2 FEET Newbie

[ZackZhou]

Hi, just like to share my experience as a newbie in keeping plants and fishes all together. started last year december when gf and I stepped into this fish shop in amk central. decided to spend 70 bucks buying guppies, neons and nameless fishes. one feet tank, think smaller than that, small clinch at the back type filter, and some PLASTIC decros. that's about all. and i thought that i will live with it. But the guy at the LFS told me, YOU WILL BE BACK.

I was really back, ONE WEEK LATER.

this is what i end up with, not as pro. but at least some effort. haha. After that, comes this website/forum, which is a great great help for me.
So it ended up improving.

After this, i thought i would want co2. but it was expensive, thus i bought it second handed. The plant started to grow.

Then comes by the fishes, i used to keep all kinds, as my gf calls it "united nation". But the LFS guy advise me to keep 1 or 2 types only, better view. Thus, after much consideration, i decided to go with "Bleeding Heart" and "prestella" as they do look alike in ways.

From then onwards, i really to enjoy seeing my fishes grow and my plants give out bubbles!
Here are Some more pics of my tank.


MY fishes:









Thanks all for Viewing. Appreciate it if anyone would to comment and ways to improve it.

[chumzhujun]

nice.may i knw the fish shop you.went

[apisto31]

Hi Bro, Pls remove you puffer asap as it's not meant to be in the community tank, as you can see the barb and oto have their fins nipped already. I would think that most of you other fishes have their fin nipped by now.

[griffinkid]

Hi puffers have this natural instinct to nip so It is better to move them to a species only tank : )

[ZackZhou]

haa. thanks alot. but puffer is so small, really cant imagine that it will actually nip fins. thanks again for the info. and i'm going to rescape the tank soon. ahha

[k3nlim]

ermm...think the corys will require sand and the pleco might grow too big for your tank

[jiajuen900]

that dwarf puffer although small can kill or injure fish several times it own size ^^, The SAE will grow aggresive as it grows big and may uproot plants, pleco will outgrow ur tank eventually ^^

[zonkkie]

The AMK shop is probably Pets Boutique, they do post regularly in the merchant's forum.

Plants looks nice but really have to change your fauna. Plecos and cories will disturb your substrate. Also, tank seems to be overstocked.

By the way, is your tank cycled?

[marcusth]

You have a good set up for a newbie nice job done i c you have a pvc tube on the far right, thats for ur filter? what filter you use and your lighting?? so you bought everything including the fishes on the 1st day and they survived??!

Thats pretty amazing if you really did that, and ya, you have to take out your puffer asap before the damage is significant

[ZackZhou]

thanks guys. yea the pvc pipes are for the filters. i learned alot thru u guys. i am going to change the scape and + chiller for the tank. will update on my new thread. thanks guys. anyway, anyone can advise me where can i find rummynose tetras? that would be deeply appreciated. thanks guys. and jiajuen900, u want my puffers? saw u got a pufer tank.

[vinz]

that dwarf puffer although small can kill or injure fish several times it own size ^^, The SAE will grow aggresive as it grows big and may uproot plants, pleco will outgrow ur tank eventually ^^

Concur on the puffer and pleco.

I do not agree on the SAE. Mine have never uprooted plants and I've not heard of them doing so. Perhaps they might uproot newly planted plants. I would call them boisterous rather than aggressive as they do not harm other fishes. Really fast at snatching food though.

[Emokidz]

Yup, the puffer will definitely nip (although it looks SOOOOO INNOCENT!!!!)

[jiajuen900]

hmmm boisterous is a better word. Sorry.

ZackZhou: Uhmmm, probably no. Actually that that tanks is for one and only one male puffer. Yours looks like a male, so id rather not thanks ^^

[Halimlee85]

Bro... i keep 1 pair of blue angel..... Sad to say i want to remove snail so i buy 1 puffer... i kept it with then tank that house the pair blue angle and within 3 days the beautiful fins with blue dots just got ripped and destroy!!! and now both my blue angle RIP....

do remove the puffer if you still want to keep other fishes and i hope other bros don't end up to my stage of losing fishes.

[ZackZhou]

Haha, thanks guys. Me getting conned by the innocent looking Puffers! well, gettting started on the new scape real soon. Just came back from phuket with 11kg of rocks. I actually bought from there ( 15baht per KG ) LOL. well start a new thread once i decom this current tank and please advice me on the scape. Got back from the AMK central FS, the owner lend me an ADA book on the scape. i got most info i needed, but still need comments : ) thanks! hahaha

[ZackZhou]

And just one more thing to ask from you guys, i planning to get a hc-150a at the cost of $300, too ex? With warranty. And can i just have it connected straight to my water pump in the overflow compartment?
as in tank - overflow - media - water pump - chiller - water outlet - tank.

as i do happens to own a atman600 as well.
another set up would be tank - overflow -media - water pump - water oulet - tank. with the atman and the chiller running in the over flow compartment only. as in it will cool the water in the over flow compartment and let the ehiem water pump do the filtration of the main tank.

One last thing! how do u guys actually measures rate of the water flow? that's all. thanks alot!

[marcusth]

rummynose can be bought @ c328 they always have those 15/30 in a packets for a very cheap price

[marcusth]

the most accurate method is provided by ehiem newest model, they provide the operational flowrate reading...if you want to measure manually, you can get a bucket, know how much is it volume and then allow your filter to fill up the bucket and then time it, do some simple math caculation

i see that you are selling this tank whole set, upgrading liao ar??? hahahah

[ZackZhou]

haha, not upgrading la. i buying a newwe shallower tank. detail setup plans and actual setup will be updated soon on a new thread. now i'm going all the lfs to plan for it. its would be 1.5ft tank with rasboras and crs. (temp)

[alvinchan80]

haha, not upgrading la. i buying a newwe shallower tank. detail setup plans and actual setup will be updated soon on a new thread. now i'm going all the lfs to plan for it. its would be 1.5ft tank with rasboras and crs. (temp)

It's just such a poisonous thing right? Haha..
Well, I would just like to give some comments about 1.5ft tank with CRS, might be better to go 2ft as better control with water perimeter but there are successful results from others with smaller tanks.. And if you are going into keeping CRS, just stick to Oto.. Other fishes might just eat up possible shrimplets.. Tested & proven..
Go read up more on CRS keeping as there are much more things to monitor like ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, GH, PH, etc.. Tank must be cycled well too..