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Get a bristlenose pleco to help you with algae :) The albino varieties look cool though i don't like the veiltail varieties.

I have a Papa Pleco which chews wood and craps sawdust all over my tank and it's a chore cleaning up but I love the fella :D So no question of anything forming on the driftwoods.

Hi all,

As someone having zero knowledge about fishkeeping, I am looking for some help.

My wife wants to start with either 3 or 6 golden fish. We are based in Hyderabad.

Does anyone know where I can buy quality aquarium for cheap. I don't know much about how much I have to shell out for this. I believe the minimum size requirement would be 2x1x1 for 6 golden fishes?

I also have no idea about fish prices etc. How much do they cost and from where in Hyderabad.

Hi,

Welcome to the hobby.

For a tank that size, i would suggest two gold fishes.

Here's a random site which seems to offer good advice for goldfish starters

https://injaf.org/aquarium-fish/the-...-for-goldfish/

Please do not go by what the shopkeeper says. For him it's just numbers. Any help, please do post here :)

If I may ask, is there any reason you want to start off with goldfish? Cost wise they are very inexpensive fishes but will get large and will poop a lot. They require a good filtration which would be much more expensive than the fishes and very important for long and sustained hobby. Most people end up tearing down their tanks in frustration due to regular fish deaths, algae, scaly and smelly tanks. So do prepare yourself for regular water changes and maintenance. Finally, read about tank cycling before adding any fish.

Thanks for replies. I thought gold fish is easier to start. What is low maintenance inexpensive fish + fish tank recommend to start with.

Guppies, Mollys, Swordtails, Widow Tetras would be good starter fishes for your tank.

All species suggested by Deathwalkr plus zebra danios and platies. You can get so many different colors and varities in all these species alone and they are least expensive and quite hardy. 2x1x1 should be a good starter tank but if you can get some more height it would be better. Get in no more than 6 to 8 initially and after a month or so add in a few more pairs. Do not go overboard with stocking as these(mollies, platies, guppies) would breed like crazy and you'll end up with little babies in no time.

Lastly, read about tank cycling!!

Tried my hands on a low budget pandora(avatar) setup, with some petrified wood stones that i had for many years.

Substrate - very old used jbl manado
carpet - pearl weed
greenery on top of floating rocks - mix of christmas moss + weeping moss

Now get a red dragon fish (chilli red arowana) in there and your avatar setup is complete :D

Looks good but man my paranoid self would be having sleepless nights thinking what if the stones fall! :)

The large stone to the left fell a few times during initial setup, due to my trial and error method of fishing line selectionlol:. The substrate cushions the fall a lot better than i thought.

Beautiful and innovative idea that has actually worked out great!! Seems it's a low tech setup with no CO2 as you have chosen pearlweed as carpet. Not many people attempt an Iwagumi style low tech setup with a complete carpet due to tough to grow carpet plants but if we choose right plants then it's very much possible like in your case.

Wanted to share my experience with pearlweed. It looks great in beginning and gains good height in no time. Then it needs to be constantly trimmed if you want it to remain low. At the same time it doesn't like too much trimming so it starts to kind of loose it's zing as time passes by and becomes a mess to a point that I have to just tear it apart.

An alternative low tech carpet plant that for some reason is not very popular in this hobby is Echinodorous Tenellus. It spreads through runners, has a grass like appearance and very easy to grow in low tech setups. It's my go to plant if I ever need a carpet.

The tank is also begging for a school of nano fishes like ember/neon tetras, rasboras or endlers.

Thanks and no filtration too. The plants act as filtration, absorbing the nutrients. Every once in a while, i just wipe the thin layer algae off the glass.

Yup, i trim it too but the growth in this tank is slow. So trimming is done once a month.

Will try this in my next setup:thumbs up.

The current occupants are scarlet badis and neocaridina shrimps(gold, orange and cherry). I went with scarlet badis because i ve bred them in a similar setup a couple of years ago.

Didn't know that you are not running a filter otherwise wouldn't have suggested the nano fishes. Without filtration you are better off with the current set of fishes and not increase their numbers. The low tech, no CO2, no filter walstad style setups that are ruling the youtube require fast growing stem plants and a plant mass of more than 60% to 70% to actually be successful. Do you check water parameters using some water test kit?

I use API test kit for my other breeding tanks, but i rarely check parameters of this tank. As long as algae growth is really low, the parameters are ok in this tank. But, i take great care not to overfeed these badis and use just a small spoonful of baby brine shrimp daily (6 days feed and 1 day starve).

Finally got a Chihiros A601 V2 from Aliexpress which comes with an inbuilt bluetooth controlled dimmer with very detailed options to schedule the light intensity. Here the same light was a bit more expensive and they were selling the older version. I am pretty happy with the output since even at 80% intensity, the light is very bright and the greens just glow. And when it dims the neon tetras look beautifully. Since it comes with a fixed bracket, I got a pair of acrylic cross members fabricated so it could sit across the tank and hold the light. Costed me 300 instead of the many thousands the official accessory was.



Now planning to ditch the background to remove that hot spot on the background. Perhaps a clear background will look good.