Your water is too hard for tetras as they are soft water fish; I suggest instead that you increase the shoal size of the danios and add a shoal of harlequins.

Betta splendens and dwarf gourami are also soft water fish so for "feature " fish you might consider one or a pair of pearl gourami (Trichopodus leerii).

The danios would do better in a cooler tank as they're not strictly a tropical fish, but you could set your heater to 24C as a compromise that would suit everyone.

Hi, thanks for the quick reply.

Just done a quick check and the results are in but not good.

The water supplied is HARD water.

Calcium carbonate(CaCO3): 269 ppm

Hope this helps to identify what would be good.

James.

Nice tank. I (and likely others) have some thoughts re your potential choices. I can't reply properly just now but, in the interim, can you let us know what your water hardness is in CaCO3 or German degrees hardness (as this will help work out which fish are compatible with your water); assuming you're UK-based, those figures ought to be available for your postcode from your water company website.

Hi, I am setting up a new freshwater tank.

I have a 180litre tank with a under cabinet filter.

I have started my my collection and Plan on introducing new fish every week.

My plan is to have something similar to the list below. I have done a lot of research but would appreciate the opinion of some experts.

So I currently have:
8 danios
3 bristle nose catfish

What I am thinking of getting depending on advice
6 harleighquins
6 swoardtails
Tetras but need to do research on which type don’t want fin nippers
Guppies
Possible shrimp allthough understand That a lot of things like these as a snack.
Would like a feature fish but nothing to big, from what I have read a Betta (fighter fish) should be fine with what I have as long as I don’t get any fin nippers and only one.
Other option is a dwarf gourami or both if they would be ok?

Any advice welcome and any other suggestions.

Thank you
James.

Hi fcmf,

Thank you so much for the detailed reply.

I think varying the diet is a really good place to start, and I will definitely incorporate a fasting day per week. I hadn't thought of pre-soaking the pellets, so I am going to start doing that as well going forwards.

Thanks again!

Sorry to read about this. It sounds as though the cherry barb is indeed suffering from the effects of eating, possibly with the food pressing on its swimbladder and causing it to malfunction. My advice would be:
* feeding less at a time but more frequently (eg if you have scope to feed the same amount to the tank per day but split it into separate servings spread out across the daytime);
* pre-soaking any pellets/flakes so that it sinks and to prevent the fish taking in air when they eat;
* varying the diet so that it includes veg such as chopped pea (shell off pea, each half chopped into tiny morsels) and frozen/live food a couple of times a week;
* possibly a fasting day per week.
Hope that helps.

Hello,

I have two cherry barbs (around 1.5 years old now), and in the past week, one of them has been acting strangely after being fed.

About a week ago, I fed them and one of them nested itself into the plant leaves and stayed at the very bottom of the tank for two days. It faced downwards and barely moved for two whole days.

I immediately thought it could be swim bladder and that it was anchoring itself to the leaves for stability, so I didn't feed them for three days.

This seemed to work, and the fish was back to normal, so I fed them after three days.

Unfortunately, the same thing happened again after feeding.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I've attached a picture for reference.

I've tested the water and all levels come back as normal, except the KH is slightly high which I am investigating.

Thanks!

All ponds with fish in need a pump and filter, but I don't think this one is appropriate for fish as it's not wide or deep enough.

I have just made a small 50 gallon pond, added plants etc but not fish as of yet, it’s been fish bare for 6 days to date.
2 questions
Can I add fish now?
Do I need a pump on such a small pond?

They'll just drown and foul the water.