Right now I have large gravel and a bunch of cichlids. I would like to change it over to a sand floor, some live plants and some small non agressive fish. Ideas and links would be great. There is just so much info out there, I don’t know where to begin to look. I have double filtration going from the top, a heater, thermometer, 4 air stones going, and of course lights.
I am going to rehome my cichlids this weekend, and give the tanks some time to adjust to the change over from gravel to sand before I start adding in new fish. Need low maintenance ideas. As in, once a week at most. My boyfriend is partial to ghost shrimp for a clean up crew. I am not too sure about them. I know guppies are colorful, but want to stay away from guppies, and mollies. Danios I have had before and liked the coloring and activity level. Any other ideas? What do you have in your tanks?
If you are going to introduce live plants your best bet would be to use the clay substrate they sell for tanks.. it is messy but it created the proper environment for healthy plant life. I mixed it half and half with gravel due to the expense of the clay
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Hiya
I did a similar thing a few months ago. What I did was I purchased a very large bucket from a DIY store. I then put all the tank water in there along with the fish and plants and left a heater and an air pump running in there.
I then drained about 3cm of the water left and took the gravel out. I put the sand in and the filled about a third of it it with conditioned water. I then took about 1/2 of the water from the bucket and put that into the tank and replaced the water in the bucket with conditioned water, as the fish were excreting a lot and no filter was running. I did, however, have my filter media in a bucket of some tank water nearby. I then put the rocks / plants and wood into the tank.
I left a spare second heater running in the tank overnight too, however do not worry too much if you do not have one.
The tank goes really merky when you add the water, which I did not account for, so I ended up having to leave the fish in a bucket overnight, however they were OK in the morning.
In the morning I simply put the fish into bags, floated them on the tank and released them after a while, as well as topping up the tank with some of the bucket water and reconnecting the filter. If you did not have a spare heater on in the tank overnight, take the heater out of the bucket about 2 hours before you transfer the fish, they should be OK for this long, however try keep the room temperature high if you can.
I did not add any plant substrate which I regret now as it is too late, if you want live plants you shoud buy some plant substrate! I also compiled a list of every fish I had and ticked them off when I put them back in. I only lost one small AE which I did not notice jump out of the bucket. Not bad for all that stress they had!
Using some API stress coat will help the fish loads, remember the air pump is 100% vital.
Any problems I am always on these forums, as are many other experts far moer capable than me! http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/forum
As for the fish you stock, it is up to you, however with that method you can keep the cichlids if you wish. IMO all fish require the same attention in the form of a daily (or twice daily) feed, and a weekly water change taking 40mins tops. For non aggressive fish, there are gouramis, tetras and barbs open to you as well as loaches and corydoras and plecos.
Here are some setups I can advise you to have -
Peaceful small fish –
20 x Neon tetras
4 x Zebra loaches
6 x Corydoras of your choice
1 x small pleco such as Clown pleco, bristlenose etc
10 x amano shrimp
Peaceful larger fish (I) -
6 x Boesmani rainbow
10 x Cardinal tetras
6 x Corydoras of your choice
1 x small pleco such as Clown pleco, bristlenose etc
Peaceful larger fish (II) –
6 x Gouramis of choice (Pearls, dwarf and opaline suggested)
10 x Cardinal tetra or other shoaling tetra of choice
4 x Zebra loach
1 x small pleco such as Clown pleco, bristlenose etc
Peaceful larger fish (III) -
5 x Denison barbs (Puntius Denisonii)
10 x Cardinal Tetra
10 x Rummy nose tetra
4 x corydoras of choice
1 x Pleco of choice
Those are typical nice setups of common fish, avoiding those childish guppies and mollies.
As a general rule that I can fit in here whilst you stock, do not mix barbs with slower moving longer finned fish as they nip. Corydoras will sift your sand to recude anaerobic build up oif toxic gases(sift your sand weekly aswell during water change!!). Amano shrimps are a clean up crew with the loaches (Who also feed on small snails) and the pleco.
Other common fish which are nice are –
Gold Tiger barbs (Puntius anchisporus)
Rams (NOT WITH BARBS!Long finned slow moving lol – microgeophagus)
Albino / rainbow shark (BUT only one – do not get red tailed bl;ack shark – too aggressive)
Other peaceful tetras (Avoid buenos aries and lamp eye tetras)
Good luck,
Deren
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well i LOVE guppies but its my prefrence.. neon fish are fun! they are very active! glofish are very interesting fish two, what makes them glo is the jelly from jellyfish that makes jellyfish glo!! VERY cool. you have the perfect tank for all these fish, and heck u can have all of these in a tank if you wont( just try fish out, meaning get two and see if you like them , u do get more , you dont well its only two.!! good luck ooo and i would just plant the plants if you want them, but they require more maintance
hope i helped
experience
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