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P00rColl3geBoi

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Nov 8, 2006
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Hey, I'm new here on Aquariacentral. I joined because I just got into keeping tropical fish, in the past I've always kept gold fish. So when I first set up a 20g tank to keep tropical fish, I didn't know about cycling...and I ended up killing some tiger barbs. I decided to google some forums to learn more. I feel very lucky that this was the first fish forum I found and signed up to, since the people on here seem very knowledgeable, and everyone says this is the best forum.

Ok, so enough about me. After joining this forum, I decided to get a bigger tank, I went with a 46g bowfront from Petsmart along with a stand for it. I started the cycling process over a week ago. At first, I just wanted to go with the fish food option, but after seeing no results at all, I finally went to wal-mart and got a bottle of "Clear Ammonia" that someone mentioned on another thread.

After getting everything set up in the aquarium and going through the cycle, I keep wondering what fish I may be able to keep in the tank. I seriously didn't know there was so much information on fish keeping until now, I thought you could just throw any types of fish together as long as they're the same "type" (gold fish with gold fish, tropical with tropical, marine with marine). I've read a lot of threads on how people stock their tanks and with what fish, but not a lot information for a 46g tank. I don't plan on keeping any plants for the moment. I'd like to have mainly schooling fish, with a couple of fish that can be happy by themselves. I'd like to have fish at all levels, and some scavengers at teh bottom and maybe a couple of snails for cleaning. Talking about snails, do they need special food or special water requirements?

My second question is about heating and filtration, I think I have enough, but I just wanted to ask to be on the safe side. My filtration is one Aquaclaer 30 and an Aquaclear 50, one on each side of the tank. My heaters are, one 100W Visi-therm Deluxe adn one 200W Visi-therm Stealth. Let me know if these are enough. Thank you guys so much
 
Your heaters are enough, as is your filtration.

Compatible stocking levels can be found in articles concerning a 55 gal tank, in general. jm1212 gives very reasonable advice on stocking.

What is the footprint of your tank?
How long has your cycle been in progress?
What are your current readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and temp?

Can you post a picture of the label on your ammonia showing the ingredients?
 
Heating and Filtration looks to be plenty good to cover your tank size.

As for stocking, I think a 46 probably has enough room to do a typical 3 schools and a centerpiece setup. You get one small school of bottom feeders, corycats or ottos, and two schools of peaceful mid-level shoaling fish (tetras, rasboras etc.) on a level of 6-10 each, and then a single centerpiece fish like a male betta or dwarf gourami or the like.
 
Certainly sounds like you are off to a great start! To help ensure that your heaters are doing a good job (and not too good) get yourself a cheap in-tank thermometer and try to keep it as far away from the heaters as you can. This will tell you what the temp of the water is away from the heater and help ensure that you have sufficient water movement to have an equal temp throughout the tank. Just the same, test periodically by moving the thermometer close to the heaters to make sure that water is not too warm.

Stocking a tank can be sort of tricky and there are too many things to just explain all in one post, or even in one week most likely. The best thing to do is to look at pictures and then research the types you are interested in to see if they fit into your tank and are compatible with other fish you like. I suggest that you try to stay away from the "inch per gallon" rule since it is just too vauge these days for the different types of fish available. (I am sure people will disagree with me, but if you would like to know more, I can explain in better detail).

It is also good to get an idea of what type of tropical you are interested in. For example, you can have a livebearer tank (mollies, guppies, swordtails), cichlids, community (tiger barbs, tetras, etc.), or 'odd-balls' which can sometimes fit into any of these tanks or none, depending on their particular habits and lifestyles, so to speak. It is also important, in my opinion, to know the difference between schooling fish and schoaling fish. Schooling fish are going to all want to stick closely together and travel in the same direction. Schoaling fish (which many tropicals are) need to be kept in groups but wont stick as closely together and can travel in all different directions. I think if you understand that, then you can plan your tank out better to fit into what you described above. Also, keeping fish that are schoaling fish or schooling fish can be affected by keeping in too small of a group or singularly by becoming stressed out, leading to other problems that you would like to avoid.

Using the ammonia dosing is a great way to cycle a tank, in my opinion. Just be sure to add enough to get a cycle started and to keep it going while not adding too much that you poison off the bacteria. The general guideline that I have heard and used most often is 5 drops of ammonia per 10 gallons of water in order to get an ammonia level of 5 ppm.
 
I'm not home right now, so I can't tell you the dimensions of teh tank off of the top of my head, if that's what you meant by "footprints." I only started teh cycling a week ago, right now it's only ammonia at 4 or 5ppm, I use the AP freshwater test kit. the PH of the water is pretty high, it's 8.4, but I read a lot of posts saying that as long as it stays constant, it's ok for the fish right? The hardness is zero, we have a watersoftener. Temperature is at a constant 79-80 degrees. As for the picture of the ammonia, my camera's broken as of right now, but there's a picture of it in teh sticky called "Ammonia, Hard to Find -- Poss Solution?" it can be found on the first page, posted by daveedka. The ingredients, like daveedka said is softened water, ammonia, cheleating agent, and no phosphorus. When I shook it, it didn't foam at all.
 
I have another question, I some of you guys buy fish from the internet. How do they get shipped? It's pretty cold here in Ohio right now, how do they insure teh fish stays warm while being shipped, it kind of bothers me when I think about fish being mailed since it could take a few days between being shipped and when I receive it. Maybe wehn I'm more at peace with the idea, I may think about purchasing from a reliable internet company since my LFS doesn't have taht huge a selection of fish.
 
They use heat packs, like the ones you buy for joint pain.
 
Those reusable heatpacks, the ones with teh blue liquid in them? Or are you talking about some electronic ones...because those blue liquid stuff doesn't last more than an hour or maybe a little more.
 
Hi,

For stocking your 46 gallon, it would look great to have a shoal of eight Three-Striped Cories (Corydoras trilineatus) or eight Panda Cories (Corydoras panda). Then you could get a group of eight Cardinal Tetras. You could also get a school of eight Zebra Danios. Then for the center piece fish, you could get a Ram or a Dwarf Gourami.

Hope this helps!

Cory Lover
 
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