Your current Fish tank Setups!

Nice, I’m envious!

I’ve always wanted a reef but I could just never justify the cost or the reconcile commitment that comes with maintaining one to the standard I’d want.

I’ve done the whole high light planted tropical thing and that was a fair amount of grief in terms of maintenance more which is not even close to a reef.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Nice, I’m envious!

I’ve always wanted a reef but I could just never justify the cost or the reconcile commitment that comes with maintaining one to the standard I’d want.

I’ve done the whole high light planted tropical thing and that was a fair amount of grief in terms of maintenance more which is not even close to a reef.
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The cost is eye watering for this build, but i love the marine hobby :)
rebel rebel said:
Oh boy had no idea it was gonna be a hole in a wall!
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hehe well it kinda is with the cabinet surround, cant wait :)
 
Joining in - lads 6th birthday yesterday and he wanted a pet, we collectively decided on a fish as it initially seemed the most straight forward - I was wrong.

Went into a local shop at the weekend, the guy in there was really helpful, gave me all the options across cold/temperate/marine and let us make up our own minds on tanks/fish.

Lad gravitated to guppies which turns out are a good starter fish. So 45 minutes later I leave £180 lighter with a 60l tank, heater, filter, LCD light, substrate, ornaments, tap water safe, bacteria - probably missed something on the list. However he had the choice of a Nintendo Switch or Aquarium, this is the cheaper and better option imo.

Set the tank up and left for 48 hours and lad went for guppies yesterday, took time introducing them, floating the bag, adding aquarium water over an hour or so and eventually, they're in the new tank. Also added some moss of some description from shop so we've got some plant life in there.

Woke up this morning and all still alive - so far, so good :) We have 2 pregnant females and 3 males, ratio is off as believe should be 1 male to 3 females but we will introduce more fish as time goes on, they look a little lost in there at the moment.
 
Getting our worktop strengthened this afternoon. Then hopefully the first part of the reef tank will arrive next week.

Edit: our carpenter strengthened our worktop with a number of uprights and batons. I believe we’re now just waiting for the last of the equipment to arrive.
 
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Hmmmm, so as posted earlier this week, new tank with 2 female, 3 male guppies - 2 males sort of went docile yesterday and died within a few hours of each other. The 3rd male was swimming around happy as larry when we went to bed but this morning, woke up, also dead.

Both females mobile and show no signs of distress, moving around different parts of the tank, not sticking to any particular area - seem normal.

Only thing we can think is that as they came from different tanks in the store, maybe something wrong with the male tank? He mentioned they'd had new stock in the day before.

I've done nitrate, nitrite, PH and ammonia water tests, all in the levels expected - not sure what to do at the moment, leave as it is and continue to monitor? do a partial water change? bit of a loss and lad is understandably upset but it's a little life lesson for him :(

Although the store owner told us with the filter starter we could add fish in a few days, I wonder if we should have done a longer start up cycle, varying literature online is quite conflicting - the fact the females are still fine makes me think the tank is ok or maybe they're just handling the stress better?
 
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Sometimes fish die and guppies are not as hardy as they used to be but as you have a brand new tank so I wouldn’t rule that out.

When you say levels are expected, what do you actually mean?

Ammonia and nitrite should be zero.
Live bearers prefer a ph above 7, some need a decent amount of hardness in the water.
Nitrate doesn’t really matter for most fish as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. Mines 30+ out of the tap.

If you are using bottled bacteria you can put fish in immediately but you need to treat it like a fish in cycle. The bacteria just speeds it up significantly. Test daily and feed sparingly. If ammonia and nitrite are not zero, change at least 50% of the water and add more bacteria. Keep doing it until it reads zero for at least a week.

I personally would not have waited a few days to add fish after adding the bacteria. It needs the ammonia and nitrite to feed off from the fish. If there was not any food for the bacteria, it starts to die. You can’t overdose the bacteria so be liberal with it.

Likewise be really careful with how much you are feeding. Because your tank is very immature and relatively small, it’s so easy to cause a spike which subsides before you test again. 5 guppies need next to nothing in terms of food.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Sometimes fish die and guppies are not as hardy as they used to be but as you have a brand new tank so I wouldn’t rule that out.

When you say levels are expected, what do you actually mean?

Ammonia and nitrite should be zero.
Live bearers prefer a ph above 7, some need a decent amount of hardness in the water.
Nitrate doesn’t really matter for most fish as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. Mines 30+ out of the tap.

If you are using bottled bacteria you can put fish in immediately but you need to treat it like a fish in cycle. The bacteria just speeds it up significantly. Test daily and feed sparingly. If ammonia and nitrite are not zero, change at least 50% of the water and add more bacteria. Keep doing it until it reads zero for at least a week.

I personally would not have waited a few days to add fish after adding the bacteria. It needs the ammonia and nitrite to feed off from the fish. If there was not any food for the bacteria, it starts to die. You can’t overdose the bacteria so be liberal with it.

Likewise be really careful with how much you are feeding. Because your tank is very immature and relatively small, it’s so easy to cause a spike which subsides before you test again. 5 guppies need next to nothing in terms of food.
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Thanks for the reply - Ammonia/Nitrite showing zero, PH is at 7.6 - using this test kit - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000255NCI

Added the tap water safe when I started it off Monday then added filter starter bacteria when fish were added Wednesday.

Another female just went belly up, i've messed something up here, not sure where, last female is swimming around actively but based on last 2 days, expecting the worst in next few hours.

I've just noticed on the female, there is a white mucus on the tail fin, not sure if it was present on the males but they're so small, it wouldn't have been as distinct.

3hgAQB7.jpg
 
SixTwoSix said:
Thanks for the reply - Ammonia/Nitrite showing zero, PH is at 7.6 - using this test kit - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000255NCI

Added the tap water safe when I started it off Monday then added filter starter bacteria when fish were added Wednesday.

Another female just went belly up, i've messed something up here, not sure where, last female is swimming around actively but based on last 2 days, expecting the worst in next few hours.

I've just noticed on the female, there is a white mucus on the tail fin, not sure if it was present on the males but they're so small, it wouldn't have been as distinct.
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Personally, I'd do a big water change of ~90%, replacing with similar temperature dechlorinated water. If there's uneaten food in the tank syphon it out, food on filter sponges give a very gentle rinse in the removed water.
 
UTmaniac said:
Personally, I'd do a big water change of ~90%, replacing with similar temperature dechlorinated water. If there's uneaten food in the tank syphon it out, food on filter sponges give a very gentle rinse in the removed water.
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Silly question but do I leave the fish in the water as I do it or isolate in a clean bowl/bucket? Wondering about stress.
 
UTmaniac said:
Does your household still have a pet fish today that isn't behaving oddly?

You might want to do another ~75% water change today, if fish is breathing heavily and/or sitting on tank floor a lot and/or staying at the water surface.
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The fish lives and more so, is more mobile than before, whereas before moved around the tank but trepidly, now she's really all over, exploring everything and also playing in and out of the flow from time to time, quite enjoyable to watch tbh.

Shortly after my post I went to two different nearby Maidenhead aquatics stores (one already in my area and the other was in a town we took my son out for the afternoon) and explained much the same as I said here. Staff in both said to go with a 40-60% change as they said the 90% might be too disruptive to the minimal bacteria on an already new tank. I wasn't disregarding your advice, I just like a few opinions - they did acknowledge if the tank was older, 90% wouldn't be a problem. I'm cautious by nature so went with a 50% change.

Additionally, i've added in some real plants, we had the bog standard off the shelf ornaments and plastic plants - although all the guides say this is fine, it still doesn't sit right with me to have plastic plants. Also since Sunday, i've been boosting the bacteria, from everything i've read/heard, you can't really over do it on this in the early stages.
 
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I wouldn’t worry about getting more fish if that one is pregnant either. That is the beauty of guppies.

I’m pretty sure they can store the sperm and can have multiple ‘litters’ from one interaction with a male.
 
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Can anyone recoomnd good tank mates for a betta fish?

Helping out a family member with 60l tank, need to make sure she doesn't get any fin nippers.
 
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