60L Tank, what fish?

[DairyNips]

I have a 60L tank, I have a heater but would happily use it for cold water fish.
Any recommendations on which fish to put in it?

Can you give dimensions of the tank?

We have a gentle aquarium, guppies which breed, lots of varieties of tetras, a few corys and some shrimps. You can either go for lots of smaller fish or have less bigger fish. We have lots of plants and do a part water change fortnightly.

Gouramis are we quite aggressive so can't be had in the same tank as other fish, ditto Angel fish.

It's 60cm by 20cm, depth 30cm

Watching with interest :)

I wouldn't go for anything too big. Neons, tetras are small and colourful. You will need a filter and gravel, plants. You need to set up the tank and leave it to settle for a couple of days. Then get fish. Get no more than 10 at a time if you plan on having lots. Do not get a plec for algae, it will grow to two feet in size and wreck everything in there. You can get a magnetic block for cleaning the glass.

If you haven't had fish before go and talk to your local aquarium shop. They are very knowledgeable about what is best to keep. Some fish are easier than others, some I wouldn't even attempt as water ph levels need to be checked daily etc.

Ignore that advice above about letting the tank "settle" for a few days before adding ten fish. This is cruel and will subject them to burning levels of ammonia.

Before doing anything, read up on the "fishless cycle" using pure ammonia. This is a method of setting up your cycle so that when you add fish the filtration system is already prepared to deal with the fish waste.

Fish produce ammonia. When your tank is properly cycled there will be a colony of bacteria that converts this ammonia to nitrite. There will also be a colony of bacteria that converts the nitrite to nitrate. Nitrate is removed by performing regular (normally weekly) partial water changes of about 40%.

Cycling a tank isn't difficult when you do it properly. You'll need a bottle of pure ammonia (available from any chemist)...e.g. AmmoClean. You'll need liquid test kits for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. You'll need two or three weeks to fully cycle the tank. Then you can immediately stock the tank at full capacity without worrying about poisoning the fish.

There are other ways to cycle a tank. You can either get seeded filter material from another mature tank and put this in your filter. Or you can cycle with fish in (cruel).

Check out this link and read about the ammonia method of cycling your new tank.

www.fishkeeping.co.uk/articles_51/fishless-cycling-article.htm