Help very new

hobie237 said:
AVOID PETCO AT ALL COSTS.

..............

You need a bigger tank. An inch of fish per gallon is a general rule of thumb. Your tank must cycle. During this time you may lose fish. Ideally this would be done with no fish or a nice hardy and cheap goldfish, before the other fish are introduced.
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Not all petcos are bad, and not all LFS' are good. In general petco/petsmarts are bad, but there are some dedicated emplayees of that store on this site and at my local petsmart that would strongly disagree with that statement. Also, there is a sticky labled "read this before using the nch per gallon rule". I suguest both hobie237 and fbay read it.

Liz, I can agree with most of what you said(and you pointed out the water changes to remove nitrate, which I forgot to do. THANKS) but the stocking list is now 2 mollies 2 platties and 3 serpaes (if my advise to take back the gobies is followed) and I think it should be Ok for now.
 
sumthin fishy said:
Not all petcos are bad, and not all LFS' are good. In general petco/petsmarts are bad, but there are some dedicated emplayees of that store on this site and at my local petsmart that would strongly disagree with that statement. Also, there is a sticky labled "read this before using the nch per gallon rule". I suguest both hobie237 and fbay read it.

Liz, I can agree with most of what you said(and you pointed out the water changes to remove nitrate, which I forgot to do. THANKS) but the stocking list is now 2 mollies 2 platties and 3 serpaes (if my advise to take back the gobies is followed) and I think it should be Ok for now.
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All very true. We're over the inch per gallon rule in my girlfriends tank, but all the fish get along fine. 20 gallons supports 3 cory cats, a zigzag eel, 3 gouramis, 6 phantom tetras, a pleco and 2 mollies. However, for somebody new, I strongly suggest following this rule, with cycling, cleaning, etc. being new subjects, as well as the fact that said newbie may not know what to look for in terms of fish behavior.

Now, as for the fish store thing, we checked out every fish store within about 20 miles of school until we found our favorite. We went in, asked some questions to test the knowledge of the staff, checked out the fish for signs of disease, maltreatment, etc., and looked at what the store, overall had to offer. The one we found is a family buisiness with some EXTREMELY knowledgeable people. I'm sure there are knowledgeable people in some Petco's and Petsmarts, and I know for a fact that there are some LFS's that have extremely unknowledgable people. In one store we overheard an employee telling a customer that goldfish never live more than 3 months, and the different sizes were different breeds. Out the door we went.

However, since her selection of fish stores seems very limited, shes just going to have to arm herself with as much knowledge here as possible.

I would suggest checking the yellow pages, superpages.com and yahoo local for fish stores. We found a number of them that we never would have found otherwise.

Back on topic, its time for some BioSpira in that tank...
 
hobie237 said:
All very true. We're over the inch per gallon rule in my girlfriends tank, but all the fish get along fine. 20 gallons supports 3 cory cats, a zigzag eel, 3 gouramis, 6 phantom tetras, a pleco and 2 mollies. However, for somebody new, I strongly suggest following this rule, with cycling, cleaning, etc. being new subjects, as well as the fact that said newbie may not know what to look for in terms of fish behavior.. . .
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To echo what fishy said, please read the sticky on the fish per gallon myth and I'd also recommend not using it.

Roan
 
while you are absorbing all this information, make sure to do some water changes, until you get the test kits and can use them to gauge how much/how often I would just do 25% or so daily. Just make sure to get the temperature from the tap the same as the tank, and use a water condtioner (something that removes chlorine).
 
I already have the test strips, and all my levels are within the normal range. I have already got the water conditioner also. Do I really need to do a water change even if all the levels are within normal range?
 
The test strips are not very accurate. Liquid test kits are much more reliable. Also what the test kits say is in the normal range, is really too high for the health of your fish.
 
The strips should have numbers on them or on the comparrison chart. If ammonia or nitrite is anything other than 0. do some 25% changes (1 or 2 a day) to lower it slowly, rather than a big change which will drastically change the water quality resulting in stress. You will be doing this wor weeks if not over a month if you are unable to obtain bio-spira. While the liquid test is more accurate, and you should get them as time and money allow, the strips are better than guessing.

Back to the inch per gallon rule. A 10 gallon tank with 10 1" fish may be OK. But immagine that 10 gallon with ONE 10" fish. the tank is 12"x20". It will have enough room to swim ONE body lenght(imagine taking a step from one wall and running face first into another) then have barely enough room to turn arround. Read the stickys :)
 
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