My New Fish Tank
- Thread starter Evoss
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Keeping a tank clean is hard, no doubt about it, water changes must be made on time and filters cleaned and any food which makes it way into the bottom crevices must be cleared out.
Full on tank cleansing imo should be done every 6 months, whether you remove the fish or not is up to you but keep in mind fish get stressed and they will die from it.
A clean fish tank is amazing to look at if kept clean but you have to be dedicated to it.
Soldato
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take the guppy back, did the fish shop tell you these can go together?
stick some dainos, neon tetra, platys in there.
or get 3 fighters - 1 male and 2 female (not 2 males)
stick some dainos, neon tetra, platys in there.
or get 3 fighters - 1 male and 2 female (not 2 males
)
Caporegime
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Looks epic. 
take the guppy back, did the fish shop tell you these can go together?
stick some dainos, neon tetra, platys in there.
or get 3 fighters - 1 male and 2 female (not 2 males
Neons in a brand new tank = BIG NO NO!
Guppies will be dead in a few weeks with the Betta there. Betta will probably drown over the next few weeks too as Fluval Edge tanks are not suited to them. I have seen Betta's drown in 3ft cabinet tanks as there was not a big enough air gap at the top.
Neons will be very unwell soon as they need a very mature tank biologically. Most decent LFS and enthusiast sites dont recommend you add Neons until tank has been running and populated for 6 months!
If you want interesting fish for an Edge check out Galaxy Rasbora's. Rare and fantastic small fish. Needs to be a fully cycled tank so should do the fishless cycle with household ammonia first if you didnt already.
Take your fish back to the LFS as they are not suitable for your tank. Its a nice tank and you have scaped it very well but your fish choice is wrong imo.
Neons will be very unwell soon as they need a very mature tank biologically. Most decent LFS and enthusiast sites dont recommend you add Neons until tank has been running and populated for 6 months!
If you want interesting fish for an Edge check out Galaxy Rasbora's. Rare and fantastic small fish. Needs to be a fully cycled tank so should do the fishless cycle with household ammonia first if you didnt already.
Take your fish back to the LFS as they are not suitable for your tank. Its a nice tank and you have scaped it very well but your fish choice is wrong imo.
Never ever do a full tank clean and empty it out imo. You could lose loads of beneficial bacteria and upset the chemical balance of the tank. If your tank is correctly filtered all you should ever have to do is gravel vac the substrate and make sure you disturb any loose material to get it up the vac and then weekly or fortnightly 10%-20% water changes.
I have had my 4 foot running for over a year now and not once have I emptied it. I have only cleaned the filter twice and one of those was only because I was bored with nothing else to do! I have dropped my water changes back to 15% - 20% every 3 or 4 weeks and my water parameters are always bang on. 0 Am, 0 N2 and <0N3.
There is nothing wrong with emptying the tank....The bacteria is in the filter media not in the water so how do you think it is going to be lost by emptying it out? Just keep the subsrate immersed. As long as you are replacing the water fully treated and you are comfortable that the pH is stable then there is NO risk of losing any beneficial bacteria. How do you think it is going to die? As long as it isnt left for hours to dry out whilst the maintenance is carried out.
I do a full deep clean of mine once every 9 months or so as I keep mbuna and full cleaning under the massive amount of rock I have is impossible without full removal of everything. I do a big water change, replace with treated water, make sure its at correct temp etc and have never lost a single fish following doing so. In fact they all coulour up very nicely following doing it. I know the pH is matched because I test to make sure.
I do a full deep clean of mine once every 9 months or so as I keep mbuna and full cleaning under the massive amount of rock I have is impossible without full removal of everything. I do a big water change, replace with treated water, make sure its at correct temp etc and have never lost a single fish following doing so. In fact they all coulour up very nicely following doing it. I know the pH is matched because I test to make sure.
Not all of the bacteria are in the filter media. There are also a host of other micro organisms and beneficial biologicals which live on the surfaces and within the water. I keep a variety of fish and the cory's, plecs and loaches are constantly sifting through the substrate and picking at colonies of algae on the rocks,plants. A deep clean would dry most of this out as it only takes about 20 minutes to start getting die off with no water movement. Drying it out would kill it and remove a lot of their required food sources which would increase the amount of cleaning I have to do as I would need to feed flake and pellets more often.
This may be different for mbuna as I can understand the requirement to clean under the rocks and remove dead food matter but is there any reason this cannot be done with water in the tank? Surely increasing the flow in the tank to keep food matter from collecting is an option? I would rather get my hands wet than empty it!
This may be different for mbuna as I can understand the requirement to clean under the rocks and remove dead food matter but is there any reason this cannot be done with water in the tank? Surely increasing the flow in the tank to keep food matter from collecting is an option? I would rather get my hands wet than empty it!
Soldato
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Have only read OP's post so sorry if this has been covered already:
I would highly recommend you don't keep a betta (siamese fighting fish) with guppies, also don't keep betta in those type of tanks as they need surface access.
Logic behind this is (as I'm sure you know) but keeping 2x male bettas in the same tank is a bad idea - male guppies can set off agression in male bettas as they think a competing male has come into their territory. The possibility is the guppies won't last too long, or certainly their fins wont!!
I have seen this quite often, sometimes males are fine, often they aren't.
Tank looks great though! Congrats
I would highly recommend you don't keep a betta (siamese fighting fish) with guppies, also don't keep betta in those type of tanks as they need surface access.
Logic behind this is (as I'm sure you know) but keeping 2x male bettas in the same tank is a bad idea - male guppies can set off agression in male bettas as they think a competing male has come into their territory. The possibility is the guppies won't last too long, or certainly their fins wont!!
I have seen this quite often, sometimes males are fine, often they aren't.
Tank looks great though! Congrats
Last edited:
Soldato
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Had this tank for 2 years now.
Soldato
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Here's mine:
Soldato
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Some serious bottom talking from you there. Have you ever kept a fish in your life. Your more likely to end up with dead fish doing 50% changes every 4 hours.