no issues with mine. Once done i simply lower it using the green pipe, push it down a little so the suction cups fix in place and put the outlet head back on. I hope that makes sense, trying to picture how I do it, seem to go on auto pilot without thinking what im doing normally

Evening all.

Have taken Resa's advice and did a good gravel clean in one area. Luckily our fish aren't too messy so we have been doing a 30% change on the weekend and everyone still seems quite content!

Will have a go at doing the pump next time. It just feels so fragile, really worried we will snap it. I am not really sure what DJT means by a green wire..... I am pretty confident that we don't have one of those?!?!?! Please forgive our tank ignorance!!!

There are a couple of brands that are very cheap to use - the bottles may cost more but they go a long way. The first is Seachem Prime - but I think the company has banned Ebay and possibly Amazon sellers from selling it. The other is the one I use - API tap water conditioner. It removes chlorine and heavy metals, but it doesn't contain aloe vera or anything else to 'stimulate the slime coat' - I don't like that. It also contains nothing to detoxify ammonia so it isn't good for people who have chloramine rather than chlorine in their tapwater.
Other than that, look at pond dechlorinators as they are more concentrated than the same make for aquariums. With your sized tank, you'd probably need a syringe to measure it though.