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I just got my new 20Gal hexagon tank all set up today with the decor,filters,heaters,air pumps, and chemicals. What should my next steps be? Also what are some good fish for this size of tank; I'd like to have as many different fish with as much color as I can! My last question is I've got a air pump good for up to 40gallons, I put a T on it so I could run a 6" airstone and my decoration which has bubbles that come up from it. Yet I can only get one to work at a time. No clogs or nuthing, any ideas?
Thanks,
Mikey

Just to pass on some insight from personal mistakes, be sure to cycle your tank before adding fish. Your lfs might have told you it's ok to add fish right away as they told me.

As for the air pump, do you have a regulator to adjust the air flow, you know, to turn it on and off? If so, adjust that. I had to fool with mine a bit to get the air to flow to multiple items.

My favorites in my 20g hex was my tetras. I am partial to tetras though. Danios maybe idea also. Just remember some schooling fish need 4 or more to be happy.

Good luck and enjoy your new tank!

Hi there,
now that you have your new tank set up and ready to go, youre thinking, what fish should I add?
But thats the wrong question to be thinking. The first thing you need to address is "How am I going to cycle this tank?". The cycle, or Nitrogen Cycle, is the process of fish waste in the form of ammonia being eaten up by helpful bacteria called nitrobacters, into first nitrItes, and then nitrAtes. Ammonia and nitrites are both very dangerous to fish in high amounts, nitrAtes much less so.

When you add new fish to the tank, ammonia will rise rapidly. If the fish you choose are sensitive individuals, when this happens they will die. This condition of buying tank and stocking with fish resulting in huge die-offs with little reason why, is called New Tank Syndrome. Many aquariasts listen to fish stores and experience this. Many decide at this point that they dont want to keep fish.

You can avoid this mistake and heartache by cycling your tank fishless. To do this is quick and easy, taking a fraction of the time fish-in cycling takes.
Fishless cycling requires only a few items - pure household ammonia with no additives, a liquid drip test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrAtes, and patience.
You add pure ammonia to your tank at a rate of 2.0 ppm checked via your test. You maintain this level as the tank cycled. Once ammonia reaches 0, nitrItes reach 0, and nitrAtes reach +5ppm, your tank is cycled and ready for fish.

With fish-in cycling, which is more common, you purchase a few small hardy fish - such as white cloud mountain minnows, or zebra danios. These fish are tough and hardy and resilient.
You add a small group to the tank (5-6), and you test the water daily for ammonia. Once ammonia reaches 1.0 ppm, you change 30% of the water. This could be as much as every day, or every second day. Fish in cycling takes on average between 21-60 days. Regular water changes when ammonia reaches 1.0 ppm or higher is required to keep the fish alive and prevent ammonia burns to gills and body tissues.

Fish in cycling requires a lot of work and effort, and usually results in dead fish.
Id skip this and go for the fishless cycling.
Good luck!


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Spankym13,

So_Very_Sneaky has given you the best advise here. You don't want to deal with what I am, which is praying that I don't have to watch my little friends, that I have had for years now, die because of my mistake and ignorance. Cycle first and think about fish later.
If this is your first tank, you may also want to do some research about what to look for when purchasing fish. Signs of illness, etc. I'm so surprised at how many places, even those recommended by others have sick or dead fish in their tanks.
Another thing to think about with your air pump is getting a check valve for it, if you don't have one. This prevents the water from cyphoning out if you lose power or shut off the unit. They're cheap and worth it.

Good Luck and have patience.

Wow!! Thanks for all the helpful info. I will c what I can do about that air pump. Also Whats the best test tools to buy as there are a few to choose from. Thanks again for all the help !!!!!!

Its probably better to tell us what you can get and then we'll tell you the good stuff from that list.

If I may also make a suggestion on stocking a hex tank: on average they have much less surface area than a 20 gal rectangular tank, they look cool sure, but you have to drop your stocking expectation by at least a third compared to a normally oriented aquarium. Also because of the horizontal width issues you'd be better off choosing species that dont grow much over an inch long, and dont overcrowd it with bottom dwellers either. On the plus side though, at least you can have some pretty tall plants.

Ok I'll look and see what we have round here. SO What fish would you suggest and how many? Also what would be a good alge eater. That other question I had was how do you know if your getting enough air in the tank, I've got a pump rated for 40gal and it's hok up to a fairly good sized decor which has bubble out the center. Thanks again ya'll are a awsome help

While good oxygenation is a must in the confines of a 20 gal hex its probably not a good idea to go overkill on the bubbles, since the fish wont like them and will have trouble escaping them, and the result may well be blanched out fish that are stressed and may not live to any great age.

Oxygen saturation can be measured, but frankly most of us guess. Unless using a venturi system bubbles dont contribute to the water directly in terms of oxygen, where it all takes place is at the water surface, and obviously whatever you can do to break the water surface as often as possible allows gaseous exchange. Therefore a constantly rising torrent of tiny bubble breaking the water surface many thousands of times in a minute is the best way to get that oxygen saturation up. Something like a hydor ario would be impractical in a tank that narrow, but a small efficient airstone connected to a reasonably powerful pump will do the job. In a hex tank a bubble curtain may actually be annoying to the fish, and the bubble size is often a little too large. Certain filters like the eheim aquaball have intergrated heads connected to airline tubing, and they can be very handy in small spaces. For your tank though, just a basic small airstone in one corner, as long as the pump is powerful enough will probably be the best option, a larger stone would probably be intrusive on the fish. Even situating filter outflow to break the water surface will add some oxygen.


The trouble with species selection is, that if you choose species that like being bubbled to death, they already have a high oxygen requirement and you cant overstock with them anyway, and they all tend to be immensely fast and powerful swimmers and will go nuts is a tank that narrow. Conversely if you choose slower swimmers from lakes and slow flowing rivers,you cant have so much disturbance, but then they dont need quite so much oxygen.With a hex tank whatever way you slice it , you cant have that many fish..

....except fish that can breathe atmospheric air, namely, the bettas and the gouramies. Nearly all of which would enjoy a hex tank, as long as you keep to species under 3 inches long. They dont swim fast, they stay on display well, and theyre generally much harder to kill.Trouble is they can be moody, so again numbers are limited.

I might go for something like honey gouramies, indian gouramis, red robin gouramies or dwarf gouramies, add about four ottos, and have either a few small cories, or a few kuhli loaches.

Alternatively you could still have ottos , get the tank planted beautifully, and have a few apistogramma cichlids, rams, etc. A pair of aggasiz's would look beautiful.Though obviously it depends on you being able to maintain excellent water quality. If your a newbie at it the gouramies would be more practical.If you must have shoals then you could have any number of small tetras, the choice is so diverse as to be almost irrelevant, as long as your choosing fish under an inch in length, minimum shoal numbers come in at 6 specimens typically. Just have a single minimum sized shoal , and you can still have a few ottos and shrimp for the algae duty.

Well I've had my tank set up since sat. night, and my Ph is still 7.6 and I've use a chemical called wardleys 7.0 3 in 1. many have told me it works but doesn't seem to be. Also my water was slightly cloudy monday and hasn't changed. My filter system is a marineland penguin 150. Also my tank is setup by a window with a curtain that doesn't let much light in is this going to cause me trouble? Thanks again ya'll

Spankym,

Did you rinse the gravel and everything before putting it in your tank? That can cause cloudiness, if you don't. If you didn't, it may take longer for your tank to clear. Does the Ph product state that it may cause cloudiness? Some of those products do.
I always heard setting up a tank by a window can cause some issues. For example, keeping the temperature steady either from drafts or from heat coming from the window. I also heard having a tank by a window can increase algae growth. I don't know if the curtain will prevent that. Maybe some of the more knowledgeable people here can help with that one.
Sorry I can't offer an opinion on the Ph product and if it works.
Good luck with everything though.

What does your ammonia test tell you. Cloudiness can be caused either by silt in the water (you'd see tiny particles) or by the start of the cycling process (an ammonia test would come back positive).

As for the window. Usually not the best idea. The temp fluctuations can cause stress and deaths. The light can cause algae as ELT mentioned.

^_^

Yea I did rinse everything before I put in the tank. I can see some small particles floating around and lots of bubbles still. Also my ph wont drop below 7.6 and i'm using a 3 in 1 water treatment that is susposed to take my ph to 7.0 and keep there. My temp seems to stay pretty much the same by the window, Thats were the tank is cuz I wasnt thinking when I set it up so.... But it doesn't get much sunlight cuz of our curtain!

Hi there,
I would stop using the Wardleys PH adjustor.
7.6 is a fine ph for many kinds of fish, and if you do want to adjust the ph you are much better off using a natural product like peat moss/granules to reduce the ph and soften water than using heavy duty chemicals.

For testing equipment, Aquarium Pharmaceuticals and Hagen both make excellent "Master Test Kits". Id recommend purchasing one. You need to at least have tests for Ammonia, NitrItes, NitrAtes and Ph.

Now, are you doing a fish in cycling, or a fishless cycling?

As a Hexagon tank has very little surface area, you will want to understock this tank, and not overcrowd any particular level.
You would be best to choose fish that stay 2-3 inches or less in size, and choose a few for the bottom level, a few for middle, and a few for top. This will prevent stocking problems and allow for a visually nice looking active tank.




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Well I got my ph down to 7.0 Wow that took a while must be some hard water. Now to wait for a while to make sure its stable! I was thinking of putting about 10 fish the size of neon tetras, and an alge eater. Any one know much about the snails that are susposed to do that? I see them at a lot of pet stores here. Or any other kewl Ideas for alge eater thats common. How often should i use my siphon to clean? Well Thanks for all the help! I'm pretty excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

spankym13,

I've never heard too many good things about snails. I know they can multiply quite a bit. I've heard Otos can be very good at algae eating and some stay small enough for that size tank. I am planning on getting a few for my tank once it's cycled.

I had a 20 gal hex also. I used to do my cleaning and a 10% water change once a week. You just want to be sure not to clean the filter and vacuum and do a water change all at the same time because this can cause your tank to recycle. It will take out too much of the good bacteria you are taking so much time to grow now. You can check the fish profiles on this site to look into the Otos.

Good luck and let us know what you get!

ELT, That was some good advice there. Glad to see you are learning hehe. Anyways Yes OTTOs are great algae eaters. You can also get a Bushy Nose Plecostomos, or a RubberLip Pleco. You can also Try amano Shrimp as they are ferocious Algae eaters also. On the Cleaning I would try and split the tank into at least halfs and clean a different half each week to keep the bioload. Also i would try to clean your filter once a month. I would do a 10% water change each week. HTH

Thanks for your input as always, Shane
http://thetanklog.blogspot.com/ - [ Thanks to ScottF ]
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Hi Spanky,
Well, youve given me a little bit of info to work with on what you like for fish, small fish the size of neon tetras, and an algae eater.

Heres a couple "cookie cutter" ideas for you!

1) Bottom/sides - 3 Otocinclus Catfish
Middle - 6 Harlequin Rasbora
Top - 6 White Cloud Mountain Minnow

2) Bottom - 6 Corydoras Hasbrosus or Pygmaeus
Middle/Top - 6 Marbled Hatchetfish
Algae- 1 Golden Mystery/Apple Snail

3) Bottom - 3-4 Kuhli Loaches or botia sidthimunki
Middle - 8 Glowlight tetra

4) bottom - 3 Otto Catfish
Middle - 5 Sparkling Gourami
top - 2 male guppies

5) bottom - 3 ottos
middle - 12 Neon tetra

6) bottom - 1 bristlenose/bushynose pleco
top - trio of dwarf gourami or thick lip gourami or honey gourami (2 female 1 male)

Thats just a few ideas I could pull off the top off my head, all close to equal in bioload.



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Wow!!! Ya'll are AWSOME!!!!!!!!! Here Is an Idea for some fish we are thinking to put in the tank.
6-danios
2-guppys
1-alge fishy
1-african chicild or 1-2 dwarf gourami
1-2 bottom feeder (clown loaches or red taled shark)
Whatcha think?????????

I'm still new here but everything I've read says NO to the African Cichlids unless your trying to feed them with your guppies and smaller fish. Although a pretty fish they are not community tank friendly.

Our Danios, 2 of them, are I think full grown and about 5-6" long and LOVE to swim and swim fast they do, I would not like to see Danios in a small tank personally especially 6.

The rest sounds fine in my unexperienced opinion.

Stay tuned for the experts.

55 gallon FW API Master Liquid Test Kit.
4 Silver Dollars, 2 Angles, 2 Danios, 6 Tetras, 4 dwarf Guramis, 2 powder blue and 2 red and 1 Black knife Started 5-25-07

If you really want cyclids in your tank you will need to look at community ciclids like Bolivian Rams or something like that. They are beautiful fish.

Thanks for your input as always, Shane
http://thetanklog.blogspot.com/ - [ Thanks to ScottF ]
http://www.natureaquariumclubofutah.com/main.html