"Dr Engelbert Buxbaum" <engelbert_buxbaum@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:cvhrlm$min$04$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Timothy E. Raborn wrote:
>
>> I'm having problems adding new fish to my 30 gallon freshwater tank. (I
>> typically keep guppies and neon tetras in my tank with a pleco or two).
>
> Guppies need hard, tetras soft water, so this combination is not very
> good. Depending on your water params, you should decide on a matching
> set of fishes.
You're the first person I've ever heard say that guppies and neons were
not
compatible.
> In my experience feeding medicated food like TetraMedica (with
> tetracyclin) during the first 10 days after introduction of new fishes
> can significantly reduce losses.
In this recent disaster, I realized I didn't have anything on hand to
treat
the tank with! I hadn't had a problem in so long, I found myself
unprepared. I've now stocked up on a few things to be prepared for the
future. I'm not familiar with the medicated food -- I'll have to check it
out next time I'm at the LFS.
>
> If you have not already done so, add life (not plastic!) plants to your
> tank, this will not only look good, but provide a healthier environment
> for your critters.
Oh brother... Plants would be an entire other topic for me to post on. I
have had terrible luck with plants. They look good for about two months,
then slowly wither away. The only plant that would grow was Cobomba(sp?).
But I swear it must have grown about an inch a day and the more it grew
the
more "stretched out" the limbs got and it wasn't very pretty. For the
first
two years of tank owner****p, I spent a small fortune buying new plants
every
couple of months and did quite a bit of research on how to be successful
with it. I tried all kinds of techniques to be successful and nothing
worked. I had even added two Nutrafin CO2 tanks to the tank and that
helped
a little, but not enough. In the end, I decided that I may not have
enough
light. The hood that came with the tank will only take up to a 22W, but I
can only find 15W lights (fluorescent) to fit it. A calculation I found
somewhere on the internet indicated that I need about a 60W (was based on
the depth of the aquarium). It wasn't feasible for me to change out the
hood, so that was the point I gave up and stocked up on the fake ones.
They
look ok, but regardless of what the real plants do for the fish -- I
wanted
them for aesthetic reasons. They look so much nicer.
>
> Of course any new fishes need to be slowly adapted to the water
> conditions in your tank: Let the closed bag swim in your tank for 15 min
> to equilibrate the temperature, than open it and slowly add tank water
> to the bag over a periode of an hour or so, until 2/3 of the water in
> the bag is from your tank. Then discard most of the water in the bag (to
> prevent contammination of your tank) and introduce the fishes to your
> tank.
>
That's exactly how I do it.
I have started slowly restocking the tank. I decided to start off with
Zebra
Danios. They seem to be good little critters to start with. So far,
after
two trips to the store about five days apart, I have a really small plec
and five zebras and all are very healthy so far. In another few days,
I'll
add two or three more zebras, then figure out what I want to match with
them
after they settle in for a couple of weeks.
Thanks for the input.
-Tim
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