Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => New Fishkeepers => Topic started by: tracymeg on November 16, 2015, 09:06:16 PM
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Hi guys, have my 60l tank with four minnows and three platys (one male,two female) looking for recommendations on more suitable small fish. Have a water ph of 8 and have been told not to concern myself due to the breeding and selling in all kinds of waters. But I don't want to buy anything else until I'm sure.
I have considered buying ro water but it may be pointless if I can find the right fish that do not require any specific ph.
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Livebearers are a good choice, but my personal favourite for a tank that size and with a pH that high would be Emerald Dwarf Rasbora. They are little gems that do well in larger groups.
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Thank you will educate myself about them.
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How hard is your tap water? Hardness is more important than pH, though they often are high together. You should be able to find out the hardness from your water company's website. Make a note of the unit they use (and there may be more than one) as there are half a dozen ways of measuring hardness. Water companies all seem to choose different units, but there are only two used in fish keeping so you may have to convert the values you find. Don't worry, I've got a table of conversion factors stored away ;D
Edit to add - I have remembered you are in Bournemouth so I googled it. It's here (http://www.bournemouthwater.co.uk/about-your-water/water-hardness.aspx) and it seems you should have hard water with north of Ringwood being a bit harder than other areas. The figures used in fishkeeping are ppm CaCO3, usually just called ppm, and German degrees.
And you do need to look at hard water & high pH fish.
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Thank you sue. I live on dorset/Hampshire border so have two water companies I pay rates too. Turns out I do get my water from Bournemouth water so my water is moderately hard. Total hardness 270mg/l. German degrees 15.
Also looking for easy to care for fish due to shift work. Won't be home at regular times and preferably no fish that I will have to remove if breeding. Thank you in advance.
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I have seen your other post and the photos of your tank, and see it's a biorb. These can't be stocked as heavily as a rectangular tank of the same volume because of the small amount of surface in contact with air. If you use the Community Creator on here, don't go the max it says for 60 litres.
With a 60 litre tank you do need to look at small fish. Cod has already suggested emerald dwarf rasboras (http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/celestichthys-erythromicron/) but you clould also look at endlers. The males are small and colourful and are fine as a group of males. The females are bigger, pale grey-beige and will have a lot of fry! And they are hardier than the closely related guppies (even though endlers in shops are all endler guppy hybrids, they look like endlers)
Most other hard water fish get too big for a 60 litre tank, I'm afraid.
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That's all I was really considering sue. Thank you. I know its not a great tank. Have been looking today for bigger tank and am frankly shocked at the amount of people selling tanks with either too many fish in or fish that are far too large. Should be a law against this, after all they are all lives.