The Planted Tank Forum - Fish

BN, SAE or Oto

DavidZ — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:26:02 GMT

Given the 3 choices, do they all eat the same type of algae?

Fungus on Cory

bcdudley — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:00:33 GMT

When I came into work this morning, One of my Panda Cory's had a growth of fungus on his side. It looks red and irritated around the infection. I checked the water conditions and they are all good. PH is around 7.2, Ammonia and Nitrites are 0, Nitrates are barely readable. Co2 is around 10. The tank is heavily planted for a 15gal.

I am thinking this is from stress or injury. Yesterday, I had to remove 3 Macro shrimp from my tank. It would have been quite stressful for the fish as it took almost 45 minutes of chasing them around.

Since this is not related to dirty water, but just stress, should I treat in a quarantine, or let it go and hope it get's better. I have to do something today as I will not be here over the weekend and will only be here Monday next week.

I do have ghost shrimp and Oto's in my tank, so I have to be careful what I dose with if I am going to dose in the tank. Any suggestions?

What should I stock my tank with... I CANT DECIDE!!!!

agutt — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:52:57 GMT

Ok I have a 20 Gallon High that currently has 6 Rasbora borapetensis.

Now I want to stock my tank with a school/shoal of about 12-15 1" to 2" fish.

So I am thinking of either adding more Rasbora borapetensis...

OR

Adding any of the following:

Trigonostigma hengeli

Trigonostigma espei

Oreichthys sp. 'sail fin'

Puntius rhomboocellatus

Tanichthys albonubes

OR

any other type of small barb/rasbora/cyprinidae

Thoughts, opinions, other fish ideas are VERY welcome! :bounce:

Question about bristlenose plecos

blazinrhino79 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:39:56 GMT

I've just bought a young bristlenose pleco and its about 2 inches long I think. When does it begin to grow its "bristles?"

Guppy Incest?

urbguy — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:10:51 GMT

Hey guys, I used to have around 20 guppies but they all died except 1. After a few weeks, the last mother guppy gave birth to a bunch of guppy fry; however, only 1 survived. The fry that grew up is a male and for some reason, I have discovered that there are 4 new guppy fry in the tank. Is it possible for the son to impregnate the mother? I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, I've just never heard of it.

Cardinal death frenzy

veryzer — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:48:26 GMT

I recently bought 16 cardinals from petsmart. They looked pretty healthy and had survived in their tank for a week or two.

I brought them home to my 54 gallon and things initially looked good; i.e., by their schooling and swimming in the open they seemed to have acclimated. (On previous occasions poorly acclimated cards seemed to find a corner and hide on me.) Five days later 13 are dead and one more appears marked for death. The precursor to dying seems to be a disappearing caudal fin.

My tank recently cycled and has 0 ammonia and nitrites. It is heavily planted as well. While petsmart uses harder municipal water, mine is about 5 kh. Like I said, though, they seemed to do great initially.

The question is, then, should I go to liveaquaria for cardinals and expect better luck or would there be trouble within my tank? BTW, ottos and corys from petsmart are doing great and I know ottos can be pretty sensitive.

Thanks for your advice.

Help deciding--stock question

shane3fan — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:42:56 GMT

Starting a 30 gallon planted tank. I want to have a semi low maintenance tank ( root tabs and water column ferts < Flourish Comp. > but no CO2 ) I was thinking of having some sort of schooling fish like Rummynose Tetras ( I dont want Neons or Cardinals because Ive currently got Neons and they are the only fish Ive had problems keeping alive ) and some bottom feeders like Sterbai or Julii Corydoras and a few Otos and then some sort of small-to medium centerpiece type fish.

Substrate will be black sand and gravel with root tabs or Jobes sticks throughout. Filter will be a Fluval or Eheim canister. I dont know if I will need a spray bar or a power head yet--I have been doing research on the 30 gallon since it is 36" long--not sure about filter flow. Lighting will be around 1.5:1 watt:gal ratio flourescent lighting---flat on the glass top of the tank. Water is city water-I use Prime during water changes and the pH is 7.6 in my other tanks. Not sure of water hardness or things like calcium etc. Ive only got an API master test kit.

Schooling fish ideas ?

Endlers --good part is they are attractive---bad, they make babies and might cause me headaches with overstocking or excessive work.

Neon Tetras--- good ; attractive fish--- bad ; drop like flies in my tank--one or two deaths every couple of weeks so far.

Cardinal Tetras---beautiful fish but Im afraid they will be dead like my Neons. dead fish= bad.

Serpea Tetras--pretty fish but too nippy--I had some in a previous tank and they drove my other fish crazy-that was a small tank with a low number of fish though. Ive heard they do better in larger groups.

Rasboras--Ive seen several Rasboras that I liked--not real familiar with them though---thoughts?

Tiger Barbs--not sure if these are a good idea or not--they are cool looking though.

Open for other suggestions--was thinking of a decent sized school--maybe 10 or more?

Bottom dwellers ;

Julii Corydoras, Sterbai Corydoras, Otocinclus affinis, shrimp ( I know nothing about shrimp--would have to do some research or go on suggestions from here. ) Im sure there will be snails---build it and they will come...7 or 8 Corydoras too many? Im leaning more towards the Corys since the Otos hide all day from what Ive read.

Centerpiece fish or pair ;

I was thinking about one or two German Blue Rams--again, I need to do some research and I am open to suggestions. I was also thinking about some other Cichlids--the only problem there is the pH of my water is too high from what Ive read. The other option would be to move my Rainbow Shark from my 29gal into this tank so he would have a little more room--albeit only 6 inches longer.

I want to have harmony in my tank. I dont want to have feeding time issues. I dont want fish fighting over space/territory. I dont want fish overcrowding my tank and causing general nasty water conditions.

recommendations - need some color

NJAquaBarren — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:31:45 GMT

I have some room for more fish in my tank and was thinking that I need some color. Current residents are 15 neon rainbows, 9 rummynose, 6 cardinal tetras a pair of Milowe Kribs (beautiful btw), and one blue beta (living luxuriously in 85 gallons). Love them all, but there is a lot of gray body in this mix.

A school of Red would be nice. Like Cherry Barbs when in color, but they don't seem to be in color often form the tanks I see.

Always liked Bosmanie Rainbows, think they look great in a 6-foot long tank, not sure about a 4-footer.

So what do you think? What will play nice and add some constant color to the tank?

Discus tankmates

kisame1235 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:14:26 GMT

I currently have a 120 gallon fish tank with 3 discus , I do plan to get more but for now I have to kinda settle . I was talking to my friend about reasonable tank mates . He suggested some kind of tetra maybe a congo or emperor . He said that he isn't sure but he thinks there may also be a kind of rainbow fish . Any ideas on tank mates or what those two species could be ?

Ram laid eggs!!

tnsser — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:49:07 GMT

Check it out!

Attached Thumbnails

Bumblebee goby diet

lainealex — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:33:17 GMT

I have a FW bumblebee goby who is doing fairly well in my 20g community tank, however, he will only eat frozen brine shrimp or frozen bloodworms. I have tried many other foods to no avail. I have to move the food in front of him with a turkey baster, or blow it around, and if I don't do this, he won't eat. Every couple of weeks he gets pale and weak, and I can see that somehow he hasn't had enough to eat, so I try harder and he pops back to life.

My concern is that he is not getting enough vitamins and minerals with just the two frozen foods.

Can someone confirm that this diet is OK for him, or do I need to add something I haven't thought of?

Thank you all,

Lainey Alexander

my rasboras are spawing :)

Wink — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:26:59 GMT

http://www.twitvid.com/C7215

How many more fish can this take?

Alpinist — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:56:42 GMT

I've got a 33L planted tank that is about 6 weeks old or so. I'm wondering how many more fish you think I could get in there. I'm not looking to add that much more than what is in there now, but I am considering a few more. I know there are no hard and fast rules, and that everything is relative, that's why I'm asking for your varied opinions.

Current situation:

33gal, HOT magnum (diffusion bar, Fluval porous rocks in D cartridge with sponge sleeve)
4x55W CF fixture, 2 10K, 2 actinic (to be replaced with 6700s soon) - Light is 12+ inches off the tank, and I have a shade screen over one half where most of the anubias and java fern is.
Plants: Various anubias, various Java fern, various crypts, micro sword, chain sword.
Fish: 11 cardinals, 6 otos, 5 harrisoni pencils, 5 H+Tlight tetras, 2 clown plecos, 2 sterbai corys, 4 amano shrimp

Only dosing Excel right now, hope to add CO2 in the next 6 months or so.

Here's the tank:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/yo...o=view&id=1547

This foto is a couple weeks old. I've added some more plants, including some plastic bamboo-leaved vines to float at the top and provide additional temporary cover and shade.

So other fish I might like to add at some point would be a pair of Apistos, maybe Killifish?, maybe something small and unique like an upsidedown catfish or something.

Any thoughts on how much I can fit, or anything specific about my choices?

Thankings!

Phoenix's Betta Macrostoma

Phoenix-cry — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:32:19 GMT

After my success with Betta Albimarginata (to see journal: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/fi...marginata.html) I decided to give my hand a try at Betta Macrostoma (meaning 'big mouth'). My local Fishkeepers Association had an ad up for six unsexed (I have noted that I have at least two males) juvi Macrostoma 2-3 inches. So I bit the bullet and bought them. They are now in my 45 gallon.

Things to note: Macros are FAMOUS for jumping. You must cover the whole top of the tank, if there is a one inch square opening they will find it. They will also hit plastic tops hard enough to pop them open, so it's best to use glass or weigh down the plastic top.

My plan is to grow these guys up until they can be sexed. If I get two pairs I will keep them and sell the other two no matter what sex they are. If I do not get two pairs I will look around the betta world to trade some males for females, or females for males. It would be best to do this anyway so I could get unrelated pairs and I might end up doing it anyway so I call get F1s and not F2s.

Here are my babies:

Dwarf Puffer Tankmate

jsamps — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:30:19 GMT

I was looking at buying a striped raphael catfish? They are nocturnal, so wouldnt be around the puffer all the time, and they have a protective "armor" for lack of a better word, that may protect them from a puffer attack.

I'm thinking about putting one in with my dwarf puffer, any thoughts?