Hi!, I'm new, and after some tank advice

[Forensick]

Hi!

I have a tank i use to breed platties (as food for my turtles), I put a few cats in, just cos really.
However my GF LOVES them, and wants a dedicated catfish tank.

I have a 3 foot tank in the shed i can use...
but i don't really know much about them

between my tanks i currently have a tandanas, 1 bronze cory, and 3 bristlenose that i would like to move in.
but i would also want a few more species, and if possible have a mix of top dwellers (if that is even possible) and nocturnal/binural

I would want a natural looking tank. how would i set that up?


so advice on species i could go, light, tank setup, ph, temp all that jazz, would be MUCH appreciated

[MatsP]

Rather than directly giving you the answers, I will try to tell you how you go about doing this:
1. Look up the different fish in the Cat-eLog.
For example, we look up Bronze Cory by selecting the Cat-eLog Menu, and picking the "Search by common name", and type in Bronze Cory.
We get a link to

Corydoras aeneus

.

2. There will then be temperature advice and "furniture" advice to give you some idea what the fish is going to like in the tank. There is also a "tankmates" section, with suggestions on what to keep with it (and often what to NOT keep with it).
Make a note of the max and min temperatures, furniture advice, etc.

Repeat above steps until you have made notes of what all fishes like in the tank.

To help a little more, what you call "Tandanas" is most likely a "Tandanus" or similar, common name "Tandan"- if you misspell things, it will not be found in the search functions.

As to making it look natural, it's very much depending on what you mean by "natural". One person may feel that a heavily planted tank is "natural" looking, whilst another person says "Sure, those are all natural plants, but it's not what this fish normally lives in". Other than that, it's not too difficult - just pick materials that you feel look natural - that is no "crashed airplanes", "signs saying 'no fishing'" or "characters from the Finding Nemo movie".

--
Mats

[Forensick]

i do mean natural as in the fishes natural enviroment for these fish.

and yes, i can (and do) look up pH etc, for varying fish.... but often times trolling through varying numbers leads to oversights... so i prefer to use that in conjunction with "6.7 keeps most of the common cats happy" which also helps with looking for fish


also, i was asking for varieties as guides dont often point out which ones are easier to keep.
most guides i have read have all cory's as easy, but i know people that believe they are one of the more difficult cats.
following a guide for cory's too i put them in a tank with large gravel... which i later found out, by asking directly, that that was a very not good thing to do

[Forensick]

will just say, that your cat-eLog is awesome, alot better than mosst places guides

[MatsP]

I see what you mean. But my feeling is that the Cat-eLog is pretty much correct - particularly for common species - the Tandanus species is rarer than bristlenoses and corys, but still well known in it's local region, so the data should be OK. I also have no problem with answering direct questions.

pH 6 to 8 is about right for MOST fish. Some prefer the lower range, others prefer a higher range. Note that many fish live in a natural habitat that is often LOWER than pH 6, but for aquariums, that low pH can be very difficult. So the "appropriate to keep the fish in" pH is not the same as "the pH fish lives in naturally". For example, a

Ancistrus dolichopterus

will sometimes have a natural pH below 4. pH 3 is about the same as Coca-Cola or fresh Lemon juice, or the acid in your stomach. But they will be fine (and breed) in any soft-water tank that has a pH below 7. On the other end of the spectrum, some fish from Peru will have a natural pH around 8. Obviously, keeping fish from these two regions in the same tank will not be ideal (although it can probably be done, but neither fish will be "at it's best").

As for natural habitat, corys generally live in water with a bit of vegetation, and open areas of sand/leaf litter. Ancistrus live in more flowing water with quite a bit of stones/rocks.

Other sites have varying quality information, of course - "not everything you find on the internet is true".

In general, Corys ARE easy to keep. That of course doesn't mean that some people will have difficulties - either because they are simply making life difficult for themselves by keeping for example fish that like cool water in a tank with fairly warm water, or keep fish that like very low pH when the tap-water is hard-as-rock and pH above 8.0... Or simply because they haven't got the basics of keeping fish sorted in general. There is no such thing as indestructible fish - some come pretty close, but with sufficient mistreatment, even the hardiest of species can be killed by mistreatment.

With regard to keeping species that do not like higher temperatures: several cory species prefer temperatures in the low 20'C range or below, for example the Panda cory. Those would not be great for someone living in the warmer parts of Australia, and the tank temperature hovers around 30'C.

And of course, getting good condition fish from the shop is critical for it's survival. Even experienced aquarists struggle to keep fish that aren't in good condition to start with.

I'm not sure if most of the Cory pages say that you should keep them with sand, but certainly none of our pages would suggest coarse gravel. There probably SHOULD be a concrete mention of this on each of the pages - but there are 300+ of them to go through, so it would be a bit of a task to do..

--
Mats