cheap sensative fish

[JardiniBoy]

Cardinal tetras, neon tetras, rummy nose tetras.

The rummy nose tetras will lose their red nose if something is off in the water before they die, so they are a good indicator of water quality.

I agree 100% with the above! I have 8 rummy noses in my 55 planted. The tank doesn't get a water change as often as my monster tank and I usually use the rummynoses and algae on the glass as an indicator of when I need to do a water change.

Although their noses are sensitive to water quality, I've actually found them to be quite hardy..

FWIW

 

[bigspizz]

Black mollies, they will show ick and velvit emediatly. I'm not sure on other things though.

 

[Nova 8]

How would you like it if we put you on Mars with half an oxygen tank and told you to let us know when it gets toxic (i.e. you die)

Free trip to Mars, ohh pick me, pick me, I'll do it.

Test your water weekly and do weekly water changes and you'll be right, if your really worried then used those ammonia monitors.
The canary doesn't work all that good anyway, it may die before the miners but they still get poisoned, if it was reliable then we'd still used it and not modern monitors.

 

[Headrush]

OK sorry I didn't mean to flame this poor guy but I was very curious regarding the intentions here. Just sounded kinda strange to me. Anyway...

Good info regarding rummy nosed tetras. I have a few and never knew their noses were such an indicator. Will watch more closely now, but I change water in all my tanks 1x per week, so I don't really worry about it too much.

I just though it was strange to stress fish as an indicator of poor water quality. I'd prefer doing the fishless cycle, but I'm sure we've all thrown some fish in a tank a little too early in our excitement to get it going.