New tank help!

[melissafoster]

I have been scanning several different sites, and you all seem to really know your stuff, so I am asking for some serious help!
I just purchased a 12 gallon tank for my 6 year old for his birthday. It is a new tank and is currently running with no fish. My son saw the "dinosaur fish" (Bichir, approx 2") at the big box pet store and is in love! Is this tank big enough? What do I feed it? Which fish can be good tank mates, etc? Tiger barbs? I had several tanks in college and seemed to have fairly good success, but these "dinosaur fish" seem really tricky and difficult to keep. Do I just try to convince him to get something different? Does anyone have any advice? Thanks!!!

 

[garboy]

Your tank is not big enough. They can reach up to 10 to 12 inches. You could do a little school of neon tetras or some tiger barbs. But you really shouldn't get any thing that gets bigger than a few inches


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[LS2012]

Hi Melissa,

Welcome! Kudos to you for being responsible and seeking help before buying something. Its more than many others have done and sadly will continue to do.

I agree, your tank isn't big enough for a bichir. For more info on them, take a look at the advanced aquaria section on the ancient fish, Polypterus. You'll see a lot of info on size, setups, care, etc. and hopefully reconsider the choices for a small starter tank.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?108-Polypterus

Its great that your son is interested in the hobby at such a young age, and also wonderful that you're encouraging his interest When our young daughter said she wanted a Nemo fish, we didn't know enough about saltwater tanks to undertake that type of endeavor. However, we did want to make her happy. We let her pick out a Nemo aquarium decoration and put it in one of our tanks. She was thrilled and we were off the hook, so to speak. Perhaps your son can pick out dinosaur decorations for his tank?

Since you have prior experience with keeping fish, you're probably familiar with cycling. For a refresher browse around here for more info on getting ready for fish in a new tank. There's so much valuable info in this forum and its right at your fingertips.

Keep us posted and good luck.



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[Peg]

Hi. I am having problems with ammonia. Just recently started a new 75 gallon saltwater tank. All numbers were good and added 3 damsels and nitrite, nitrate and ammonia were still at zero so I added 4 clown fish 2 days ago and now the ammonia is off the chart. Any suggestions? Fish are looking stressed. I added ammonia lock and waited 24 hours but ammonia was still very high so I changed 50% of water. If ammonia is still high what should I do?

 

[DDK]

dose with some prime or safe every 24 hours as needed to allow the beneficial bacteria build up. It may take a while but after that period you need to worry about nitrite and repeat the process if you have any crashes, but i doubt you will.

 

[David R]

Any suggestions?

Starting your own thread, probably in the salt water section, is more likely to get you answers than tacking an unrelated question onto someone else's discussion

Aside from that, water changes and get some cycled live rock from another keeper if possible. Alternately, move the clowns to another established tank until yours is fully cycled.

Most importantly, be patient. The only things that happen fast in salt water aquariums are bad things!

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