GreenMan13

I think it's because they have more water cycling in each tank that you can't see and they have higher turn over so the fish are not cramped there for months or years only days.

slakey

Buy a Rio 180 if you have the space and money
Then your DAUGHTER and partly you can have loads of colourful fish.

But I suggest you choose the, substrate, decorations and live plants

And show your daughter guppies and endlers, she'll love the bright/pretty colours.

Dave at cu

Thanks Slakey.

Still probably 6 months off from buying a big tank.

I added Bio Spira a few weeks ago, and I thought my tank had cycled. So after I moved the molly out (into a 5 g), I immediately put in two fantastic cories (so we went from 3 fish in the 10 g to 4). We love the cories, and they seem to be doing great.

But even though I saw the nitrites rising, my ammonia has come back and hasn't disappeared. I've been doing regular water changes to keep the levels down somewhat, but finally I bought a 2nd pack of BioSpira and just added it. A day later still have 0.5-1.0 ppm NH3, but I'm going to hold off on water changes for a couple days. Fish seem to be behaving fine. I still can't believe that after a month and two packets of BioSpira that the NH3 is still present.

Early on when I changed the water, I would vacuum the rocks, and there would always be stuff down there. Then I started only taking water from the top, to not disturb that bacteria. But I stopped using the sinking shrimp pellets for the cories, because they seemed to always leave a lot of gunk down there, even if I just added one pellet a day. Now I just make sure to drop a small pinch of flakes deep in the tank, which then drop to the bottom for the cories. Maybe once it is cycled I'll go back to occasionally using a shrimp pellet.

susitna-flower

Ahhhhhh it is so cute to see a grown man with pink/purple gravel & a little girl with a smile! ALL kids need to have a say.

I agree you will probably be able to find a deal on craigslist, this will keep your wife happy, if she knows you are keeping the budget in mind. I HOPE she falls in love with fish also. Believe me your daughter will love all your tanks, even if you have black gravel. You might find that a betta in a 5 gal tank in the kitchen might just be the thing that would get your wife involved!

As for using Bio-spira, I would say it is up to you. It will cycle your tank for sure, but the makers say you SHOULD NOT use PRIME if you use Bio-Spira, as it stalls the bacteria in the nitrite stage. There is a whole thread on here about that including the e-mail from the company explaining the problem. This is entitled "Don't use P Bio-Spira" by calinb, it goes from me suggesting he do just that, all the way through the explanation of the company and his own experiments. It sounds like you may be having some of these problems, thus your nitrite that persists....

The strings coming from your platties, may be a parasite, OR like you say, you are probably overfeeding. Skip a feeding every few days, feed a good variety of foods, like frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms, tropical flakes, shrimp pellets, and for the molly algae wafers. Just feed enough for them to clean up in 2-3 minutes twice a day. If the string is white it suggests internal parasites, and you need to get some medication. You can find something at www.drsfostersmith.com . While there you may also want to get vitachem, a vitamin supplement. It is good to add once a week or if you have stressed fish for any reason. Good Luck and let us know how your tanks go.......