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Hey guys.

I've had a 23 gallon running for a year or so now with a round sponge filter and only 8 guppies in it. Not planted. Heater in winter. Fake plants. 75cmx30cmx38cm. Mumma guppy spits out someone new babies every now and again and whatever doesn't get eaten adds to the head count. I just set it up for Mumma guppy to have her babies in peace but ended up transferring all of the guppies to it from my 10 gallon.

Now what I want to do is add more fish and change it.

When I originally did the tank up I just chucked in odd fake plants and two different types of substrate and it looks just awful. I have small, light coloured pebbles (around 2mm) on the left hand side and large white and black pebbles (around 100mm) on the right hand side. Yes, like I said, terrible. Now, if I take out the bigger pebbles and put more smaller pebbles in, is this going to affect any part of my tank cycle?

I was also thinking about taking out the fake plants and putting in real plants and a light. What light would I get? And what plants? I want to minimise electricity costs... And would i have to change the substrate? Or the filter?

And after all of that, what other fish can I put in there without affecting the guppies? As you can imagine they are having a field day with so much room. But the tank looks kind of empty. I don't want anything that is going to quickly snap up the fry, though. The pH is high too. Is it possible to get a bigger fish, like a centrepiece?

Or if you ahve any other suggestions at all please tell me. I'm looking for anything that will give it a bit of a change.

Any bigger fish you keep is going to quickly eat any fry it can. I keep Zebra Danios with my guppies, and they cant eat too many (have small mouths) I'd try mabey a school of Rasburas?

Inky

If you take out the large pebbles and put in smaller ones, there won't be a problem.
A lot of the beneficial bacteria reside in the gravel, so you would be upsetting the balance a little bit, but not enough to cause any worry since your small pebbles will still be there.

For a 23 gallon tank, I would get a more powerful filter, especially if you are adding more fishes, but that's just me.

Live plants, especially with fish like guppies would be rather beneficial . I can understand about the electricity worries, and if you concentrate on easier lowlight plants you could do just fine on 1.5-2watts per gallon. Even on just 1wpg you can do some, but IME they dont generally look all that nice. I had a look at the lights on equarium but your tank measurements seem a little different...anyway have a look there. If you include plants like java moss in the aquascape that will offer the fry places to hang out and get away from some of the slower fish that might eat them.

I agree to increase the filtration, again especially with guppies. Since you are dealing with fry you might want to go with two smaller rather than a larger one. Live plants would help by reducing the ammount of filtration you need, but not by much.

^_^

I really like the sponge filter I have in there. It was cheap and I've had no troubles with it at all. can I just stick another one in there? And will this annoy my cycle or will it just cycle away by itself?

Do guppies mind a mix of live and fake plants?

Could I have panda corys? Could I have maybe six of them? Or are baby guppies too much like live food for them? Could I have ottos in there? They are herbivores, right? How many could I have?

I was also considering the Brilliant Rasbora/Red-tailed Rasbora. Could I put 6 in there? They seem to be the easier rasbora to look after. Are they cheap or expensive? What rasbora would you suggest?

I guess what I am asking is, if I planted the tank could I have 9 guppies, 6 red tailed rasbora and 2/3 ottos (or 6 panda corys)?

I don't think bottom feeders would pose a problem with eating fry. Pandas in a school of 6 would be fine. Otos are rather sensitive and should only be put in a tank with established algae.

If you want another mid-tank dwelling fish I'd personally go with the smallest you can find. Pretty much assume anything will target fry as food, so the smaller the better. Floating plants will also increase the chances of fry surviving.

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Any suggestions for the smallest I can find?

It really depends on what's available at your lfs.

Both the pygmy rasbora and the dwarf emerald green eye rasbora reach less than 1" in length and would be good choices.

Search around for tetras in the 1.5" range, definitely no more than 2". Neons would be a good choice but after your experience with cardinals I don't know if you'd want to give them a try.

My only other suggestion is adding some floating plants like I mentioned previously, they'd give the fry some hiding places.

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Well, I changed the substrate and added the plants. The tank was really dirty. I swear I washed those rocks a billion times. But now it's cleared up. I hate my LFS and refused to pay $300 for a light, so I'm getting my brother to get me one and at the moment I'm just using an old 60W lamp I used to use on my desk. Looks really classy. The fry are great. No eating of them. And the bigger fish are schooling. They've never done that before. I was a bit concerned about mumma guppy who had red gills last night and was what looked like gasping for air at the top. She's fine now and I have a feeling all the dirt in the water irritated her gills. Which was rather stupid on my behalf. But I swear! A billion times.

How do I keep the plants happy? And if I add corys, can I add six at once? Do plants need a certain temp?