[Closed] Fish (pet kind)

What are your tips for absolute minimum maintenance?

Refusal.

Failing that, an unheated biorb and some goldfish. They're pretty hard to kill accidentally.

The kids will lose interest and you'll still be up to your elbows in fish shite every couple of weeks.

Garra Rufa

Just need you to offer them a bit of your old, tired flesh occasionally.

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Think they might want pretty colours and whatnot.

Think they might want pretty colours and whatnot.

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Coley?

Is it too late to say I'm sorry?

*applauds*

molgrips - Member
My favourite kind of fish are filleted and battered, however my kids seem to want some alive ones.

What are your tips for absolute minimum maintenance?

If that's how you're feeling going into it, don't get them.

Otherwise, research it properly.

100L + sized tank, and fill with male platties or similar if your water is hard. If it's soft, then neon tetra etc. If you want a smaller tank, get 30L+ with a single male betta splendens (siamese fighting fish).

Don't buy goldfish they get huge. Seriously. A healthy goldfish can be a foot long. Fancies a bit smaller but still big.

Cycle the tank before adding fish, or you will need to do big water changes every day to keep the ammonia/nitrite level down until the biofilter is established.

Maintenance is change 20%+ of water a week. You use a syphon to clean the gravel/sand during this process. The new water must be treated with dechlorinator - e.g. Seachem Prime.
Once every one to two months, remove the filter, run the sponges under the tap. Don't clean biomedia (ceramic/sintered glass rings usually), the chlorine in the tap water will kill the (good) bacteria.

A good forum for advice is tropicalfishforums.co.uk

Firstly, with new tank and filter filled with dechlorinated tap water, "fishless cyle" them for ~6 weeks (until zero reading for ammonia and nitrite), then a "qualifying week," then buy fish.

"Fish-in cycling" is cruel and for a responsible pet owner, requires a lot more work, you need to keep the water safe for the fish at all costs... Which could easily mean doing ~50-95% water changes every day for ~13 weeks.

Fast growing plants, such as Duckweed, can help keep the water safe for the fish. They will use ammonia/nitrite/nitrate as a food source, providing they are given a suitable light period of ~6 hours per day and other micro/macro nutrients.

Some dechlorinator, such as Seachem Safe and Seachem Prime, will temporarily mop up some ammonia/nitrite/nitrate for up to ~24 hours, if up to 5x the standard dose is used.

The general rule is that a fish requires at least 6x its adult length and 2x its adult width as footprint dimensions for the tank. However, some species are extremely sedate (such as my Chrysichthys ornatus), while others are hyper-active (such as my last remaining Brachydanio rerio... which I would not put in a tank shorter than 120cm long).

Smaller tanks can quickly become toxic soup coffins in an immature setup, get the biggest tank you can accommodate, a 120x30x30cm would be great as a startup tank for smaller fish that reach <15cm.

~33-50% water changes per week if their are no toxin readings.

Research what fish are safe to combine! Some are territorial like my Steatocranus casuarius cichlids; some are pig-like eaters that could starve reserved eaters to death such as my Illyodon xantusi; some like a tranquil water flow such as my Pantodon buchholzi; some need lots of water flow like my Chaetostoma catfish; some are vegetarian like my wood eating L204; some are opportunistic predators like my Chrysichthys ornatus and Ctenopoma acutirostre; some require big social groups of their own kind like my 25 Pareutropius mandevillei etc.

virtual high five, n0b0dy0ftheg0at

only thing i'd say is that duckweed gets everywhere!! Limnobium laevigatum Ftw

Guppies are another bright colour that are easy to keep and as the are live bearers you may get the added entertainment of some fry. (the baby fish kind not the battered kind)

Tetra safe start can be used to cycle the tank quicker.

That Limnobium laevigatum looks nice, but I'd probably kill it, like all other plants I've killed over the past ~7.5 years except Anubias and some African fern. 😆

I even killed the Duckweed I introduced to three tanks back in March, except in one tank. 😳

As a kid these are my pet fish ... Climbing Perch. 😛

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For minimum maintenance add some zebra snails who will munch any algae they can find...reduced my tank maintenance times hugely.

Snails?! Great till they go all hermy and spawn a million clones amongst the stinkweed..

OP - I was a keen fish keeper as a lad and spent many an hour keeping on top of maintenance, or at least trying to. I came to realise that it’s no mean feat keeping essentially what’s is a tiny micro-environment in conditions fit for fishy happiness. Unless you’re fully prepared for regular checking of many various levels of chemical pollution, and you know your nitrate from your nitrite - then it’s simply unfair on the poor finned friends. They quickly succumb to all sorts of nasty conditions, and watching your favourite pet ulcerate or suffer a case of dropsy is no fun.

One of those electric maguffins full of plastic fish or a nice screensaver sounds like the easiest option. Make the kids watch Jaws, Piranha and Marillion concerts to try and put them off the idea

slimjim78 - Member - Block User - Quote
Snails?! Great till they go all hermy and spawn a million clones amongst the stinkweed..

Zebra snails, aka nerites are not hermaphroditic and besides cannot complete their lifecycle without salt/brackish water. 🙂

The downside is that the females sometimes poo out loads of little hard eggs over the hardscape.

The solution therefore is to buy horned nerites, they're still voracious algae scoffers, but they stay small enough that their eggs are no bother.