02-17-2007, 05:48 AM
> I have a Betta in a one gallon tank and came home tonight with a 1.5 Tetra tank set up
> (which is very cute) and two small goldfish...but I want more!
Don't put goldfish in a small tank. They are poop machines. Are you trying to kill them?
The 1-2 gallons per inch of fish rule becomes 5 gallons per inch for goldfish.
There are two ways that they can cram a lot of fish in those tiny tanks at fish stores. First, they have giant filters running behind those tanks. Second, they clean out the corpses several times each day.
As for the "big" tank...
Get an Eclipse tank with a nice quiet biowheel and a heater, Put it somewhere out of direct sunlight and away from outside walls that get warm or cool with the passing of the day. Add no more than 1/4-inch of gravel to the bottom of the tank -- more than that can make it very hard to clean. Don't add a lot of decorations initially -- they displace water and less water means a less resilient ecosystem.
Start it off with a couple of zebrafish to get the biological filter going and if they're still alive after a month, consider adding more fish a few at a time with at least a week between additions.
Keep new fish in a temporary "hospital" tank for a week before adding them to your "good" tank and look carefully for "sparkles" in their scales, white spots or holes in their fins which could indicate illness. One sick fish could kill everything in your tank.
Since you're a newcomer to the hobby, you should probably stick mostly to small, hardy, cheap fish. Minnows have decent survival rates and they come in many fancy colors and school in pretty patterns. Zebrafish are minnows. So are barbs, Danios and White Clouds. Watch out for species that notoriously nip as fin-injuries are easy sites for infection.
But every tank needs a show-fish, right? I'm very fond of plecos as they look really creepy and perform basic housecleaning... The caveat is that they get big -- don't get more than than 1 per 20 gallons. Buy the medium or large sized ones because the small ones have low survival rates.
...Which reminds me: The aquarium-trade thrives on selling fish... they don't care about things like the adult SIZE of a fish and the kid at PetSmart doesn't know anything he can't read off of a label. Don't buy a fish until you've done your research and know that its grown size and social habits are appropriate for your tank. Shark-catfish are prime examples -- they look pretty, they are very tiny, and the folks at the pet store love selling them in schools of 3-4, but they can grow to be 9 feet long as adults.
Don't buy anything without Googling first.
> (which is very cute) and two small goldfish...but I want more!
Don't put goldfish in a small tank. They are poop machines. Are you trying to kill them?
The 1-2 gallons per inch of fish rule becomes 5 gallons per inch for goldfish.
There are two ways that they can cram a lot of fish in those tiny tanks at fish stores. First, they have giant filters running behind those tanks. Second, they clean out the corpses several times each day.
As for the "big" tank...
Get an Eclipse tank with a nice quiet biowheel and a heater, Put it somewhere out of direct sunlight and away from outside walls that get warm or cool with the passing of the day. Add no more than 1/4-inch of gravel to the bottom of the tank -- more than that can make it very hard to clean. Don't add a lot of decorations initially -- they displace water and less water means a less resilient ecosystem.
Start it off with a couple of zebrafish to get the biological filter going and if they're still alive after a month, consider adding more fish a few at a time with at least a week between additions.
Keep new fish in a temporary "hospital" tank for a week before adding them to your "good" tank and look carefully for "sparkles" in their scales, white spots or holes in their fins which could indicate illness. One sick fish could kill everything in your tank.
Since you're a newcomer to the hobby, you should probably stick mostly to small, hardy, cheap fish. Minnows have decent survival rates and they come in many fancy colors and school in pretty patterns. Zebrafish are minnows. So are barbs, Danios and White Clouds. Watch out for species that notoriously nip as fin-injuries are easy sites for infection.
But every tank needs a show-fish, right? I'm very fond of plecos as they look really creepy and perform basic housecleaning... The caveat is that they get big -- don't get more than than 1 per 20 gallons. Buy the medium or large sized ones because the small ones have low survival rates.
...Which reminds me: The aquarium-trade thrives on selling fish... they don't care about things like the adult SIZE of a fish and the kid at PetSmart doesn't know anything he can't read off of a label. Don't buy a fish until you've done your research and know that its grown size and social habits are appropriate for your tank. Shark-catfish are prime examples -- they look pretty, they are very tiny, and the folks at the pet store love selling them in schools of 3-4, but they can grow to be 9 feet long as adults.
Don't buy anything without Googling first.