Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => New Fishkeepers => Topic started by: fruitbat on January 28, 2014, 09:41:36 AM
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hi everyone.. when starting up a new aquarium does putting live plants in benefit the fish or will artificial ones be ok.
i am thinking of stocking with mainly tetras, guppys, mollys etc .i have a 64 litre tank and over the next week will start stocking with 6 fish per week up to a max of 30 fish.. any advice would be welcome , thanks
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From the point of view of feeling safe, it doesn't matter what the plants are made of as long as the fish have enough to hide in if they feel threatened.
But real plants can help with water quality. They don't have to be anything fancy. I can't grow most plants but java fern thrives in my tanks. This is an easy plant, it doesn't need strong light or CO2 etc, and it grows fastened to decor rather than planted. I have it fastened to most of my wood and plastic ornaments.
I would not follow any rule that says you can have a certain number of fish in a tank. You need to take into account the size of the fish and their bioload (some fish poo a lot and all that waste means the fish have a high bioload for their size).
Mollies will probably get too big for a 64 litre tank. Guppies will be fine as will tetras that grow to a max of 5cm. Use the Community Creator (found in the all the fish profiles) to see what will fit and go with the other fish - but don't get as many fish as it says you can have.
You won't be able to add fish every week unless you do a fishless cycle with ammonia first. If you choose to do a fish-in cycle, you will add the first batch of 4 fish (the maximum I would go with for 64 litres) then test the water twice a day, doing a water change every time you have a reading for ammonia or nitrite. This could mean at least one water change every day for a few weeks. Only when both readings stay at zero without needing water changes will you be able to get more fish - and that will be several weeks later.
If you decide to go ahead with a fish-in cycle, please near in mine that guppies and neon tetras are delicate fish and may not survive.
This is how to do a fish-in cycle safely (http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,17.0.html)
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Plants do benefit fish considerably, but to grow them you need to give them a fair chance. I now have 10 densely planted tanks in which the plants are thriving with minimum effort. I only have "ordinary" fluorescent lighting and no CO2 injection, so don't believe those who insist you must have enhanced lighting and extra CO2 to grow plants successfully. What plants need first and foremost is a decent substrate. Again, no need to buy ridiculously overpriced substrate additives. Mine is very simple, an inch of garden soil on the bottom, topped off by another inch of sand or gravel. Don't be afraid of soil. It stays under the top layer and won't make your tank or water dirty. I've found plants really thrive in this. However, it's best to restrict yourself to "easy" plants. Those which I've found to do best are Hygrophila polysperma and H. difformis, Rotala rotundifolia, Sagittaria subulata (doing much better than Vallisneria) with Echinodorus tenellus as a dwarf plant for the foreground. Cryptocoryne, and Java Fern or Anubias attached to bogwood, are OK, but they grow pretty slowly so I doubt if they are very useful in terms of improving water quality.
If you just put an inch or two of sand or gravel in the bottom of your tank and stick your plants into it then you are greatly reducing your chance of success. In nature, such substrates are invariably devoid of plants and one can hardly expect plants to succeed in such unsuitable conditions.
I can't do better than the following quotes from Diana Walstad's "Ecology of the planted aquarium".
"Essential to my natural aquarium is moderate lighting, a substrate enriched with ordinary soil, and well-adapted plants.
Hobbyists can protect fish from toxins by hard work, e.g., frequent water changes, gravel vacuuming, and enhanced filtration. However, given a chance, plants can purify the water naturally and effortlessly for the aquarium hobbyist. In my opinion, the ability of plants to purify aquarium water and protect fish has been woefully underestimated.
Using soil in aquariums is a strong ideological barrier for many aquarium hobbyists. Here, I mean soils that ordinary gardeners grow plants in— garden soil (i.e., topsoil) or potting soil.
Tanks with a soil layer and healthy plants will remove ammonia naturally, so bio-filters are unnecessary and possibly counter-productive.
Artificial fertilization with CO2, trace elements, and macronutrients is unnecessary if the tank contains a fertile substrate, the fish are fed well, and nutrients are not removed by over-zealous tank cleaning."
I suggest one must decide from the beginning whether to have a planted aquarium or not. I suspect most problems occur where people don't consider the requirements of the plants before they decide how to set up their tank, then try to grow them as an "added extra".
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I forgot to mention floating plants, which can be extremely useful and very easy. My favourite is Amazonian Frogbit Limnobium laevigatum. I bought a second hand tank which came with some fish, several mixed tetras. Having nowhere to put them for a couple of weeks, I brought most of the tank water home with me and put the fish back in their own tank. When I moved them to a fresh tank later, I noticed that they livened up greatly. I tested the old tank water and found the nitrates (only) were very high. By way of experiment, I put 20 frogbit plants in the old tank and left it for a couple of weeks, just with normal lighting and filtration. After a fortnight, I counted over 50 plants, most of which were already full grown, a remarkable rate of increase. Shortly after, I noticed the roots of the frogbit were becoming much longer, growing from about 2 to 10 cms in a week or so. When I tested the water again, the nitrates had dropped dramatically. I've lost the data, but levels were lower than in my tap water. Clearly the roots of the frogbit were growing longer in an attempt to extract more nitrates from the water. I'd read about this but it was quite impressive to see it in action. The root length seems a pretty good indicator of nitrate levels.
So even if you don't have a planted tank, I'd strongly recommend floating plants. As their leaves are in contact with air, they are not constrained by CO2 in the water and can therefore take advantage of excess nutrients in the water more easily than submerged plants. And if they spread too much, you can just net the surplus out and put them on your compost heap.
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Richard, would you recommend frogbit over Salvinia and water lettuce?
I had some Salvinia in my tanks for about three years then it nearly all died last summer. I did manage to save some thanks to Natalia's advice, it seemed to be coming back well then it died completely in the autumn. The duck weed also died off at the same time. I was removing dead brown plants from the tank every day where a couple of years ago I was putting handfuls of lush green plants in the compost every month.
I tried some water lettuce, bought that in October, and it just dwindled to nothing over about a month. Either some of my fish have suddenly developed a taste for floating plants or I'm doing something wrong.
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wow that is a lot of info, thanks for the advice guys..i will have a re think of which fish to put in and maybe buy a few plants to see how they get on.. thanks again
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It can be a steep learning curve! Very few shops or tank/filter instructions will mention cycling, for example - that's the name for the process of growing bacteria in the filter. And stocking can seem more like an art than a science. Will this fish be OK in that tank, will these two fish get on, do these fish need to be in a shoal or will they be OK as a single specimen, do these fish need hard or soft water, and so on. Then, as you have found, there is the question of plants. Some people are so keen on plants that fish are secondary.
Here are a couple of links explaining the two processes of cycling (growing bacteria in the filter)
with fish (http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,17.0.html)
fishless (http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,483.0.html), that is before buying any fish
There is a fish database on here, under fish profiles in the top menu. At the bottom of each individual profile is the community creator. Fill in details about the tank then add fish to the virtual tank. It'll flag up any warnings about the fish you choose. You have to register separately from the forum if you want to save your fish list.
For fish that aren't in the database here look at seriously fish (http://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/)
Don't believe what any shop worker says about fish, and what will go in your tank. Too many of them will say anything to make a sale. Go and look at all your local shops but research before you buy. If the fish's name doesn't come up with a match ask them for the latin name, which should be on the invoice from the wholesaler.
There is a lot to learn at the beginning, but I promise you it does get easier.
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Sue
I have yet to try Salvinia, it's on my list for later. My experience with water lettuce was like yours. Strangely, we used to grow this many years ago when the only tank light was a 60 watt tungsten bulb and it used to grow like crazy! The only other surface plant I've tried is the Water sprite Ceratopteris thalictroides. As a floater, it survives and gets bigger but is very slow to propagate. It grows well when planted.
I checked on the frogbit in my tanks and realised that it was doing much better in some than others. At first, I couldn't work out why. However, I have now concluded that it might be the filtration. It is doing badly in those tanks which have most water movement and agitation at the surface, while doing best in the tanks with the calmest waters. This makes sense as the natural habitat of floating plants must be in still or slowly flowing waters. Perhaps they don't like moving water? In addition, in one tank the water movement tends to carry them to the back, where there's not much light because of the tank design. If I don't move them out from time to time, these go brown and die off.
The other floating plant I forgot is hornwort, not a surface plant but drifts around under the surface. I like it because it provides shelter for fish but doesn't cast too much shade on the plants below.
It might also be worth mentioning that I don't fill my tanks to the absolute maximum level, as this brings floating plants too close to the hot lights which seems to cook them1 I just keep it a centimetre or two lower which seems to make all the difference.
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Natalia suggested that when my Salvinia started going brown last summer it was because of the heatwave, and condensation dripping onto the leaves combined with the heat. I left the lid flaps open during the day and the die off stopped until much later when it started dying again.
My largest tank (125 litres) does have quite a strong flow, it kept the Salvinia down at one end. I had the java fern at the filter end and silk plants under the Salvinia. When it reached the bracer bar across the middle, I used to throw some in the compost bin or it would have taken over. The Salvinia turned brown when it died, the duckweed went white.
The water lettuce just seemed to vanish into thin air. I never saw any dead leaves, they just disappeared. I did wonder if some of my fish ate that plant.
I used to have hornwort in my 60 litre tank, I wrapped it round the decor and let the stems drift. The tank sprung a leak a couple of years ago; I had to move the fish into the quarantine tank till I got a replacement tank and lost the hornwort then as there is not light on the QT. I might give it another go.
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hi guys, just thought i would let you know how i got on, i now have 5 platys, 3 phantom tetras and 3 rummy noes tetras and four danios. i have also 6 plants in my tank.. as sue said it is a big learning curve and i have only lost 1 fish in the 9 weeks i have been doing this… i do have a problem with nitrite and ammonia at mo ( did have it perfect for a while )and a low ph of 6 but trying to work through it with plenty of testing and water changes. i even left them for a week while on hols and had an auto feeder and my daughter popped in twice to make sure they ok.. its hard work to start off with but very rewarding :-)) thanks for your input and advice :fishy1:
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Your low pH won't be helping. At below 6.5, most bacteria don't function properly, but it is possible to grow enough viable ones to eventually keep your ammonia & nitrite under control. The process is very similar to the way medicine resistant bugs grow - the majority are affected by the low pH (or meds) but a few will be able to cope and they will survive to mulitiply and produce more bacteria capable of living in less than perfect conditions.
The alternative is to raise your pH. How hard is your water? If it is very soft, you can increase both hardness and pH slightly by using something made from calcium carbonate in your tank - limestone rocks, pieces of coral, crushed coral in the filter, possibly even shells. Calcium carbonate dissolves slowly, increasing both GH and KH over time. The other thing you could try is using remineralisation salts of the type used with RO water (Tropic Marin freshwater remin salts or Kent RO right). With this route you would need pH and GH testers until you learned how much to add with each water change.
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Glad to hear things are going well for you.
With regard to your Platies.... if you have a mix of male and female then you'll soon have baby platies everywhere and they'll need re-homing. If you have just male platies, then expect them to start fighting as they hit 'puberty'. It's a bit like teenagers in Newcastle really! ;D
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Ooooh getting a bit close there Colin. At least you didn't say teenagers in Middlesbrough ;D
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Ooooh getting a bit close there Colin. At least you didn't say teenagers in Middlesbrough ;D
...only 'cos it's more difficult to spell :))
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hi, thanks for advice,i have a 30l tank with 2 goldfish in and ph 6.5 isn but my tropical tanks (60l) and ph is 6 (light yellow on my ph chart scale)so maybe i have something in my tank that is making it low, any ideas..i have heard of crushed coral,so what would i have to do with it if i got some as i would like to raise it to at least 6.5. thanks ps i tested mains water that had been left in a bucket for 24 hours and it was 6.5 ish..
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hi, im not sure what the platys are so will have to wait and watch, bit like being a teenagers dad!! :rotfl:
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hi, im not sure what the platys are so will have to wait and watch, bit like being a teenagers dad!! :rotfl:
:))
Platy naughty bits:
(http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd82/Mwahahahaa/Sexinglivebearers-1.jpg)
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looks like i have boys but hard to tell on the little ones!! just wait for the fun to start then :rotfl: thanks colin for info
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Things like bogwood can lower pH, especially if you have low carbonate hardness (which is likely given your tap water pH). Carbonate hardness, ie KH, buffers water against pH changes and if there isn't much of it, the tannins that leach out of wood can drop the pH quite a bit.
Something else you said does worry me
i have a 30l tank with 2 goldfish in
If they are fancy goldfish, ie fish with double tail fins, they need 70 litres for the first then 40 litres for each additional one, so your two goldfish need a 110 litre tank at the smallest. If they are commons or comets (single tail fin) they need bigger tanks again or a pond. When fish are kept in a tank that's too small they get stunted which leads t deformities and other health issues.
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hi sue, i have no bog wood,just a few live plants.. i just changed 25% of water and re tested ph after about 2 hours and it was 6.4(a light green on my chart) so something is reducing it but don't know what.. i clean and vacuum up on a regular basis and temp is 25 degrees.. any ideas sue :) as for my goldfish,my grandson won at a fair so i housed them in my 30l tank but are going in my pond when it gets a little warmer .. (little single fin ones )
:)
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That's how I started with fish, my sons won some goldfish at the fair. And they were in a 25 litre tank at the beginning, moving to 60 litres a couple of months later :-[ The fair is at the end of October; by the following summer they hardly fit in the tank and we gave them away to someone with a pond. They do grow very quickly as I've seen so make sure you get them in the pond as soon as temperatures permit. Then you can keep a betta in the 30 litre (with a heater of course) ;D.
Back to the pH problem. Can you list everything that is in both tanks ( though just fish and plants will do for those). Substrate and decor are the things we need to know to see what exactly is causing the pH difference. Since the tapwater that's stood 24 hours and the 30 litre are the same, what is in the 60 litre that's doing it?
What are you using to test the pH - make and strips/liquid/tablets?
What is the lowest pH level on the tester's scale? If 6.0 is the lowest colour, the actual pH could be even lower.
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hi sue, in my tropical tank i have 4 live plants and 2 plastic ones and 2 decor barrel and cannon thingy.substrate is red gravel from pets at home, in my goldfish tank all same but no live plants( they ate them a while ago!!) so in all nothing much different. i use a api liquid tester for my testing and yellow is lowest ph colour and my colour when testing is a light yellow :-[.. i have some crushed oyster shell someone gave me to put in,will this help .. thanks for your time
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I use the API pH tester too; your pH could be below 6.0 as if it drops off the bottom of the scale it will continue to show the colour for the lowest figure on the scale.
Curiouser and curiouser ???
So the only difference is the live plants or lack of them. OK, next silly question (though you might already have told us, apologies if you have) - what is the nitrate level in both tanks? And your tapwater nitrate as some regions have a tap nitrate pushing the legal max of 50ppm and that needs to be taken into account. Live plants do use nitrate as fertilser, and they use ammonia which stops the nitrate getting high in the first place. Nitrate is acidic and very high levels can lower the pH.
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hi, nitrate is about 5 in both tanks, no nitrite in goldfish tank but 1 in tropical fish tank.. ammonia was .75 in tropical and 1 in goldfish if this helps( these were my last test results on friday )..just retested ph in both tanks bearing in mind both had water changes on friday and cleaned, tropical 6 (yellow ) and goldfish 6.4( light green) its baffling me i can tell you.. but all fish seem happy feeding and active!! ( nitrates in normal tap water was about 1ppm and ph was 6.6)
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The nitrite and ammonia could be affecting the pH in the tropical tank. Nitrite is acidic and ammonia is basic so they pull the pH in opposite directions depending on the proportions of each one. But they are both bad for fish. At your pH, the ammonia reading won't be a problem - ammonia exists in two forms in water, toxic ammonia and less toxic ammonium. The lower the pH the more that is in the less toxic form. But nitrite is more toxic at low pH than high pH so you really need to get that down below 0.25, preferably zero, by extra water changes. Once both ammonia and nitrite stay at zero, you might well find you pH sorts itself out.
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hi sue, i normally clean and 25% water change once a week in both tanks, what would you recommend i do to get nitrite and ammonia down and would you put in extra bacteria, thanks
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To get them down you need to do a water change as soon as you see a reading above zero, and as big as necessary to get them down to zero. 25% a week is for when ammonia and nitrite are at zero, and is to remove nitrate and other chemicals which have built up, and to replenish minerals etc which have been used up.
At your pH, ammonia won't be a worry unless it gets quite high, but nitrite is a worry.
Adding bacteria is not really an option as most of those bottles don't work. The vast majority contain the wrong species of nitrite eating bacteria and some contain the wrong ammonia eaters too. The only one easily available in the UK that does contain the right species of both bacteria is Tetra Safe Start, but even that doesn't work if it has been stored incorrectly at any time since manufacture.
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ok,. will give them regular changes and see how we go on, thanks sue. :)
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hi sue, update on my tank, i got nitrite down zero and nitrate to about 1 ( yellow) ammonia about .25, after a week should i be getting a low reading on nitrites and nitrates as i more or less get nil on the readings ,i thought i might get some sort of reading i.e. .25 or something like that.. just want to make sure i have bacteria and its working,
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Don't worry about nitrate. In a cycled tank that is rarely zero. So long as you make sure it doesn't get into the 100s. And the test kits are only ball park anyway - you need a lab for really accurate results.
Your ammonia could well be zero as some test kits are very hard to read that low. Unless your pH is very high, it will be fine at that level. At lower pH it is nearly all in the less toxic ammonium form.
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well ill keep plugging away with it, its very rewarding when you manage to get the water in good condition though can be quite time consuming :-) thanks
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hi, its me again, my aquarium is running great at the moment and very happy with how its going, just love watching them swim around on an evening,even have named a few!! i have just a problem with my cold water tank, i now have some cold water platys and were ok to start with but now just lay on bottom of tank or hide and thats all 4 of them, i have 5 other tiny fish in with them and seem ok, tests ok and ideas sue , thanks
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How cold is cold? With the two common platy types (and most in the shops have both species in their ancestry) Seriously Fish recommends a minimum temp of 20oC. If your tank is colder than this, I would suspect they are too cold. A few years ago, I had two bolivian rams in my quarantine tank and unknown to me, I had managed to crack the heater. I finally noticed the water was cold. The fish were behaving exactly the same way you describe the platies.
What are the other fish in with them? They might cope with low temps better.
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hi, its 20 c, but since i messaged you i noticed they had various things wrong with them and gave them some no 9 antibiotics and they swimming around now though not fully fit they getting there, i also noticed some bullying going on too so i will keep an eye on mr bully !! i have some little white clouded mountain minnows (5) in there with them and they doing really well.. my other tank is fab, really love looking after them. takes me back to my childhood watching my dad looking after his tropical tank.. :-)) thanks for your help again .
:cheers:
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I've been running my heated tropical tank at 21/22c with no I'll effects for the fish so 20 should be easily warm enough for 'temperate' fish. It does sound like something else is likely to be the cause given that your other fish are fine.