Hello! Let me tell you about our family tank.

[Doc_Ho11iday]

Hello all! 

I’m a mom of two young kiddos. My son has ASD and is non-verbal. He’s the sweetest little guy I’ve ever met and he LOVES to watch fish. I started my hobby about a year ago with the typical gateway Betta fish and now I’m hooked! I got a 45 gallon high tank and spent months researching the perfect setup for our space. I came to the conclusion that I like personality and behavior more than pretty colors so after I finally got the tank cycled I bought 10 albino Cory’s! The whole family loves to watch them play and forage around in the plants and dirt. I happened to stop by my local fish store yesterday and my son fell in love with the rummy nose tetra. We came home with 9 last night and they colored up within about 10 minutes. Today is day two and I’m starting to wonder if I should get a few more rummy nose to add to our community or look for a colorful centerpiece fish. Of course I don’t plan on adding any more fish for at least for another month so perhaps it will give me  time to think it over. Any thoughts, ideas or criticisms are appreciated! 

Edited December 2, 2022 by Doc_Ho11iday

[JJenna]

One can never have too many fish in a tank if you look at the thread: Is your tank overstocked? IMO if you have the filtration to manage the bio load go for it! 

 

[Pepere]

With a 45 gallon you certainly have  room to add.  If you have not done so yet, you might want to consider adding a quarantine tank to house new fish in before adding them to your display tank.  It can be incredibly distressing to add new fish to a tank and lose favorites from introduced disease.

 

as a general rule I like to quarantine for 6 weeks.  I also try to only ad 8 or fewer fish at a time. Adding too many fish at once can overwhelm biofilter of established tank for a bit giving you a mini cycle.

Some variant of rams can be a nice addition as a centerpiece..  and for amusement factor it is hard to beat Kuhli Loaches.  If you do go with kuhli’s though trust me you will rarely see them out all at once.  They are exceedingly good at hiding…

as to overstocking, I keep a close eye on nitrate levels to guide bio load and water changes.  Other than that I avoid having the tank so stocked as to be overly busy. I like giving the fish room to swim freely without getting stressed from constantly bumping in to fellow inhabitants…. Ie Idont want my tank to look like the comet goldfish tank at Petco.  To that end balancing the tank with bottom dwellers, mid column and top dwellers helps spread out the inhabitants too.  And tightly schooling nano fish has their appeal as well.

[Doc_Ho11iday]

Thank you for the feedback! I certainly want to keep my tank healthy. Would it be a lost cause to “pre-treat” the whole tank now with meds? I have about a dozen plants in my tank too that I would hate to lose. 

[Pepere]

You can of course treat the entire tank now.

 

have you watched the Aquarium Coop video on quarantine meds?

 

I cant find the video right now, but here is a blog post to get you started.

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/faqs/how-to-use-quaratine-med-trio

 

I have no doubt that someone will post the video in this thread soon.

[Schuyler]

Welcome fellow parent of small kids!

I feel like there was another parent who did an introduction here recently with a child with ASD

Looks like you're off to a great start. You're probably fine adding more tetras. They gave a very small bio load. More rummy nose tetras will lead to more schooling behaviors. You can also add another school of some other type of tetra, they won't school together but it will add more variety.

[Patrick_G]

Welcome! 
Your tank looks really nice, good choices of plants and fish! You could add a few more Rummy nose or a centerpiece fish and you could also go for some Guppies. They’re all around fun fish, active, colorful and you’ll have babies 😁. The kids will go crazy for their own little baby fish. 
 

[JohnnyD]

Love your tank! Welcome 🙂

[sankaz]

As you've already experienced, this is a place chock full of people with experience and/or (like me) enthusiasm at the start of the hobby. Welcome! 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 12/2/2022 at 2:26 PM, Doc_Ho11iday said:

Hello all! 

I’m a mom of two young kiddos. My son has ASD and is non-verbal. He’s the sweetest little guy I’ve ever met and he LOVES to watch fish. I started my hobby about a year ago with the typical gateway Betta fish and now I’m hooked! I got a 45 gallon high tank and spent months researching the perfect setup for our space. I came to the conclusion that I like personality and behavior more than pretty colors so after I finally got the tank cycled I bought 10 albino Cory’s! The whole family loves to watch them play and forage around in the plants and dirt. I happened to stop by my local fish store yesterday and my son fell in love with the rummy nose tetra. We came home with 9 last night and they colored up within about 10 minutes. Today is day two and I’m starting to wonder if I should get a few more rummy nose to add to our community or look for a colorful centerpiece fish. Of course I don’t plan on adding any more fish for at least for another month so perhaps it will give me  time to think it over. Any thoughts, ideas or criticisms are appreciated! 

Love hearing stories like that 😍

[itsfoxtail]

Welcome! It's great to hear of families having tanks together! My mom's tank growing up is exactly what got me into the hobby as well! 

I would think a few tetras would definitely be alright, and with the size of tank I'd say you could add a centerpiece fish as well as long as it was peaceful!

[Theplatymaster]

It is very fun to watch cories play around in a tank, they are so fun to watch!