Tank Setup

lludu

lludu

Large Fish
#1
Oct 17, 2009
133
0
0
Frederick, MD
#1
I have a 20 gallon tank and wanted to know if this was an alright setup.

5 Neon Tetras,
5 Glowlight Tetras,
4 Oto Catfish,
3 Head and Tail light tetra

Would this be a problem in my fish tank? Also, i have brown/tan/natural looking stones for the bottom of the tank, the fish food i have is also similiar in color, will my fish be able to see the food at the bottom even though it blends in? or should i get different colored stone or sand?
 

O

OrangeCones

Elite Fish
#3
Feb 27, 2009
4,395
0
36
#3
lludu said:
I have a 20 gallon tank and wanted to know if this was an alright setup.

5 Neon Tetras,
5 Glowlight Tetras,
4 Oto Catfish,
3 Head and Tail light tetra

Would this be a problem in my fish tank? Also, i have brown/tan/natural looking stones for the bottom of the tank, the fish food i have is also similiar in color, will my fish be able to see the food at the bottom even though it blends in? or should i get different colored stone or sand?
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The fishfood color makes no difference. They will find it.

Is the 20gallon tank already cycled? If not, please read up on fish-less cycling. If you must do a fish-in cycle, only add one of the groups you mentioned and let the tank cycle. Then you could add another group, wait a few weeks, etc.

I'd add Otos last, as they are much more fragile and need a well established, stable tank.
 

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lludu

lludu

Large Fish
#4
Oct 17, 2009
133
0
0
Frederick, MD
#4
OrangeCones said:
The fishfood color makes no difference. They will find it.

Is the 20gallon tank already cycled? If not, please read up on fish-less cycling. If you must do a fish-in cycle, only add one of the groups you mentioned and let the tank cycle. Then you could add another group, wait a few weeks, etc.

I'd add Otos last, as they are much more fragile and need a well established, stable tank.
Click to expand...


Yes this tank is cycled and ready. I used the AqAdvisor to calculate everything, it ends up like this, (i used Bleeding Heart Tetras because Head and Tail Light Tetras were not on the list but close to the same size):



My next question is, is it possible to add a Betta fish into this tank? There are a lot of places the other fish hide and so i dont think the betta will see a lot of them (i know they really dont care for that).

If not a betta, would some glofish be compatible with the rest of them?
 

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homebunnyj

homebunnyj

Superstar Fish
#6
Jul 13, 2005
1,299
4
0
Western NC
#6
lludu said:
My next question is, is it possible to add a Betta fish into this tank? There are a lot of places the other fish hide and so i dont think the betta will see a lot of them (i know they really dont care for that).

If not a betta, would some glofish be compatible with the rest of them?
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Actually, no, you should bump up the tetra schools a bit. You need at least three more bleeding heart tetras, and one or two more of the others.

Are you sure about your stocking levels? Why not double-check by running the data through MOA's Fishsheet. MOA's sig has a link to the website.
 

sheamurai

sheamurai

Small Fish
#8
Jul 1, 2009
39
0
0
#8
yhbae - can you add jewel and Hap 44 cichlids too? I was just playing around with the site and didn't see any Hemichromus or Haplichromus species...and wasn't sure what to substitue with (sorry for off topic post).
 

lludu

lludu

Large Fish
#9
Oct 17, 2009
133
0
0
Frederick, MD
#9
Newman said:
63% stocked with that many fish? that doesnt seem right, maybe AqAdvisor is flawed somehow...
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I took a look into this, just to make sure that my fish would be alright, and i compared it to MOA's fish stocking sheet. After using the MOA sheet i came up with this:

Waste Scale: 107.5 (Average)
Water Changing Gallons (up to): 2.27 gallons
Filtration Potential: 78.89%
Space Available: 6.15 gallons
Stock Level: 69.25%


Showing that the more likely stock level is about 69%. I also was "yelled" at about the fish not being in schools of 6, so adding both one fish to the neon school and one to the glowlight the numbers come up like this afterwards:

Waste Scale: 118.22 (Average)
Water Changing Gallons (up to): 2.27 gallons
Filtration Potential: 76.80%
Space Available: 4.91 gal
Stock Level: 75.45%


Doing this using AqAdvisor provides me with about a 67% stock level, so in order to be safer i will use MOA's as a following guide and AqAdvisor as a basic rule. Thank you both for helping me with the level for stocking the fish ( i would hate to overstock and feel terrible because the fish get sick).


Also to note if you are editing the AqAdvisor please add the Pitbull Pleco (Parotocinclus jumbo) as they are small catfish as well that can be used instead of Otos. Thanks!
HTML:
 

bassbonediva

bassbonediva

Superstar Fish
#10
Oct 15, 2009
2,010
0
0
Northern Arizona
#10
You asked about adding a male betta to your tank? I would say a male betta would be fine with those fish. Most male bettas are actually big whimps and will only go after other brightly-colored, long-finned fish (like gouramis and angels). You'd actually have to worry more about your other fish attacking the betta. But, tetras are known to be extremely compatible with bettas, so I'd say you're safe.

I have a school of nine female bettas in my 46gal bowfront and they basically ignore the 3 oto cats I have in there (even though one of the females is the same size as the oto cats!). I'm looking to add black mollies, penguin tetras and Glofish once I get the money.
 

Y

yhbae

Large Fish
#11
Oct 24, 2003
239
0
0
Canada
www.aqadvisor.com
#11
Newman said:
63% stocked with that many fish? that doesnt seem right, maybe AqAdvisor is flawed somehow...
Click to expand...
You might be surprised at the results of some configuration. One of the reason I started this tool is to remove subjective feelings. In this case, one or more of the selected species may require little further fine tuning or not. I'll look into them. :)
 

lludu

lludu

Large Fish
#14
Oct 17, 2009
133
0
0
Frederick, MD
#14
Some Other Minor Things

So ive introduced most of the fish into this tank, and they really seem to enjoy the setup so far. My questioning is this is a 20G tank, giving standards that ive known this should have ~50 lbs of gravel, ive added this, but.. is that much necessary? For my 20L tank that seems like an incredible amount of gravel as it takes up about 3.5 inches. Also, what type of problems do / would i run into if i used a fine sand mixture with gravel instead of just the gravel itself?
 

sheamurai

sheamurai

Small Fish
#15
Jul 1, 2009
39
0
0
#15
50 lbs of gravel seems excessive to me, I would use maybe 1/2 of that, depending on what you are doing for plants. I don't know about mixing gravel and sand, I use both right now but only use one or the other in a tank - and my preference these days is sand. You don't want your sand to be too fine tho - you want a coarser sand that settles fast when disturbed and won't get sucked up by your filters, or be too easily vacuumed up.
 

sheamurai

sheamurai

Small Fish
#17
Jul 1, 2009
39
0
0
#17
Depends on who you talk to. I've read a lot about it, and some say pool filter sand, sand blasting sand, silica sand, and playground sand are all good. Lots of rave reviews about Tahitian Moon Sand.
I've tried the sandblasting sand (I wanted black sand), and it turned out that rather than being silica sand like I thought it would be (and was told by the guy that sold it to me), it was nickel slag. I was not impressed. Sandblasting sand has sharp particles in it to help with blasting, so it can't be all that great for fish to sift thru their gills, either.
I've got playground sand now. It's not black, but at least I know its not toxic.
 

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