just bought some christmas presents...

[Lauren]

My eight year old sister loves my fish. She comes into my room every day to look at them and ask me questions abut them. I fondly remember how when I was about eight I got my first aquarium, so I decided it was time to get her started.

Here's the damage I just did on my card:

http://members.roadfly.org/little740girl/aquarium.jpg

Look at that complete with tacky pink and purple gravel and fake plastic pants, she'll love it. I know that I'll be the one taking care of the new aquarium, but I'm looking forward to that roll. I'm so excited about being able to have more fish in the house, stocking a new tank, watching the fish mature. It's going to be fun, and hopefully my sister will learn how to be a good aquarist so her first tank doesn’t end up like my ill maintained first tank.

Now, my little sister already has a beta fish named Nemo, of course. I'm pretty sure she will want him to have a new home in the tank. I know that there are fish out there that can peacefully coexist with a beta, I just don’t know what. What are some hearty fish that won't give Nemo any trouble? I have to ask... angel fish? That's all I wanted when I was eight, I doubt my sister will be any different.

I doubt this tank will see any real plants. I'd like it too, but I'm not planning on it. They will probably get some more shiney fake plants that my sister will pick out.

[as40]

Don't know about angel fish, other than they can get large and territorial with age, but I know cardinal or neon tetras, guppies, would do fine in there... Pretty much any small fish that isn't a fin-nipper would be fine with Nemo. There are many good "starter" fish out there. You wouldn't want to get, say, tiger barbs to throw in there though because they can be nippy, and your poor beta's fins would get shredded. Most tetras are okay, although some of them (like "red eye/lamp eye" tetras) are also nippy. Go check out a good aquarium book like "Baensch, Aquarium Atlas" and research fish that won't get too large for the tank and that are labeled as peaceful or good community tank fish.

[kveeti]

That's a nice present. Whether or not an angelfish and betta will get along (I doubt it but I'm not 100% sure) really doesn't matter... I take it that tank is a 5 or 10 gallon?? Much too small for an angelfish. There are several threads on companions for bettas. Corys are great, I think your sister would get a kick out of their antics.

[Lauren]

how big do small angelfish get? The only thing I'd worry about is angelfish are a little aggressive. I will most likely have to not let her get them. Oh she'd LOVE tetras. That will probably be the best bet, all those colors and action and they aren't too delicate. Some neons or glowlights. That would probably be the best for her.

I hope she doesn't get let down in stocking. Explaining that she can't have 30 fish, that she has to buy them only a few at the time and how some species don't coexist well will be hard to teach an eight year old. But I'm sure she won't be able to say no to some bright and quick tetras.

Hmm, probably should have put this in the beginning section. Sorry about that.

It's a 10 gallon, the best tank I could afford.

[Dapple2]

A 20g is about the minimum size for a pair of angels, athough a 25 or a 29 would be a bit better. They are also fairly aggressive, and would be likely to tear chunks out of her betta's fins.

Some better tankmates might include small tetras (neon, black non, green fire, silvertip, glowlight, etc), rasboras, cherry barbs, white clouds, corys, shrimp, kulhi loaches, and ottos.

Another good book to check out (which might keep he occupied and excited while she's waiting for new additions) would be Inne's Exotic Aquarium Fishes. Almost every public library I've seen has a copy, sparing more damage to your budget ;)

[Lauren]

haha, still to this day I am amazed that my first aquarium lasted so long. I had that thing for over a year with very little fish death. That little 10 gallon of mine supported four small angel fish and a school of neon tetras. I don't know how it worked, but it did. They only died because I forgot to condition the water once during a water change and killed them all off :sad

I didn't think that angel fish were feasible, but I had to ask. Everyone loves angelfish. Thanks for the book suggestion, she'd love to read that. Guess I'm going to have to stop using my library card as an algae scrapper for a day or two to get it for her. Don't worry, it’s clean... never been used at a liberary before.

[sprite42]

You might want to think about which fish will be heartiest for cycling. I don't think bettas and corys are good cycling fish. A few white cloud minnows or zebra danios are very good cycling fish. I have cycled 4 tanks with danios and 2 with white clouds. I never lost a fish (knock on wood). I was a really *green* newbie. Still am, lol. Good luck with your sisters tank.

[Dapple2]

Hmmm...it would actually be a bit better perhaps to ffishless cycle, but I realize that might not go over very well...

The only issue I could see with using danios is that they wouldn't be the greatest tankmates for the betta later on...and he should be okay as long as she stocks slowly enough. Just keep him in there alone for a couple weeks and then add fish very gradually after that to build up the bioload while keeping an eye on water paramters.

[Lauren]

I was going to do a fishless cycle route, but a short one. Perhaps only a few days. Then I have two guppies still in my tank that I'm going to transfer over. Give them a week or two, then put the betta in, another bit of time to pass, and then, finally, I will bring her to the fish store. I want to do this as swiftly as safely possible, just for the sake of the litle girl involved. Hopefully I can explain this well enough to her so she won't get sad that her tank has no fish in it. I'll bring her to the store with me when I go for my own fish needs so she can look and learn about the process of buying fish, since I'm still stocking my own tank. She's a smart girl, I'm sure she'll understand.

[Alainuws]

Originally posted by Lauren
I was going to do a fishless cycle route, but a short one. Perhaps only a few days.

That is not a cycle, it is called waiting a few days hehe

I can understand that it is hard to wait to get some fish in a tank.

What you could do is borrow some media filter from your established tank to put in the new filter. That could help speeding up the bacteria proccess and help to keep the ammonia level down.

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

You say that you have a fish tank in your room?

Well! If you wanted to cycle your sister's new tank in a few days just simply put the filter media from your tank into her new filter, plus a little stocking full of your gravel. The tank should be cycled in a week.

To aid in this process though, because you need to feed the bacteria from your old filter, put the betta and a few cories into the new tank. Bettas can breathe surface air and cories are really hardy. They will produce waste to help the bacteria multiply to cycle the new tank.

I cycled my 33 gallon this way- i added the sponge from my 20 gal filter into the new filter and added my betta and three pepper cories. The tank cycled in 5 days and was ready to go- and everyone was happy and did really well.

This is the easiest way- and because you aren't realy so much 'starting from scratch' the fish won't be really hurt by the cycling process.

:)

[SnakeIce]

I have a angelfish and a betta in my 20 gallon tank. the betta picked on my angel more than the other way around... but then I have a really laid back angelfish and betta.

I saw some references to small angelfish. I would like to say that there are no small angelfish, stunted angels, yes but no true small angels. basically the angels would have to be undernurished to be small

[Lauren]

filter sizes are different, so I can't share that. I have some goodies in my tank that she can have to help her own tank come around, little tid bits I was planning of getting rid of anywyas.

I need to read up again on starting a new tank. I've only done it correctly once, and that was a few months ago. Just a matter of remembering the water change schedual and time table. We'll be fine. I have the litterature, just got to do the reading.

She came home today and saw five more presents under the tree... she's already excited.