I won an Ebay auction on the weekend for a fish tank. We don't really have any idea where to set the tank up since our house is small and cluttered so we were planning on sticking it in the garage and then (since neither of us has had fish before) figuring out what you 'do' with them later on. However, the lady that is selling us the tank is pretty desperate for us to take over the fish as well. I'm not really sure that this is a great idea since we don't really know what we're doing (and haven't had time to research it all yet), so we've asked her to try and find somewhere else for them, but if she absolutely can't then we'll take them and figure out where to put them.
So...with that in mind. What's the basics?
What do they eat (those flakey things I guess)? How much? (i've heard too much is bad) How many times a day do you feed them? Do they need sunlight? How often do you change the water? What kind of water is OK (tap or rain)? How do you clean the tank? Do you have to totally change the water each time? Scrub the aquarium for algae? What 'cleaners' are bad/good to use? How often do you have to change the filters? Do you have to grow plants? Do they like things to hide in?
Umm yeah! So help! I am clueless and open to learning!
oh my.
I/we have a 50 gallon fresh water tropical tank.
1 blood parot cichlid
2 tinfoil barbs
2 silver fresh water angel fish
3 red mollies
and a chinese algea eater :)
It depends on the kind of fish she is trying to give you.
How big is the tank?
Does the tank come with a filter? a heater? Do you want goldfish or more fancy fish?
No, you dont have to grow plants, in fact.. its VERY hard to do, you can get plastic plants, MUCH easier.
Fish loves to have plants/rocks to hide in etc, what you are aiming for it to make your tank have as close to as natural as possible
You want to keep your fish out of direct sunlight (unless its for short periods) because it promotes algea growth. you werent planning on keeping the tank with fish in it in the garage, right?
You dont need to clean the algea off with a cleaner persay, there are neat little prehistoric looking fish called plecostomus that are "algea eaters" and clean it for you...
Tap water is good, either leave it out for 36 hours, or get some dechlorinator (cheap) rain water is BAD.. full of nasty stuff.
You should do a partial (1/3) of your tank cleaning once a month or so.. once your tank is more established you can decrease it.
filters about 2x a year.. depending on the size of your tank, and a rinse every 3 months.
I feed our fish every second day, and i alternate between tropical flake food, and frozen brine shrimp. Both are very inexpensive. (as much as they will eat within 5 minutes, or a medium sized pinch. Again it depends on the fish, how many there are etc...)
Phew.. anything else? :P
Ahh flub! I've been reading stuff on the 'net and I don't think I'm ready to be a parent to fishes with such short notice. I hope she can find somewhere else for them.
As far as particulars:
The tank is 90litres (no idea how much that is in gallons or whatever). It's about 65cm by 45 cm by 40 cm. It's glass and it comes with a filter, but I don't think a heater (but we can buy one if need be I guess).
Her fish are goldfish - not sure how many. I'm not particularly keen on goldfish and would prefer the 'fancier' fish, but I'm not going to worry about that for the time being.
Thanks for the info though. I'd like to be better prepared for this...this isn't what we were counting on so I hope that she makes other arrangements for them.
Ohh and no we weren't planning on sticking the fishys in the garage (only the empty tank)! If we have them, they'll be inside...
ya know, if you are gonna start trying to raise fish, goldfish are GREAT fish to start with.
They are VERY low mantinance, dont require a heater etc... and are VERY hardy.