Soon to be new owner...much advice needed

[Papillon]

SOON TO BE NEW OWNER.. MUCH ADVICE NEEDED

Hi all.

I am soon to be a new owner of a 29 gallon fresh water tank with the following fish in it.

4 Neon Blue Dwarf Gouramis (are 2 of each ok? male/female?)

2 Swartz Cory cat fish

4 Sparkling Gourami

In addition I will put various live plants in it and a couple of pieces of drift wood.

I plan to feed them frozen foods

Brine shrimp
Bloodworms
Beef heart
veggie mix!

I hope all this is ok and that they have plenty of room to swim and to grow.

Is it really true that male Gouramis fight with each other, I really would like the Neon ones and am wondering whether this is ok...

Also how long do I really have to cycle the tank before even thinking about introducing my fish? I am also getting natural gravel for them.

My other thought was, instead of getting all these fish, I would just get a pair of kissing gouramis, but then was wondering whether the tank would be big enough... What do you all think?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[420Loach]

the 29 gallon probably wouldnt be big enough for the kissing gouramis. how big are the sparkling gouramis, and how big will the get? the line-up you have sounds good though. my dwarf honey sunset blue gouramis and my gold gourami love tubifex worm cubes and tetra min flake and my corys like shrimp pellets and algae tablets. i also give them blood worm and brine shrimp treats, and you can try the veggie mix. im not sure if they would eat beef heart(they might, hungry suckers )but you could try it also. if you get gouramis you should only get one male of each type. i got two male gold gouramis and the one i put in the tank first constantly picked on the one i put in second. i have two male dwarf dhsb, and while they were in my 55 gal they wouldnt fight, they would just divide the harems (they went from 6-0 to 3-3) and when one male didnt have any girls with him he would just hang by himself.(hhmmm...maybe get two male dwarfs, up to you)

i also used my gouramis to cycle my tank so they should be okay, just buy some water clarifier. i use kordon AmQuel water detoxifier and water conditioner(two different bottles) but i get it from my lfs, so i dont know where else it is available, and it works pretty good for me. hope this helps you out!*SUPERSMIL

 

[Papillon]

That's what I thought about the kissing ones!! The others are only between 2 and 3 inches max ( meaning all the fish)... I was then thinking of 4 male neons but maybe two of each would be the answer...

I also wanted to get fish that do well and thrive in the same temp etc etc....

I am reading about cycling the tank... Some people say it takes up to a month, other sites say it's only a few days to a week. So now I am a bit confused... How long should I cycle it with the plants in it etc.. I don't want any of the fish to die once I get them.....

Thanks

 

[FroggyFox]

Papillion why don't you read the thread about fishless cycling...its the first one in this forum. That would be the best way to go if you really don't want to harm any fish in the cycling process. I just got finished cycling my 10 gallon tank and I did half of it with fish in...and half of it w/o fish (I moved them) and using the ammonia out of a bottle, it took exactly 30 days to cycle.

If you can find a local store that carries a product made by Marineland called Bio-Spira it will most likely seriously cut down your cycle time...and there are other bacteria products you can get off of the shelf that may or may not help (see fishman_2000's thread on bacteria starters)

Overall its really not something that you get to "choose" the amount of time it takes...whenever the ammonia levels and nitrites levels are both 0 in your tank then your tank is cycled.