Hi,i have recently bought a blueplanet 20L aquarium from wellington. I havent kept tropicals before but have kept goldfish on and off for about 6 years. anyway i was hoping someone could give me a few tips on setting up the tank and maintenance etc. i would also like some recommendations on what fish and how many fish i can keep in here. some fish i had in mind were a siamese fighter, honey gourami, bristlenose, black widow tetras and rainbows. i dont know wether these will be compatible or suitable for my tank so any help would be appreciated. thanks matt

Okay

Before you add any fish, you will need to cycle the aquarium. Once a tank is cycled a culture of beneficial bacteria will convert fish waste which is ammonia the bacteria will consume this ammonia (which is highly poisonous) and excrete it as nitrite, a less toxic type of ammonia. A new bacteria colony will form and it will convert nitrites into nitrates, the least toxic form of fish waste.

How to cycle an aquarium?

First add your heater and filter into the tank. Then add dechlorinated water. Switch on your gear. Now there are various ways of cycling. Fish less, getting seeded material and with fish.

I do not recommend cycling with fish. The ammonia eats at their gills and they will die a painful unecessary death.

Fish less cycling. The idea here is to use bottled ammonia to feed the bacteria with. A quick google search will give you plenty of idea, takes about 6 weeks.

Using seeded material. Using seeded material from another tropical cycled healthy tank will help to kick start your aquarium. Again quick google search. Takes under 1 week.

When cycling you will want to test your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates on a regular basis.

After your tank is cycled then you can talk about live stock.

HTH

What squirt said. For stocking 20L is quite small and limiting, restricts you to smaller fish. What I would do is get 6 Harlequin tetra (either standard or purple) and one honey dwarf gourami. You could get a BN but they get fairly large.

Yeah, or a mini feature fish like a nice fighter. You could do a little planting if you wanted. Is it the triangular version? Or rectangular? A red fighter+fully planted=a mini version of henwards red arowana+full planted :slfg:

ok thanks, the lady at animates said 2.5cm of fish per 5 litres of water or something like that so should i go with that?

I think it's the inch per gallon rule. Really depends on how many water changes you want to do. High stock levels=lots of water changes, low stock levels=not so many stock levels. If you don't overstock you'll be looking at doing 20% water change per week. Again some fish aren't suitable for a 20L aquarium, going on your rule you can keep some fish but probably only of one kind because most small fish are schooling fish and prefer groups of 6+

ok thats all goods i will do a bit of a read up

also what size heater would i be looking at, i already have one that was given to me but it is quite big and not sure on how many watts it is

I was running a 50W heater on a tank that size worked fine

heater bout 30cm but tank is rectangle so makes it easier to fit it

Have a look in the club section on the main page of this site and contact the Tasman Aquarium Club. Not only will they be able to help you but they can advise on stocking and probably give you used media to cycle the tank with

I believe they are actually having a meeting this week so contact them.

I think it's the inch per gallon rule. Really depends on how many water changes you want to do. High stock levels=lots of water changes, low stock levels=not so many stock levels. If you don't overstock you'll be looking at doing 20% water change per week. Again some fish aren't suitable for a 20L aquarium, going on your rule you can keep some fish but probably only of one kind because most small fish are schooling fish and prefer groups of 6+

+1, but you also have to be careful with your feedings. 20L does not offer a lot of buffer for water quality - it can deteriorate very very quickly and leave a lot of dead fish.

inch per gallon = :digH:

It may give a rough guide (and by rough, I mean ROUGH), but I wouldn't write it in my bible anytime soon....

Comes down to how much maintenance you want to do, many small fish will excrete more than 1 big fish, but you are limited in terms of space for them to grow into.

Plants also go a long way to helping water quality.

In your situation, I would be tempted to go for a heavy planted tank with a few neons/cardinals or similiar, and a feature fish (fighter, or other solitary, peaceful fish).

Oh, and get a 10 000k (cool white) energy saver-bulb and a wharehouse desk lamp. your plants will be able to photosynthesise under this.

Reasons being:

1) less intense cleaning schedule. (that said, you will still be looking at 20% water change a week min.)

2) easy growing, hardy plants are easy to get hold of, especially from people on the forum.

3) will look absolutely smick with a little effort/research/trial & error.

4) will give you a good idea on where to go next.

5) you can get away with an airstone/ air-driven filter.

6) all above = CHEAP!

Good luck

thanks everyone for the suggestions, i was also wondering since im only fourteen, can i buy fish myself? thanks

Yeah, the LFS here didn't let me at first, so I had to get my mum to come in with me. But then I just got her to tell the shop manager to sell me fish. I was about your age, if you show the manager you know your stuff they'll let you buy fish

ok all goods