Low Tech 29G - Few Questions

[Wannaberooted]

Yup. Corys are great, they stir things up on the bottom and leaves so the filter can get them. They are also very active, and I think cute.

Personally, a Beta would be a nice centerpiece fish for a tank that size for me. Overstocking is not worth it, ever. It only brings heartbreak and sorrow.

[mitchfish9]

Don't be sorry about the questions! Its awesome that you think I am knowledgeable enough to answer them for you.

The reason I put cories instead of rummynose because cardinals and rummies school kind of on the same level in the same kind of way. Plus they both have red in them. So cories dwell the bottom and keep the substrate fresh and turned over and add another dimension of fish to the tank. But really for your main schooler you can choose rummies or cardinals, whatever you prefer, then add a school of cories instead of another tetra. Which looks better IMO.

2 GBR or BR(same thing I think?) is what you should put in a 29 because they are cichlids who do well in a male-female pair and fight with other pairs unless your aquarium is about 50 gallons or more. This is what I would do for a centerpiece.

Not sure about the Hatchets. Stock them at the very END and decide if they would be a good choice for your tank. Also stock them last on aqadvisor and see what it says. They are great jumpers and might want more room than a 29g. Not sure though.

Clean up crew would probably be amano shrimp. They are awesome. Maybe add some nerite snails for the glass too? But i never owned nerites so I'm not sure.

Hope I helped a little.

[Gootz]

Originally Posted by Wannaberooted

Yup. Corys are great, they stir things up on the bottom and leaves so the filter can get them. They are also very active, and I think cute.

Personally, a Beta would be a nice centerpiece fish for a tank that size for me. Overstocking is not worth it, ever. It only brings heartbreak and sorrow.

I am going for more of a vibrant color scheme for this tank, hence the initial stocking selection. However, I'm posting up my plan because I want to make sure it's copacetic prior to pulling the trigger and am glad I did because I'm learning a lot.

I chose the betta due to the suggestion of my LFS to help cycle the tank. I think the little guy's personality is pretty cool, so there's no way I'd take him back. He seems way too happy in his new home. That said, I don't think he's enough of a focal point to be considered the "center piece" of the tank. I'm going to keep stocking a few cardinal tetras at a time and just see how it is all coming together once I've got a total of 8 in there. Right now I've got 3.

Originally Posted by mitchfish9

Don't be sorry about the questions! Its awesome that you think I am knowledgeable enough to answer them for you.

The reason I put cories instead of rummynose because cardinals and rummies school kind of on the same level in the same kind of way. Plus they both have red in them. So cories dwell the bottom and keep the substrate fresh and turned over and add another dimension of fish to the tank. But really for your main schooler you can choose rummies or cardinals, whatever you prefer, then add a school of cories instead of another tetra. Which looks better IMO.

2 GBR or BR(same thing I think?) is what you should put in a 29 because they are cichlids who do well in a male-female pair and fight with other pairs unless your aquarium is about 50 gallons or more. This is what I would do for a centerpiece.

Not sure about the Hatchets. Stock them at the very END and decide if they would be a good choice for your tank. Also stock them last on aqadvisor and see what it says. They are great jumpers and might want more room than a 29g. Not sure though.

Clean up crew would probably be amano shrimp. They are awesome. Maybe add some nerite snails for the glass too? But i never owned nerites so I'm not sure.

Hope I helped a little.

You're clearly a lot more knowledgeable than I am!

It makes sense about the different "levels" of stocking. That's why I liked the idea of the Hatchets because they are a top dwelling fish. As far as a bottom dweller goes I'll look into cories and see if there are any other cool options. I was thinking the rummy nose would be cool to have with the cardinal tetras because there would be 2 different schools hanging around, but I'll put some more thought into it.

I'm not worried about jumpers because the tank lid is secure with only a small gap for the filter. I think my LFS stocks amanos, so I'll double check tomorrow when I go back. I looked up nerites and it says they are marine, is there a freshwater version I just didn't see?

When I looked up BRs, there were both GBRs and BRs. The GBRs seemed to have a little more color, but it may just be BS. My LFS has BRs and they are pretty cool. Like I said, I'm going to do some more research and put some thought into this. I have time since I'm only stocking a few fish at a time.

Thanks again.

[Gootz]

I was just reading up on cories and saw that eco complete (which is the substrate I have in my tank) would be too abrasive for them. Thoughts?

[Wannaberooted]

Yet more conflicting information on the web about this after reading a bit, so I don't know. Some people said no problems after years, some not. I also read somewhere that water quality is the biggest influence on barbel health, so maybe that was the problem for the people with short barbels, not the Eco-Complete. How's that for a non-answer?

[Wannaberooted]

I use Flourite, no problems here for the Cory whiskers. After comparing the pictures here
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...fm?pcatid=9087
and here
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...fm?pcatid=4870
they look very similar. If anything the Flourite has more sharpness. Hopefully someone that uses Eco-Complete with Corys will chime in.

[mitchfish9]

Plenty of people have had cories with eco complete. It is definitely more of a water quality issue.

There are freshwater nerites for sure, but I have never owned them so that research is up to you.

Blue rams are just another name for german blue rams. They are the same thing. Electric blue rams on the other hand are bright blue over their whole body. If you do 2 schools of tetra, my advice is to do rummynose/cardinal with a tetra that compliments their red good like pristella, lemon, or black neon tetra.

[thebuddha]

here is how i am planning on stocking my 29g:
12x rummy nose tetra
10x marbled hatchet fish
1x german blue ram
then either a bristlenose/cories/or ottos


I have noticed that these fish seem to be pretty popular for 29 gallons; a bunch of threads with very similar stocking

[mitchfish9]

Great stock^^

[Gootz]

Originally Posted by Wannaberooted

Yet more conflicting information on the web about this after reading a bit, so I don't know. Some people said no problems after years, some not. I also read somewhere that water quality is the biggest influence on barbel health, so maybe that was the problem for the people with short barbels, not the Eco-Complete. How's that for a non-answer?

Originally Posted by Wannaberooted

I use Flourite, no problems here for the Cory whiskers. After comparing the pictures here
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...fm?pcatid=9087
and here
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...fm?pcatid=4870
they look very similar. If anything the Flourite has more sharpness. Hopefully someone that uses Eco-Complete with Corys will chime in.

Thanks for looking into it. Maybe some others will chime in with their experience.

Originally Posted by mitchfish9

Plenty of people have had cories with eco complete. It is definitely more of a water quality issue.

There are freshwater nerites for sure, but I have never owned them so that research is up to you.

Blue rams are just another name for german blue rams. They are the same thing. Electric blue rams on the other hand are bright blue over their whole body. If you do 2 schools of tetra, my advice is to do rummynose/cardinal with a tetra that compliments their red good like pristella, lemon, or black neon tetra.

Water quality issue? In what sense?

My LFS used to carry them, but not anymore. Now they just have black mystery snails. I asked them to order some for me, so we shall see.

Ok, wasn't sure if I missed something there. EBRs are crazy looking, but I may like BR/GRRs a little more. I already have started stocking the tank with CTs, so RNTs might be out of the picture. My LFS has some Juliis, so when the time comes I may just stock the tank with 6-8 or those.

I'll check out the other tetras you mentioned.

Originally Posted by thebuddha

here is how i am planning on stocking my 29g:
12x rummy nose tetra
10x marbled hatchet fish
1x german blue ram
then either a bristlenose/cories/or ottos


I have noticed that these fish seem to be pretty popular for 29 gallons; a bunch of threads with very similar stocking

Sounds like a nice variety. Thanks for sharing. Very similar to what I'm looking at doing. Please share some pics!

[Saxtonhill]

Originally Posted by Gootz

Since I'm pretty new to planted tanks I didn't want to go overboard on the plants, so with the 2 medium sized pieces in there (or 1 large if I could've found it) it covers more surface area, which I like. Also since it's such a low tech tank the plants won't grow very fast which is good for me since I don't want to have to trim them and perform a lot of maintenance.

I'm hoping to learn a lot from this setup and once I feel more comfortable I may step it up a bit.

I like your tank set up! And I'm doing the same thing...learning and putting in only a few plants at a time.

Look forward to seeing how your tank progresses

[Gootz]

Here's the latest scoop:

After cycling the tank for ~4 weeks, all levels tested good. I stocked it with a betta and an oto after the first week of cycling to help jump start it. I went to Petco last Friday and picked up 3 cardinal tetras and this is when the trouble started. The CTs kept dying, so after taking them back and getting 3 more, I was left with only 3 alive. Before the second to last one died I noticed it's tail started to become discolored and turned almost a white color. The entire tail was gone after a matter of a day or less. I managed to take a pic of it (middle one), but it's not a very good one.



That one died and I was left with 2 healthy looking CTs. That was up until this morning when I checked the tank and found that only 1 was left. And even worse than that, I noticed my betta, who was completely healthy and happy the day before, was very sickly looking. I snapped a pic of him too.



I really want to save the betta and the other 2 still alive before whatever it is that's killing them take a toll on my entire livestock. I took in the betta along with some tank water for testing. The levels all look good, but they think the betta has a fungus, so they gave me Pimafix (won't kill my plants) to treat the fungus outbreak.

The betta is not doing well. He is just laying pretty much face down in a crevice in the drift wood and is literally missing nearly his entire right fin. He's still alive, but barely. Should I turn off the filter for now to let the water current calm down and hopefully make it more peaceful for the betta? What is going on with my tank?!? Is it a fungus? Anyone experience anything similar? Advice?

[Saxtonhill]

Oh no!

[Wannaberooted]

Has anything improved?

[Gootz]

Thanks for asking. Unfortunately my betta and the last CT died, so all that's left is the oto. Another sad thing is I can't find the assassin snail in the tank anywhere. I looked under all of the plants and decor so he must've dug into the substrate.

The good news is my master (liquid) test kit came today. I tested the Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. Ammonia and Nitrite were both at zero and the Nitrate was reading around 25-30. So all is good there! Just running the filter with the carbon in now for another week to help clear out anything else that shouldn't be in there (leftover fungus spores, etc.).

Then it's time to start restocking (slowly).