So I'm generally quite new to fishkeeping. About 10 years ago I had a 25gallon tank and that never turned out to be working. Fish kept dying one after another and I never figured out what was the cause so I eventually just 'gave up' on keeping any.
Then a few months ago, I was doing my usual pet shopping (I keep rats, chinchillas and gerbils as well) and I saw this amazing fish in the store. They turned out to be ropefish. So after doing research it turns out they're really hardy fish and shouldn't be too hard to keep. I also read they love living in groups, so right now I have 6 of them swimming around in a 55gallon planted tank. Don't worry the tank may seem a bit small for all the fish i'm keeping at this time but they are all far from fully grown as of now, one ropefish is about 1'1". The other 5 barely make it past 10" with the smallest one being 6". The ropes have been doing fine for months now. And I have had VERY little issues arise in my tank. I've only ever had to deal with black hair algae and after cutting down heavily on my lighting, they mostly dissapeared.
Now the one most important question I want to ask (because no petstore owner could properly answer this for me) if I have not yet already overstocked my tank.
I know 100% it'll be heavily overstocked once all my fish reach their mature size, I'm also planning to upgrade to a 140gallon in a few months as a permanent tank for what's living in my 55gallon at the moment.
Fish list:
6 ropefish - 6" to 1'1"
3 hoplo cats - 4-5"
4 Striped raphaels - 3-5" (I do plan to seperate these in different tanks once I can afford to set them up, I didn't know they had aggressive behaviour towards their own kind and they were an impulse buy !Yes big mistake!), for now they do seem to not fight very often though as i've made sure there are LOADS of different hiding places in my tank.
5 Peacock eels - 3-5" (4 have been there for 4 months, one only for 3 weeks but I have never seen it eat or come out during feeding time, I don't know how it's been surviving, but it has somehow..)
5 gourami - They were kind of an impulse buy as well, but considering everything was living on the bottom of my tank, I wanted to add some color and movement around the mid-top part of it.
Size ranging 2"-4"
1 Pleco 4"
Another question is about my pleco actually. it was very healthy for months, but recently i started noticing damage on it's fins. I dosed it with tropical cmf 3 days ago(the petstore I regularly go to adviced this incase it was finrot) the fins do seem to do a little bit better, but very little improvemt over the days. None of my other fish seem to have any fin problems so I think something might be nipping at only my pleco's fins. I wouldn't know which fish would be doing it though because as far as I know, they're all peaceful unless the fish fits in their mouth. I do suspect one of my gourami though. 4 of them are very peaceful, but one will chase the other gourami around and from time to time, very rarely though, nip at another fish. I was wondering if the gourami could actually 'bully' my pleco specifially.
I have also never had a fish death as of yet. I don't know if i'm incredibly lucky or actually maintaining the tank properly as compared to 10years ago. I do a 25% waterchange every 5-6days. I dechlorinate my water beforehand for 48h and keep it at 78°f before adding it to my tank ( same temperature as I keep in my tank ) I also read online somewhere that taking a small cup and taking - pouring the water back in your container, slightly mixes oxygen in that water. I don't know if this is true or not, but I've been doing it just incase. I don't know why but I'm incredibly scared of having oxygen issues in my tank. I also read plants use oxygen at lights off. I know hoplo cats, ropefish and gourami breathe air outside of the water, but the peacock's and raphaels don't. And from time to time during lights off I sometimes see a peacock eel breathing heavily, others calmly.
I use a sponge filter with a ceramic ring compartment. Also aerates and I have an extra bubble stone.
IF I am doing anything wrong, please tell me! I am heavily concerned with the life of every fish, as I've gotten really close to them lately, because I finally managed to have all my ropefish and peacock eels eat out of my hands. (I do this because I noticed a big problem with food although I know you should keep your hands out of your tank as much as possible, the hoplo's and raphaels would get most of it before the ropefish could even find it, handfeeding them really gives me a lot more control over which fish eats the food)
Then a few months ago, I was doing my usual pet shopping (I keep rats, chinchillas and gerbils as well) and I saw this amazing fish in the store. They turned out to be ropefish. So after doing research it turns out they're really hardy fish and shouldn't be too hard to keep. I also read they love living in groups, so right now I have 6 of them swimming around in a 55gallon planted tank. Don't worry the tank may seem a bit small for all the fish i'm keeping at this time but they are all far from fully grown as of now, one ropefish is about 1'1". The other 5 barely make it past 10" with the smallest one being 6". The ropes have been doing fine for months now. And I have had VERY little issues arise in my tank. I've only ever had to deal with black hair algae and after cutting down heavily on my lighting, they mostly dissapeared.
Now the one most important question I want to ask (because no petstore owner could properly answer this for me) if I have not yet already overstocked my tank.
I know 100% it'll be heavily overstocked once all my fish reach their mature size, I'm also planning to upgrade to a 140gallon in a few months as a permanent tank for what's living in my 55gallon at the moment.
Fish list:
6 ropefish - 6" to 1'1"
3 hoplo cats - 4-5"
4 Striped raphaels - 3-5" (I do plan to seperate these in different tanks once I can afford to set them up, I didn't know they had aggressive behaviour towards their own kind and they were an impulse buy !Yes big mistake!), for now they do seem to not fight very often though as i've made sure there are LOADS of different hiding places in my tank.
5 Peacock eels - 3-5" (4 have been there for 4 months, one only for 3 weeks but I have never seen it eat or come out during feeding time, I don't know how it's been surviving, but it has somehow..)
5 gourami - They were kind of an impulse buy as well, but considering everything was living on the bottom of my tank, I wanted to add some color and movement around the mid-top part of it.
Size ranging 2"-4"
1 Pleco 4"
Another question is about my pleco actually. it was very healthy for months, but recently i started noticing damage on it's fins. I dosed it with tropical cmf 3 days ago(the petstore I regularly go to adviced this incase it was finrot) the fins do seem to do a little bit better, but very little improvemt over the days. None of my other fish seem to have any fin problems so I think something might be nipping at only my pleco's fins. I wouldn't know which fish would be doing it though because as far as I know, they're all peaceful unless the fish fits in their mouth. I do suspect one of my gourami though. 4 of them are very peaceful, but one will chase the other gourami around and from time to time, very rarely though, nip at another fish. I was wondering if the gourami could actually 'bully' my pleco specifially.
I have also never had a fish death as of yet. I don't know if i'm incredibly lucky or actually maintaining the tank properly as compared to 10years ago. I do a 25% waterchange every 5-6days. I dechlorinate my water beforehand for 48h and keep it at 78°f before adding it to my tank ( same temperature as I keep in my tank ) I also read online somewhere that taking a small cup and taking - pouring the water back in your container, slightly mixes oxygen in that water. I don't know if this is true or not, but I've been doing it just incase. I don't know why but I'm incredibly scared of having oxygen issues in my tank. I also read plants use oxygen at lights off. I know hoplo cats, ropefish and gourami breathe air outside of the water, but the peacock's and raphaels don't. And from time to time during lights off I sometimes see a peacock eel breathing heavily, others calmly.
I use a sponge filter with a ceramic ring compartment. Also aerates and I have an extra bubble stone.
IF I am doing anything wrong, please tell me! I am heavily concerned with the life of every fish, as I've gotten really close to them lately, because I finally managed to have all my ropefish and peacock eels eat out of my hands. (I do this because I noticed a big problem with food although I know you should keep your hands out of your tank as much as possible, the hoplo's and raphaels would get most of it before the ropefish could even find it, handfeeding them really gives me a lot more control over which fish eats the food)