Setting up my first tank, need some guidance.

[madmike]

Hello. Name's Mike and I'm from Norway. I recently got a free 112l aquarium from someone local and decided to give it a go since my fiancee and I both like fish in all shapes and sizes. I bought a new external filter called Am-Top 3338 that flows 1200l/hour and has a filter capacity of 7.5l. Works like a charm.

Now the tank is empty, just sand and some rocks in there while I'm waiting to buy fish. I've been checking most of the fish available to me, but I can't figure out which to choose due to the lack of knowledge with fish in general. What I do know though, is that I absolutely love the Apistogrammas!

Now I've decided to keep it South American. That's one down! Now I can't make a decent composition of the following;

Ap. cacatuoides
Ap. agassizii
Ap. baenschi
Ap. macmasteri
Ap. piauiensis

Now knowing that my tank is 112l/29.5g big, how many would I be able to keep as a community tank? Which is the most suitable? I know I can't have them all, but I'd like to see what my options are. I also want to have a couple of algae eaters (Otocinclus?), a good school of fish (Hemigrammus bleheri? Nannostomus marginatus?).

I also intend to buy Redmoor wood to decorate th tank with, as well as some coconut caves and suitable plants for their environment. Any plants you recommend?

What do you guys suggest? As I said, I am completely new to this (only a couple of days) so I'll appreciate all the help I can get.

Cheers,
Mike The Confused and Unknowing.

(PS: Excuse my bad language, my first language is Norwegian as you can imagine.)

 

[Neptune's Neighborhood]

First, congratulations on becoming interested in the hobby and having obvious good taste in fish! Welcome to the board.

I suggest the first thing you do is make sure you understand the nitrogen cycle. I also recommend trying a "fishless cycle" on the tank before getting any fish. This is a good article but, you might want to find something in your native language if you have trouble with some of the terminology.

You'll also want to get a water testing kit to find out when the tank is cycled, but also to find out what your water is like in the aquarium. These factors will help you decide what fish will thrive the best in your water or if you need to prepare your water for the fish you want.

I always recommend java fern and anubias barteri as plants for beginners as they don't need a specific substrate or any fertilizers and do well in low and high light. You can attach them directly to your bog wood or coconut caves. Be sure to investigate the effects of the specific bog wood and other materials you put in the tank, some materials can affect the pH and/or the hardness of the tank, depending on your beginning stats.

I keep both Nannostomus marginatus and Nannostomus beckfordi, they are great fish. I would recommend you start with either of these and make sure you can keep the aquarium conditions consistent before you purchase any Apistogramma. This is because the pencilfish should cost less and should be more resilient to any complications you encounter.

I know, it's boring to start off with basics when you see the amazing Apistogramma, but having a good foundation will make the hobby less frustrating and more enjoyable!

edit - you might want to check out this site as well

 

[madmike]

Thanks for welcoming me with open arms to the forum. This is indeed the most exciting fish that meets my criteria as of now. Later when I'm more experienced I have a dream of a good aquascaped Malawi tank.

I got a Sera water testing kit. The pH from the spring is at around 7 blank with 0 gH. I am able to keep the pH at around 6.8 with little effort. The roots I will be adding will have zero effect on the pH-level nor the other stats.

I have already added filter bacteria from a previously existing healty aquarium, but one thing that I'm lacking is the heat. I will turn that on right away. How much ammonia should one add to say 105l of water? The terminology is fine, thank you.

I will check my local petshops to see if they stock java fern and anubias barteri. My fiancee's father has been keeping fish for well over 30 years now, so he's thought me some of the basics.

But as for my main question - what kind of a community would I be able to keep in this tank? I will mildly seperate the tank in two with a big Redmoor root. I want to keep 6-8 Otocinclus' for algae purposes (and the fact that they go well with the cichlids I've read), and a school of beautiful fish (I was thinking Hemigrammus bleheri?) plus some others, including as many Apistogramma I can keep (Now how many would that be in a tank of this size?). I could consider keeping Mikrogeophagus or Pelvicachromis instead of Apistogramma if that leaves me with more options.

 

[gerald]

If you want a bunch of different Apisto species in a 112 liter tank, consider an all-male "bachelor" tank so they wont have as much reason to fight with each other. Then, when you want to decide to breed them, get another tank (or several, 50 liter or larger) and some females and give each male (with 1 or more females) his own tank.

PS - your English is better than many Americans'

 

[madmike]

That's what I was thinking of doing, 'cause there will be more tanks, I promise you that. But how many would be able to coexist in this rather small tank with better than average health you'd say?

 

[gerald]

That's very hard to predict, as aggression varies among individual fish, and can change with age. Pet shops obviously keep dozens together in small tanks, short-term. In nature adult males would probably space themselves about a meter apart. If it were me, I'd try maybe 6 males of mixed species, but watch carefully and be ready to intervene if somebody is getting bullied too much. This could be risky having just one aquarium. Too few fish (less than 4) might be more trouble than too many. And keep a dozen or more tetras, pencils, cherry barbs, etc to help distract them from each other.

 

[madmike]

Okay, that's starting to sound like something I wanted to hear. I will try to finish the cycling fast.

 

[madmike]

Been adding ammonia steadily to raise the NH3 to around 5ppm, but it just won't raise that high. I've added quite a few ml of it, but it stops at 1ppm. The temperature is at about 26.5 (the heater is bugged, so it won't go higher, getting a new one), I've added extra oxygen supply for the bacteria, added a piece of an already existing bacteria culture from my brother's aquarium. Anything I'm doing wrong?

Edit: Keep in mind that the aquarium had already been in use for 13 years when I got it, I only changed the filter and water, so there might already be enough bacteria there or would it die out in the transfer of the aquarium (an hour max)? All these water parameters are making me so dizzy I can't think straight.

 

[gerald]

Put in lots of cheap & easy fast-growing plants like Elodea, Ceratophyllum, Najas, Limnobium, Ceratopteris, or Java-moss, add fish, and forget about cycling. The plants will consume NH3 produced by the fish faster than bacteria do, and they wont produce NO2 or NO3. And yes the nitrifying bacteria should have survived just fine for an hour in wet gravel. With fast-growing plants, nitrifying bacteria will still colonize the filter, but not as fast. It wont matter to the fish whether plants or bacteria (or both) are removing their ammonia.

 

[madmike]

Sweet, thanks for the tip. I will order the plants immediately!

 

[madmike]

Ordered some java-moss , two Redmoor roots, 2x75w Eheim Jäger heaters, Fluval Edge vacuum and 6 coconut caves now. Anyone know where I might get some appropriate dried leaves at this time of the year?

 

[Neptune's Neighborhood]

Ordered some java-moss , two Redmoor roots, 2x75w Eheim Jäger heaters, Fluval Edge vacuum and 6 coconut caves now. Anyone know where I might get some appropriate dried leaves at this time of the year?

I would check aquabid unless you are in the area of the leaves and can guarantee they have no pesticides

 

[madmike]

I ordered 100 grade A leaves now. Now for the next question: When adding the catappa leaves will surely decrease (if what I read is correct) so how do I keep it steady at 6.5-6.8? I kind of want to cover the substrate with a lot of leaves to make it look natural, but I am sure there's a major downside in doing so? Any other leaves I could add that does not affect my water parameters? Cheers for the effort of answering all my silly questions, it is much appreciated.

 

[gerald]

There are several recent threads on here about leaves, pH buffering, and related topics - use the "search" button. Many of us use oak, magnolia, and other leaves. If you want very soft, low conductivity water with a stable pH, the general consensus here seems to be that you CAN'T. If pH is getting too low (less than 5.5) I would use a very small amount of aragonite gravel in the filter (start with a teaspoon or less).

 

[JasonC]

If you want a bunch of different Apisto species in a 112 liter tank, consider an all-male "bachelor" tank so they wont have as much reason to fight with each other. Then, when you want to decide to breed them, get another tank (or several, 50 liter or larger) and some females and give each male (with 1 or more females) his own tank.

PS - your English is better than many Americans'

+1 for the bachelor (or I call it a frat house) tank. Just started one of these up myself, and it is already proving to be a good bit of fun.

 

[madmike]

That's the idea I was planning to run with. I'm busy working until Tuesday so won't get any fish until then, but at least then some of my plants will have arrived, if not all. The bad part is that they're having a 50% sale on all fish at one of the shops nearby, just too bad it'll probably all be empty by the time I get there, haha.

Jason, do you have any additional information on your frat house? Size? Decorations? Water parameters? How many and what type of Apistos? Any dither fish?

 

[madmike]

I want to have a leaf-littered look (at least try it out for a while), but if I understand correctly my pH will drop significantly (I assume it would turn deadly to apistos?) if I add too many catappa leaves in the tank at once? Are there other leaves available through say eBay, Aquabid etc. this time a year that do not alter my water parameters?

 

[JasonC]

While I would not look to my tank as a model, nor to me as an expert at anything, I am using a 20gallon long and have 4 males in it currently. Each male is from a different complex in order to help curb any major inter-species aggression. Tank is moderately planted, with a good number of caves/hiding spots. There are some grow-out plecos and some lemon tetras currently in the tank. I'm using straight tap which comes out pretty neutral and drifts down into the 6.5 range between water changes.

I like this tank so far, as with the lack of females, there is no major aggression towards each other, but the males do still swim around with some bravado. I think I would like to see how far I can push it as far as population though. I am curious if you can safely overpopulate like you can with all male Malawi cichlid tanks.

As far as leaves dropping the pH, depending on the exact species, this would be a good thing. There is an Apisto species for pretty much any pH from neutral on down... think the lowest I have seen reference to is in the low 4's.. though someone more knowledgeable than me can confirm.

Good luck with the tank, and welcome to the addiction!!

 

[madmike]

Well as far as I'm concerned every tank with Apistos is a great source of inspiration, even if it's bad or not. I find the fish absolutely stunning and it's such a natural beauty that cannot be defined! I spent hours in three different pet stores today and I finally decided upon which I wanted to go with. Seeing as I'm totally new to all of this I guided myself with the use of pictures and descriptions online to separate the females from the males, and the different species. I ended up with a bit of a mix (which I am sure I'll have to sort out later because I've chosen some that do not fit? Please tell me if I have. ;-) )

I carefully watched them in the store to see their patterns and most of them seemed to be going along well with the other fishes. I chose not to buy the largest ones I could find, but rather the smaller, but still stunning to look at so that I can watch and record their coming evolution, which is the reason I'm into this at all. :-D

Though I am not 100% sure about this, here's what I bought today (they were not cheap to say the least, so I hope they survive their prolonged stay with me):

A. agassizii "Double Red"
A. viejita
A. nijsseni
M. ramirezi x2 I believe, unless "Blue Butterfly Cichlid" is another species?
Paracheirodon axelrodi x15


Please take a look at my shitty photographs and see if you can spot some of them. Some of them are still "hiding" so it's hard to get a good shot of them.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[Neptune's Neighborhood]

Congrats, but beware of the conditions that are best for each species. It is unlikely you will run into problems as long as you run a stable tank. When running soft water with very low kH, you need to monitor the pH whenever you change something, add medicine, introduce an item or a fish. A pH swing of more than 1.0, in either direction, will more than likely kill everyone.