New Member Seeking Advice

Hi all,

We recently purchased a Leddy 60 (54 litre) tank and we have caught the Tropical Fish bug!

As a result, we have just ordered an Aqua Oak 220 litre tank along with a Fluval 406 external filter and a Eheim Jager 300w heater. The aquarium was on offer so didn't want to miss out on a good deal. The only trouble is, it will be in our lounge for the next 4 months with nothing in it as we are going to decorate the room once winter is out of the way! At least this will give us time to do lots of homework regarding fish stock and to source aquarium ornaments etc.

We are looking to stock the following;

Zebra Loach
Yo Yo Loach
Gold Nugget Plec
Denisoni Barb
Congo Tetra
Leopard Climbing Perch
Pearl Gourami
Golden Gourami
Blue Acara
Angel Fish

We plan to have a rock effect 3D background, white sand and a selection of live plants.

The water comes from Dartmoor and is definitely soft (I have lived in London) which is the opposite end of the scale!

Welcome  and well done for picking up such a good deal and for being wise in terms of waiting until after the room is decorated before filling the tank with water, doing your fishless cycle http://forums.thinkfish.co.uk/fishtank-filtration-and-cycling/fishless-cycling-how-to-do-it/ and stocking the tank.

Following Littlefish's point, if you check your water supplier's website, it should be able to give you a specific level of softness/hardness in degrees French/German/Clark which can then be converted into other units of measurement if need be; make a note of the precise measure and unit of measurement for your postcode. As well as the useful fish profiles here http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish-profiles, www.seriouslyfish.com gives more specific details in terms of different species' requirements and exact range of hardness which suits them, so it's worth checking your proposed preferences against those for temperature, water hardness, minimum shoal size, etc. http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/calculators/calculators should also be useful for converting whatever the unit of measurement for your water hardness into whatever unit of measurement is for the particular fish species on seriouslyfish.

[Edited to add: oops - a bit of duplication with Littlefish as our posts overlapped. ]

A quick look at the infor on the fish list you provided indicates that they are all good in soft - medium water as part of their comfortable range, which will be good.
As fcmf has mentioned, check on minimum numbers for each species (the more the merrier as it usually makes for more natural shoals and behaviour), and check the temperature reqirements to make sure they are all happy with similar ranges.
I'm looking forward to hearing about your new project. 

Welcome to the forum!

Another stunning Aqua Oak tank bought. 

For your fish at a glance I'd think the loaches won't get on with each other and will nip the fins on the angel fish.  The blue acara may decide to lunch on the congo tetra.  I think your tank may be 100 cm long by 50 cm wide?  If this is the case many of the fish will be too large for the tank length.  But don't despair!  There are so many pretty fishes out there that will fit.

Welcome to the forum!

Another stunning Aqua Oak tank bought. 

For your fish at a glance I'd think the loaches won't get on with each other and will nip the fins on the angel fish.  The blue acara may decide to lunch on the congo tetra.  I think your tank may be 100 cm long by 50 cm wide?  If this is the case many of the fish will be too large for the tank length.  But don't despair!  There are so many pretty fishes out there that will fit.

Thanks for your reply. Just saw your post after I replied to another member! Yes I may have to lose the Acara as suggested by the aquatic centre. The other species, such as the Angel fish, we were looking to buy as 'tiddlers' so we can watch them grow so to speak and there would be less chance they would munch away at the others! As you say, I may need to reduce numbers to allow for growth.

@animal_freeride
I think I can see an AquaOak owners club starting up.... I hope you will allow guest memberships

I have two growing Blue Acara, at present 8cm exc tail. Nice looking active but tolerant fish at the moment, in with other similarly sized large Cichlids. I also have a dozen small dither fish (3cm Taillight tetra) in the tank. It's all very peaceful, the Tetras are in an open shoal and are comparatively fast so could easily avoid trouble... but I also had a backup tank if there were problems.
I have stocked allowing for them to get to 18cm when adult, and as with the others I would advise caution. I'm really not sure what would happen if there were competition for space and more dinner swimming around.

I also have Zebra loaches in with Altum Angels in a community tank, I have never seen any interaction between the two. They occupy different areas of the tank and don't seem the least interested in each other. The four angels are of course always squabbling between themselves but that's just Angels for you, so a larger number is better to average out the stroppiness. Check which Angels you get because they can also get very large and need both space and a deep tank.
I had swordtails when I first set this tank up, but while they did breed they didn't last beyond 2 years and I was not sure if the soft water really suited them.

I don't know the other fish so I couldn't comment, other then to say I consider fish from the same geographic location when listing potentials, then the swim areas, size and minimum stocking numbers - 45 fish all on the bottom is very different from a mixture of bottom, mid and if you can find them surface.

Oh and where are my manors, welcome to the community

On a separate matter, I have been mulling over how to carry out water changes for a much larger tank without causing a mess on a new carpet. This may sound odd but I was going to buy a 100 litre aquarium purely as a holding tank to de-chlorinate and heat the water overnight. Then using a 10 litre watering can that we use to top up our current tank, I was going to siphon from the holding tank before pouring into the new tank. I reckon 5 or 6 trips (i.e. 50 to 60 litres) should be sufficient. The use of the watering can sounds bizarre I know but it's so easy to control! I was thinking that the already heated/de-chlorinated water would surely place less stress on the fish?

In terms of emptying 25% water from the tank, as our lounge is on the first floor, I was simply going to use a siphon and empty out of the window onto the pitch roof which is a short distance below.

I am crazy or does this sound like a good idea?!!!


I knew there was something I forgot to comment on, note the evil glint in my eye....
You favour the Elizabethan approach to waste disposal - tipping it out the window? If it helps "Gardy Loo" is the correct Scottish phrase to use when, or better just before flinging

In addition to a conditioning tank - In my case a plastic rubbish bin with heater and airstone fitted I have a two stage system for filling and water changes.
I have tried a long syphon line but in practice they are not very easy, your mouth is a long way from the tank and it takes a lot of suck to get it going (think before you reply @Littlefish), plus the window sill will be quite high so the hose will take an indirect route.
I now use a 30litre brewing bucket with a submersible sump/pond pump fitted and two separate lengths of garden hose with quick connectors on them. The first short length goes in the tank to syphon water out. I put a bit of water in the bucket to start with and then pump it into the tank for a few seconds - this primes the syphon, then I disconnect the hose and let it drain into the bucket.
Once its started I connect the second longer length that goes to a sink and pump the water out of the bucket. I also vacuum the substrate into this bucket.
To fill, I like to know the volume I have changed so I hand fill the 25litre bucket with a 10 litre buckets and reattach the short hose and pump it up into the tank. The end of the hose is inside a 6" length of 2" PVC waste pipe with a coarse foam filling both ends and some weight in it. This makes it sink, prevents fish getting sucked in when syphoning, keeps it in the tank plus the water doesn't squirt and scare the occupants or disturb the substrate.
The method minimises the bucket miles and keeps all the buckets at low level to reduce the risk of spillages. I refill my rubbish bin using the same method with the big bucket at the sink.

You could also squirt the water out the window if you prefer...


Edit. I wish I could find how everybody else adds quotes into replies, maybe its a Microsoft Edge thing, but it just shows up as normal text when I try.

A bit of detail on the issue of water from a hot water cylinder.

@Sue and I agree on the risks but for different reasons. Sue's concerns are around dead pigeons (or in Littlefish's case, murdered Squirrels) in the cold water header tank. I worry about copper contamination (and the Zinc/Aluminium sacrificial anode they used to be fitted with) while storing water at high temperature for long periods in the cylinder itself killing tank invertebrates.

To minimise the risks the header tank can (in fact must) be sealed against rodents, and if you don't keep shrimp or snails the water might be okay to use.
Combi boilers don't suffer from either of these problems, often the heat exchangers are stainless steel and the water comes straight from the mains so it is just chlorine that has to be dealt with as with the cold supply.

A bit of detail on the issue of water from a hot water cylinder.

@Sue and I agree on the risks but for different reasons. Sue's concerns are around dead pigeons (or in Littlefish's case, murdered Squirrels) in the cold water header tank. I worry about copper contamination (and the Zinc/Aluminium sacrificial anode they used to be fitted with) while storing water at high temperature for long periods in the cylinder itself killing tank invertebrates.

To minimise the risks the header tank can (in fact must) be sealed against rodents, and if you don't keep shrimp or snails the water might be okay to use.
Combi boilers don't suffer from either of these problems, often the heat exchangers are stainless steel and the water comes straight from the mains so it is just chlorine that has to be dealt with as with the cold supply.

Hmmmm, our header tank just has a layer of some sort of padding covered in black plastic resting on the top of the tank, nothing else. Anything could get into it.
When did the requirement to rodent-proof the tank come in? Our house was built in 1991.



As for quoting posts, I can't type here exactly what to do or it'll turn into a quote, so replace {} with [] and try this.
{quote} text you want to quote {/quote} It won't give the person's name but you can always type that in yourself. This works for emoticons with MS Edge so it might work for quotes.