Aquarists unite: fish are friends, and food

Hateyou said:

What do I do about water? Dump some bottled water in it, get it to temp and just let it sit for a few days? Do I need to add anything to it?

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You don't need to use bottled water, just get a bottle of dechlorinator and use tap. The dechlorinator isn't expensive at all. Something like this will last you a long time.

Do a small water change, but cloudiness is pretty typical in a new tank while cycling.

I guess the fancy tank is mostly an aesthetic thing so it's up to you if you want to spend the extra money. The basic tank will work just fine though. Do you know how to cycle a new tank? Since you have another tank that you can transfer stuff from it should be easy but you will want to keep an eye on it. You can get an LED light and a timer for a lot less than $175. You might actually see the fish less in the cube tank than you would in a longer, narrower tank also.

Oldbased said:

We got any Aquarium specialists here? Can't tell if Kiroy is an actual marine biologist or just trolling dead people.
Got a 10 gallon and 29 gallon, 29 gallon had a disaster after 7 years of good life, RIP them dudes.
Anyways considering removing my 10 gallon with the glofish and going 26 gallon bow tank or maybe a 32gallon Corrallife cube tank.
Both are kind of big for Glofish but thinking about maybe having 2 groups of 8 in there like Glo Danio, Glo Tetras and some snails and a algae eater that isn't a Pleco ( last one I bought was 2 inches and he is part of that 29 gallon disaster when the fucker got a foot long ).

Mostly interested if Corral Life 32 gallon tank kit new is $300 on sale locally. Has the killed LED/timer system and concealed filter system in back for a clean tank, or since Glofish if I should just buy a Aqueon 26 gallon bow tank kit new for $125 and upgrade the LEDs/switch them over from current tank for the Glo meisters.
Cats love watching the fuckers. Not sure the cooler tank is worth $175 more.

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Don't buy a bow tank. They actually suck. Hard to clean, distorts viewing, and cost way more than they're worth.

Just get a 40g long (48" long) or breeder tank (36" long), don't fuck with overpriced bullshit. It should cost at most $150. 25-30g is too small a tank, not enough water, and usually in shitty formats - cubes and bows. Too much vertical. Fish like the length, plus it keeps them grouped for better viewing. Breeder tank is $90 at Petco.

I'm not a fan of glofish, the hippy in me isn't a fan of injecting dyes into fish for entertainment. But you do you. You can get black or cardinal tetras that have bright colors without the artificial-looking purples and oranges. Or if you can find them, congo tetras are badass but usually hella expensive. I picked up about 8 of them for $25 apiece. I bought them young, so it was sort of luck of the draw, as the males are the pretty looking ones, while the females look like regular minnows (pics below).

Built-in filtration is also a pretty bad idea. It's a pain in the ass to clean, and you're going to be cleaning it more often since they're designed to handle like, 2 fish. Get an oversized canister filter that fits under your stand. Check the eBay link below this paragraph. I've bought this brand before (they're effectively unlabeled Aquatop filters). I had one with a UV filter in it, but the plastic wasn't UV protected so it eventually made the trays brittle. Fortunately, they're cheap enough to just buy the whole thing again. This one doesn't have UV, so it should last basically forever. You can probably go 6months without cleaning it out. I have a monster 4-stage that I didn't clean out for TWO YEARS on my 65g (just did it this past weekend) -- water looked like shit, but fish were fine.

Buy a box of polyfil and stuff it in the bottom rack of the canister. This box will last you the lifetime of your tank. Infinitely cheaper than buying replacement filter pads and works just as well if not better.

Purigen should go in the middle rack of the canister. This is your chemical filtration. Fill the bags and lay them flat in the tray. Put polyfil above and below them. This will last for 6 months. After that, you can pull the bags out, soak them in bleach (regular bleach, not the scented shit) for 24 hours. Let dry out in the sun after that for another 24 hours. Works like carbon, but lasts way longer, and reusable.

Purigen:

Bags to put Purigen in, the above should fill 3 maybe 4 bags.

Bio balls (comes with the canister) should go in the top tray. Put polyfil above and below bio balls.

If you're not growing plants, a simple LED light panel is all you'll need. LED lights up glofish and tetras pretty well, regardless of the spectrum.

For substrate, you can use colored pebble shit, OR get pool filter sand locally for fuckin' dirt cheap and it looks 100x better. You'll need about 20 lbs to cover the bottom of a 40g tank with about 2-2.5".

If you want something that cleans the bottom of your tank, get a half dozen corydoras. There's a bunch of different kinds - spotted, striped, green, there's even an electric green and orange that have iridescent green or orange streaks on them, but those are hard to find. They get up to 1.5" long, and they're social so it's ideal to have 6+ of them. Wouldn't get more than 8 for a 40g tank. You could also fit ONE spotted catfish (pictus catfish) in addition to the 6 corys. They get up to 4-4.5", peaceful. I've got one and he's a pretty active fucker. Getting a pleco was obviously a terrible idea, as you learned, lol.

Food? I've bought all different kinds. New Life Spectrum brand has given me the best fish coloring and produced the least amount of water discoloring. Spirulina wafers and pellets are great for keeping your fish healthy, and their digestive tracts clean. Buy from this guy. 2mm pellets for tetra, wafers for bottom feeders.

$90 Tank
$50 Stand
$50 Canister filter
$24 Polyfil
$15 Purigen
$5 Purigen bags
$25 LED light
=$259

Male congo tetra:


Female congo tetra:


Corydora catfish (Trilineatus):


Spotted catfish (pictus catfish):

I've been keeping fish for 20+ years. I've had 45 to 110g saltwater with corals and planted freshwater tanks with CO2. I now keep a 65g planted freshwater without CO2.

I've got the following stocked in my tank:
6x Redline sharks
6x Siamese Algae Eaters
8x Congo tetras (3 male, 5 female)
5x Black tetras
6x Corydoras (mixed)
1x Spotted catfish

I'm way overstocked, but I've got enough filtration for a 220g tank.

I also removed most of my plants and only keep a bed of hardy echinodorus altlandsberg, which is a type of sword plant.