New Starter - Fish Advice

Hi everyone 

New to the forums (I've put a little introduction in the intro section of the forums ) feel free to have a look

I'm getting a fluval Roma 200 ( will be my first tank ) although I grew up with fish ,my dad had 2. 10 foot tanks with red belly piranha and oscars.

So like I  say I'm getting a fluval Roma 200 and I'm looking at making it into a planted peaceful community tank. My water details - which I will test myself at some point  (according the website is moderately soft at 22mg/L as calcium which is about 3.08 German de)

So the fish....
I've been looking at the fish fish profiles on this site and I've been into pets at home just to have a quick look, i will be using MA to get my fish as there is one close by, I'm going to go there soon as they will have a lot more fish to look at!

But at the moment the fish that have caught my eye, and would be okay in soft water are

Schools of fish -  I would love 3 to 4 schools of about 8 to 10 fish ( this is probably to many if so how many?)
  Harlequin rasbora
  Cardinal tetra
  Cherry barbs
  Rummy nose
  Black phantom tetra
  Some sort of Cory

Alongside with the schools of fish I would like a centre piece fish , the ones that have fought my eye are ( I know I could only have one of these maybe as a pair?)
  Electric blue ram
  German blue ram
  Honey gourami
  Opaline gourami
  1 male betta

These are just the fish that have fought my eye , and like I say I'm going to visit Maidenhead aquatics to get a better look at these fish and maybe spot some different fish that look stunning,  I would love your opinions on the fish I've listed and maybe if there are any fish u think I should take a look at that suit my conditions please let me know

Thanks in advance for your replys , look forward to hearing from you all
 
 

As per other thread, Matt's suggestion of Bolivian rams are an option. As for cories, pandas as you suggested would be a good, similar size to your proposed fish and I have a soft spot for the patterning of julii and false julii cories. However, cories have little concept of territory and so may fall foul of your proposed rams if a pair were to breed and become territorial re their fry. Bettas often, but not always, don't take too well to tankmates so it would be a risk having a betta in a community tank - others may be able to advise further on this.

As for sizes of shoals, have you tried using the Community Creator?

Edited to add: sorry - overlap with Matt's post. Texting/typing on my phone and takes an age!

I see you've added extra fish in this list 

My comment on opaline gouramis made in the other thread still stands, and to add that bettas are not community fish. If you really want one, find room for a small tank, somewhere in the 25 to 40 litre size is ideal for a betta on his own.

Since I've never had black phantoms, go with what TopCookie says 
Does your Maidenhead Aquatics have albino cherry barbs? I once had some from my MA, the orange males and yellow females are unusual, though a lot of people are put off by their red eyes.



There are 2 schools of thought about stocking a tank. One is "minimum number of lots of different species". This tends to be favoured by new fishkeepers, myself included when I started. The other is "big shoals of just a few species" which is where I am now. I have 2 shoals of at least 12 (I can't count them) - rice fish and Espe's rasboras (related to harlequins, and in the fish profiles on here as slender harlequin). Something to think about while you get the tank ready for fish 





What are your plans for decor? The shoaling fish you list come from rivers/streams with lots of overhanging vegetation and don't like bright light. They are much happier in a tank with floating plants. My Espe's rasboras huddled together in the back corner when I first got them. Then I read about floating plants and bought some water sprite. The rasboras came out of their corner but only as far as the edge of the plant cover. Now that the plants cover most of the surface, the rasboras are everywhere.
Gouramis of all species also like floating plants.

I think the second option would look great. The orange of the harlies would contrast nicely with the blue of the cardinals, and with shoaling fish the more the merrier. I would also go for more cories. Either another 8 pandas or 8 of another species.

Which colour morph of honey gourami? I have come across three. The wild colour is easiest to tell males from females, yellow ones are next easiest while the red variety (also called red robins) are quite tricky to tell apart.



If you intend planting the tank quite heavily, you don't need to do a fishless cycle. Plants prefer their nitrogen in the form of ammonia and they take it up faster than filter bacteria. And they don't turn it into nitrite, nor then on to nitrate. If fish are added a few at a time and the ammonia and nitrite levels monitored daily, provided there are enough plants it is likely that there will never be any ammonia or nitrite showing up. Floating plants are particularly good for this as the other two things plants need - light and carbon dioxide - are plentiful at the water surface.
Put the plants in the tank and wait a week or two to make sure they are starting to grow and not die. Then add half a shoal shoal of harlequins. If everything stays at zero for a week, add the other half shoal. It is usually recommended to buy complete shoals, but harlies are very peaceful and the first batch won't object to the second batch. I would then wait a couple of weeks before getting whichever group you fancy next.


Or do a fishless cycle with ammonia, then plant the tank. A lot of plant species can't cope with 3 ppm ammonia going in the tank in one dose. Fish make that much in the course of a day in continual tiny amounts not all at once.

They won't combat dirt - they don't eat that. But they will eat certain types of algae - nothing eats every type 
Amano shrimps are among the largest of the commonly available shrimps. Females do carry eggs but you will never see baby amanos. Amano eggs hatch into a larval stage which needs salt water to develop. This is because they get swept out to sea then once they've metamorphosed into the adult form they swim back up river.
If you want a self sustaining shrimp colony, look at cherry shrimps. they hatch into miniature adults and will survive unless they get eaten first.
Either wait till your tank had grown algae or feed them algae wafers or veggies such as a slice of blanched courgette.

You don't need algae eaters, but of you like the looks of a fish/shrimp by all means get some.


If you want something that will 'eat' dirt, Malaysian trumpet snails spend their days in the substrate eating fish poo and left over fish food, before pooping it all back out in a much smaller form. This then breaks down easier to provide plant food.



If you get slow growing, 'low tech' plants, you won't need to add CO2. It's fast growing plants that need a lot of light that need CO2.
But I am not the best person to talk about plants as although I have a lot they are all slow growers which are attached to wood rather than planted in the substrate - apart from the water sprite. Other members who have a better variety of plants will be able to advise you better 

I'm going to jump in on the plant conversation here.
The plants will be fine without CO2. I've been working with @Matt  on aquascaping my tanks. My priority is always my fish, so I wan't keen on CO2 addition. We've used easy Tropica plants, and they are doing fine.
If you want to have a look at what we've done, and get some more information on easy planting, Matt has a site
http://scapeeasy.co.uk/index.htm  and the tanks he's worked on for me are here http://scapeeasy.co.uk/advice.htm
There are arguments to say that the addition of CO2 provides carbon for plants in very soft water conditions. I recently met an ecologist at the fish store who told me that the plants labelled as "easy" are truly aquatic, and the medium and hard plants are actually marginals, with leaves growing out of water, which is why they require CO2. Today I was told by a member of staff at MA (who is a total plant nut) that it is partly true, but a bit ore complicated than that.
Personally I would tend to concentrate on the fish, use easy plants, and no CO2. You can always add a CO2 system in the future if you feel that it is necessary, but I would be reluctant to spend out on the kit for now.

thanks littlefish , this is all great info .

i will take a good look at matts site tomorrow , ive had a quick scan and it looks like i can learn alot!!

i really appreciate your advice on the "easy" plants about adding co2, ive read easy plants dont need co2 but they "look"better with a little. but like i say this could be them saying what i want to hear for me to buy their product.

i totally agree on concentrating on the fish , and have always been looking to use "easy" plants as i didnt want to be pumping my tank full of co2 and lot of light!

im going to try without co2

Finally getting round to this thread sorry... Friday night after a long week and all that!

CO2 basically means faster plant growth. Plants require three things, nutrients, co2 and light to grow. So if you have a tank with plentiful nutrients, high light and high co2 you will get fast growth. You will therefore have a lot of financial outlay on feeding all these three things into your tank and a lot of tank maintnenace to do as the plants need trimming each week. Conversely in a tank without co2, you need lower lighting levels and lower nutrient levels (excesses will encourage algae) and you get a far more stable system which you can sit back and enjoy bit more patience required maybe but otherwise there a few disadvantages (in my probably biased oppinion!). 

Happy to help with getting your planted tank off to a good start... had a look on my site and shout up with any questions!

Hi Matt, yes I feel ya, this week has been a long week very busy with work!!

I'm going to take a good look at your site tomorrow and over the next few days, when I was looking at plants I was thinking ' my god the plants are going to be more of an expense and harder to keep than the fish' but seeing what people have said I may have read to much into it, especially as I am only looking to keep easy plants

By nutrients you mean something like tropica premium nutrition yes? Do you recommend at least (if I'm not used generically co2) dosing the tank with this ?

Also what's your opinion on aquarium soil under the substrate and nutrition capsules?

Tropica do 2 ferts the specialised and the premium variety. The specialised has macro and micro nutrients. The premium just has micro nutrients. Take a look on my site for what the difference is but in super summary if your lightly stocked with fish and heacilty stocked with plants you definately want the specialised fertiliser. If your on the other end of the spectrum them you want premium. My site explains in more detail

Aquarium soil under substrate is a complex picture... there are many different ways to go... genuine soil (like you'd use for pond plants) under sand or gravel... aquarium planting substrate under sand or gravel... a complete planting substrate which doesn't need capping with sand or gravel...  or an inert substrate (just sand or gravel) with root tabs. There are pros and cons to every approach. Given you are starting a tank rather than converting an existing aquarium to a planted one, I would personally forget about root tabs and go with one of the other options... lots of people get great results with pond type soil under sand or gravel. This is like the other extreme for me. It's definately a good way to go but I wouldn't personally recommend it for a first tank as it comes with risks too.  So that leaves a planting substrate that needs capping or one that doesn't. This leave you to think about which look you prefer in your tank