fish for kids?

[sevs and sajicas for me]

I recently set up a 10 gallon for my 4 year old boy. We put a couple of male endlers in it with some pangio oblonga that i had left over from a group that had a massive die off in a bigger tank. I wouldn't suggest buying oblongas for a 10 gallon but the endlers have done very well.

 

[islandguy11]

Alright, i'm looking at a tentative schedule to get my 55 vacant and cleaned out in the next few weeks and decided i'll use that. As of right now, i'm on board to try what AngelPhish suggested, or at least something close to it. I've never maintained an aquarium properly before (most i've ever had to do was keep some feeder fish and feeder crawfish alive long enough to need them to feed to my other animals.) Though i've maintained a pond for a reptile, so some minimum experience already. Either way this will be a learning experience! I'm doing as much reading as I can in my downtime of working on large reptile enclosure, and working full time. My serious planning for this tank will begin once my reptile enclosure is up and running safely. But that takes up a monsterous amount of my time as it's an 8ft long, 4ft deep, and 4ft tall enclosure sitting on a 30" tall stand so it's a beast of a setup.

To keep things moving along nicely, i'm thinking of when i get close to done with the reptile enclosure, i want to order up my substrate, plants, and water conditioners so i can start getting the tank cycled and ready for fish as soon as possible.

I'll be thinking "out loud" here, so feel free to shoot down my ideas, tell me i'm wrong, or what not.

I want it somewhat planted, so I'm thinking of going with SeaChem Flourite black as a substrate. I like the color, i like it can be used as a standalone, and i like the minimum maintenance on it.

Prime, stability, and clarity to get water off to a good start.

Plants? No idea what plants to go with just yet. Still need to browse some low maintenance plants.

The Fluval FX series filters seem to have everything i want. Everything i've moaned and groaned about with my current filters, the fx series eliminates. Undecided of fx4 or fx6 yet, need to do more reading. Definitely doing with an inline heater, and accompanying controller.

Lighting i haven't gotten to yet.

decorations i haven't gotten to yet. But have a few ideas.

Once it's all good to go and cycled i'll start ordering fish and food.

Good decision going with the 55 instead of the tiny (and arguably harder to maintain) 5g. Hopefully your daughter will stay engaged with the tank over time, but if like a lot of kids her attention wanders you'll want something that keeps your interest as well. Look fwd to seeing the results and also hearing how your daughter reacts to it all.

 

[jyabs7]

Random question even though i'm not at that point...when introducing the fish to the aquarium, is it safe to plop all the different ones in on the same day? I feel like it would save me money on shipping ordering them all at once, but i wouldn't have a quarantine tank setup for each breed. My thought is, since it's new to everyone, there shouldn't be any pecking order yet, so they could all figure it out together. Bad idea?

Good decision going with the 55 instead of the tiny (and arguably harder to maintain) 5g. Hopefully your daughter will stay engaged with the tank over time, but if like a lot of kids her attention wanders you'll want something that keeps your interest as well. Look fwd to seeing the results and also hearing how your daughter reacts to it all.

Thanks! i'll keep everyone posted as it progresses. some material for my reptile setup got delayed and will be 7-10 more business days so it pushes out the aquarium too but i'm getting itchy. Somehow she has a better attention span and maintained interest than i do. Her bedtime routine (per her demands) is to say good night to me and my wife, then each of the four dogs, then the tortoise, the alligator, then the salamanders, then the spiders, then the chickens, then the rabbits, then the chickens, then the pony. THEN she can go to bed. And she has to kiss the tank of all out tanked animals.

 

[Angelphish]

Random question even though i'm not at that point...when introducing the fish to the aquarium, is it safe to plop all the different ones in on the same day? I feel like it would save me money on shipping ordering them all at once, but i wouldn't have a quarantine tank setup for each breed. My thought is, since it's new to everyone, there shouldn't be any pecking order yet, so they could all figure it out together. Bad idea?





Thanks! i'll keep everyone posted as it progresses. some material for my reptile setup got delayed and will be 7-10 more business days so it pushes out the aquarium too but i'm getting itchy. Somehow she has a better attention span and maintained interest than i do. Her bedtime routine (per her demands) is to say good night to me and my wife, then each of the four dogs, then the tortoise, the alligator, then the salamanders, then the spiders, then the chickens, then the rabbits, then the chickens, then the pony. THEN she can go to bed. And she has to kiss the tank of all out tanked animals.

I did some reading, and cories probably won't work with apistos, as apistos get aggressive during breeding, and cories tend to be oblivious of other fish's territory. This wouldn't be a problem if you didn't plan on breeding, but since aquaticarts sells them as male/female pairs, it's bound to happen at some point. You'll have to choose between the apistos or the cories. Given this, I'm not sure you'll have many other bottom dwellers to choose from, so I would recommend replacing the apistogramma with 1-2 pairs of Nannacara anomala, which can be found at wetspottropicalfish.com, along with probably the rest of fish. These are more peaceful and smaller than aspistogramma, so if you find another couple fish you like, you'll have space for them aswell.

As for the order to add them in, none of them should have a pecking order, but I would do either all at once, or cories, tetras, then cichlids.

 

[Zanzag]

Cories shouldn't really be a problem with apistos. They're well armored and tend to just move away when a cichlid gets pushy.

 

[sevs and sajicas for me]

Apistos for the most part don't have enough firepower to outright kill some cories. I wouldn't worry too much. In a 55 gallon there should be more than enough room for the corydoras to get out of their way.

As for plopping them in together, as long as your bacteria colony can keep up with the waste all at once it should be fine. That's how i've done it in the past. Just watch for ammonia/nitrite spikes

 

[jyabs7]

Waiting on the last parts for my gator cage so got a week or two of dead time yet and was doing some browsing and planning for the fish tank. I bought two fx6's new on ebay for pretty cheap so i'm happy about that. one will go to the gator and one for this tank. But i got to thinking...am i going to need an air pump of some kind for this tank?

 

[Angelphish]

Waiting on the last parts for my gator cage so got a week or two of dead time yet and was doing some browsing and planning for the fish tank. I bought two fx6's new on ebay for pretty cheap so i'm happy about that. one will go to the gator and one for this tank. But i got to thinking...am i going to need an air pump of some kind for this tank?

You could add one, but as long as you have enough surface agitation you should be fine.

 

[jyabs7]

Thanks! I'll try it without one and see how it goes. I started ordering everything now, so when the time comes i don't have to wait anymore than necessary.

I ran into a small snag with a few ideas. one being i wanted to use a hydor inline filter, but the fx6 uses 1" hose, and the hydor 5/8. Not wanting to use adapters, i browsed for other options and decided to go with a Fluval E300 https://www.fluvalaquatics.com/us/product/e300-advanced-electronic-heater-2/ I think it'll serve it's purpose well for what i want, and i can still use it with my inkbird controller.

Next, i found a lot of less than stellar on the seachem substrate that i wanted to use. I wasn't game for putting in serious effort of multiple rinsing and drying and soaking etc just for substrate, so i went with ultum nature controsoil which requires no rinsing, and still seems to fit the bill of what i want. More expensive, but if it saves me a hassle it's fine.

For lighting, i ordered a Finnex Planted+ 24/7 V2. Reviews are hit or miss as far as if people like the 24/7 feature or not, but i think it intrigues me. most of my tanks are smart setups already, so this will fit right in. I like peace of mind of things running themselves, one less animal to tend to at 4am before work.

As far as plants, and other decor, that will be left for the end. I have a few ideas that i'm not quite sure will work, so i want to try them before i mention anything, so that way there if i fail i fail when no ones looking

Now i'm left with browsing for food. Any recommendations while i look around?

 

[Akeno071]

Now i'm left with browsing for food. Any recommendations while i look around?

I feed a mix of bogstandard tropical flake, catfish pellets and 3 cubes of frozen bloodworm to my community tank.
Any sort of high quality flake or pellet would probably work for most fishes diets.