First proper tank! After a bit of advice

[PippaT]

Hey I'm the proud (novice!) owner of my first 'proper' tank, which is a 125 litre coldwater tank with Fluval 205 external filter.
Currently have 4 young fantails (upgraded from a very small tank), 10 white cloud mountain minnows, 5 zebra danios and 2 zebra snails, all of which have blossomed beautifully. Never had a problem with disease, aggression, things like that and my water levels have miraculously stayed low despite my bumbling start to water changes etc.

For those interested, I got a couple pictures

Anyway, I have a couple questions that no-one else has been able to answer;
1/ I'm pretty certain I have two female danios and three males. At the pet store, I couldn't tell which is which so I can't guarantee getting more females. Whats the best thing to do in this situation? I don't want to buy more danios and end up with even more males.

2/ a few of my minnows have HUGE bellies, like ridiculously out of proportion. If the conditions aren't right for them to want to spawn, will they be okay holding on to the possible eggs permanently? I don't want them to suffer because of it..

3/ I only have the lights on for about 3 - 4 hours in the evening since during the day the extra light isn't even that noticeable. Is this too little? I know there's a maximum but I haven't heard about minimum light levels.

Thanks so much for reading, I'm pretty new to keeping fish and I want to get it right

 

[Desire]

The danio question I can answer for you, as we breed them at home.
With full-grown danio's the difference between the males and females is easy to see. The female's are fatter and bigger than the males. We, at the beginning, had more males than females, and it was never an issue. With fish as small as the danios it is hard to see the difference before they reach their mature age. If you want to be completely sure about their sex, either make sure they are adults, or have them sexed by someone who knows exactly what to look for in the juveniles to distinguish male from female.

 

[Redearsunfish]

Without live plants, direct and purpose driven light sources are only a necessity to the fish owner for viewing the tank if so desired. Otherwise i'm of the opinion that most fish prefer the subdued lighting provided by ambient light or room lighting in general. Besides, the more light you add, the more algae you'll get in the end.

 

[Redearsunfish]

My only other advice would be to add another similarly sized filter, or at the very least an air stone. Also, you'll be needing a larger tank soon, or remove 1 or two of the goldfish, so personally I wouldn't add any more fish.

 

[Fat Homer]

There isn't really a minimum for lighting, it all depends on the needs of your tank... for example, if you had a seriously heavily planted tank you'd most likely be looking for long lighting periods whether its natural light or artificial...

On the other hand, if you had all fake plants and nothing was live besides the fish, arguably you could only turn them on when you wanted to see the fish...

Although i should mention, be careful with placing a tank where it gets a lot of natural light coz you may end up with a lot of algae depending on how much and how long it gets direct light... another thing is temps may fluctuate a bit as well due to the direct sunlight...

 

[PippaT]

Desire -

I have three which are slimmer and very yellow/gold which I presumed were the males, and two with much rounder bellies and they have a kind of blue sheen to them which I figure are the females. Does this sound right??

Redearsunfish -

Is the filter I have at the moment not enough? I test the water every week and ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all minimal; is that not what I should be testing for? How can I tell when the tank is getting too small for them? Thanks

 

[PippaT]

Fat Homer - I have two real plants, I had more but the rest just seemed to fall apart and float at the top :/ No idea what they are but they seem to be doing okay Thank you

 

[Desire]

Sounds about right. The females tend to be more round in the belly area, the males on the other hand are noticeably slimmer and sleeker.

As for your goldfish, they can reach a size of 30 cm in length, they can live for more than 20 years and are related to carp, so you can imagine the size.
They are also huge poopers. Yup, you read that right... They poop... A LOT! So to keep them healthy you need a filter capacity that will filter 3 to 4 times the volume of water in your tank EVERY hour. My advice is: don't keep goldfish in a tank. Find them a nice big pond to live in for the rest of their lives. I don't mean to be harsh or mean, don't get me wrong!

 

[PippaT]

Desire - You're not being harsh in the least, I appreciate the advice I've got very attached to those little guys, more than the rest, so I'll have to consider having a pond installed when it gets a bit warmer outside Thanks so much

 

[Fat Homer]

unfortunately i'm no plant expert either... but your other plants probably died due to substrate used and possibly the lack of ferts / Co2 etc...

But from what i can see in your photos i'm guessing u have sword tails? another type of plant u could try is anubias... they are really hardy, don't need much light, and grow with no extra need care really...