A newbie to the fish world, advice on guppies please?

[Marne]

We have just bought dd1 a small fish tank for her birthday, we set it up a few days ago to prepare the water (set up filter and heater etc..). We were told by they aquatic shop where we got the tank that the water only needs to settle for 24 hours as its a very small tank, is this true? and we were told the tasnk will hold up to 5 (maybe 6) guppies. This is the first time we have had fish so i am a bit worried that i may kill them . I have a few questions:

1. what temprature does the water need to be and does the heater just turn off when it reaches the correct temp? its a small under gravel heater we are usig which was reccomended for the tank.

2. How many guppies should we get? whats the minimum you can keep as they like to be in groups don't they?

3. When we bring them home from the shop how do we introduce them to the tank? the tank is a bit small to put the bag of fish into it, is it ok to use a net?

4. do i need a ph testing kit? we are in a hard water area which is what guppies like isn't it?

5. how often and how much do you feed them?

you really need to cycle the tank for a few weeks before putting fish in. otherwise your fish probably will die.
google "fishless cycling" for more info (or wait for eaurouge to turn up )

water needs to be around 24 degrees, it's worth having a little thermometer in the tank.

how many guppies you can fit in will depend on how big the tank is. guppies can get up to 5-6cm and you want at least a cubic litre of water per cm of fish.
so for 6 guppies you would want a tank of around 36litres at the minimum, although saying that 36litres really isn't very big at all.

Thank you, we have a thermometer in the tank and its around 24 degrees at the moment, i can't remember how many litres the tank is (will have to find the box). I will have a google for 'fishless cycle'.

What thisisyesterday said. It takes 4-6 weeks to cycle a tank, not 24 hours. I would double-check everything the shop tells you! This explains about fishless cycling and the nitrogen cycle.

If the tank is too small to fit a bag in then it does sound very small. The RSPCA recommend a minimum tank size of 45 litres and I agree with them- small tanks are a total nightmare to maintain because the water quality can change suddenly and quickly. A tank of around 60 litres is a great size to begin with and you could happily house 6-8 guppies in there.

And yes, guppies do love hard water so you won't need to tinker about too much. Test kits are an essential bit of equipment though because you need to know what's going on so you can head off any potential problems.

Make sure you a) check the size of the tank b) cycle it properly and c) buy only male guppies! If you buy females you will quickly have a very overstocked tank.

I briefly had five males in a 5/6 gallon tank which was just about do-able in terms of water quality but they did nip each other until I transferred them into a much bigger tank.

If your tank is smaller than 5 gallons I wouldn't put anything on it but keep as a hospital tank.

If its around 5g it could make a lovely home for a single Betta (Siamese Fighting Fish) these are really beautiful, intelligent and unusual fish that do best on their own. Your daughter could also have lots of fun decorating and planting the tank.

I'd definitely recommend buying a test kit as that way you can quickly diagnose any water issues if your fish are looking peaky. Also pretty interesting and educational for kids to keep charts of water results etc if they are old enough!

yes, i was going to add to my first post that if you can't fit the bag with the fish in, in the tank, then the tank is probably far too small.

www.thinkfish.co.uk/calculators.php?calc=volume has a volume calculator to check size of tank.