Glowlight Tetras

[nfras]

So here I am about to buy a small shoal of neon tetras when I see a tank of glowlight tetras in the LFS. They look stunning but the girl in the LFS doesn't seem to know much about them. Anyone with any experience with them in a community tank? I would be keeping them with danios, swordfish, honey or dwarf gourami, rainbowfish and corydoras in a well planted aquarium.

[Lady Hobbs]

They would do just fine. Tetra's are happiest in large schools so get as many as you can.......maybe 6.

[Fishguy2727]

6 at minimum for a schooling species of any type. I have a pair (Petsmart only had 3 and one died not long after I got them for $1 each) of albino glowlights in my community tank and they seem to like it in there. They would do much better if in a real school, but I doubt this will happen since these were the first ones I have seen. What size tank? What filtration exactly? What are your nitrate levels? What is your water change schedule?

[nfras]

What size tank? What filtration exactly? What are your nitrate levels? What is your water change schedule?
200l/55g
2000l/hr AquaOne Internal Filter
Nitrate 0
Water change will be approx 10% weekly (it's a new tank, just finished the planting)
I was looking to have 8-10 of the little guys.

[Fishguy2727]

What size tank is that filter rated "up to"? In general water changes should be 50-75% weekly, but with a densely planted tank that is a little different. Just keep a good eye on the nitrates to ensure they are not rising over about 20ppm.

[nfras]

In general water changes should be 50-75% weekly, but with a densely planted tank that is a little different

50-75%???
I would have thought that unless you are really overstocking the tank then 25% would be sufficient. With 75% water change the chance of greatly changing the water chemistry is high.
The filter is rated for a 400l tank and is 10x the tank volume per hour. To be honest, when I first put it in there it seemed too powerful. I had it at the right hand side of the tank and there were plants being uprooted 4 feet away on the left side. So I moved it to the back of the tank facing forwards and attached the venturi, added some more water to take the level up an inch or so and it's working better now.

[kimmers318]

I think you will be quite pleased with your glolites...I have some also and they are great community fish that add a nice touch of different color. I also have some gold tetras that are beautiful also.

[jeffs99dime]

i have glowlights too. you will do fine with them!

[Fishguy2727]

Sorry that I have not put this in paragraph form yet, but please read this:

I used to buy into the mindset that big water changes will screw things up, like your biological or the pH, stuff like that. But in fact they help and are now one indispensable aspect of my fish care. Water changes won’t affect your biological colonies. The good bacteria live ON surfaces in the water, not IN the water column itself. The only thing they use the water column itself for is to spread (as in: from the gravel bed, to the tank wall, to the biological filter, to the surface of the plants, etc). So you could (and I have) do 100% water changes and have absolutely no ill effect to your biological filtration. And as for pH, That’s only a concern if your tap isn’t good for your fish. Over time different things build up in the water that will change the pH. For example nitrates form nitric acid and therefore lower your pH over time. So big frequent water changes help keep the pH closer to your tap water's, so when the water changes are done there is little or no difference in tank and tap pH, whereas if you do smaller and/or less frequent water changes the pH in the tank may shift and therefore it will be a bigger change in pH when you do the water change. But that just explains why it’s not bad. It’s good for many reasons. The main reason is that big frequent water changes help dilute problematic chemicals. Nitrates are a big issue with fish. You may hear not to let them go over 40ppm or something to that effect, but that just means at MOST. But really the lower the better. As an analogy: sometimes there are limits to certain chemicals in the air for humans. So if it is bad to go outside if chemical X is over 20 ppm, it still isn’t good for you if they are just below that, the lower the better. So the lower you can keep the nitrates, the better for the fish. Nitrates slowly stress fish over time and can lead to decreased growth, health, and general ability to thrive. So the lower you can keep them the better. There are other dissolved organic compounds that also affect fish in the same way. The other chemicals that are of concern are growth-inhibiting hormones that inhibit the growth of the same or sometimes similar species. In nature this is good because it gives the big individuals more time to breed and produce more young before other individuals are big enough to compete with them for that right. So big frequent water changes keeps these growth inhibiting hormones to a minimum. In nature when the dry season hits, the volumes of water drop, concentrating all these chemicals even more, reducing growth, and the bigger the fish the more waste, so in nature no one needs to be growing in the dry season and therefore producing even more waste in these ever decreasing bodies of water. So it makes it ever so slightly more likely that more fish make it through the dry season. So, the bigger and more frequent water changes, the less like the dry season. I tried this new water change schedule and what I thought was thriving before, was pretty good, but it was not thriving. I saw greatly improved growth rate, max size, coloration, fewer health problems at all, and a general increased ability to thrive. The other thing is that in order to breed, the fish have to be thriving, and many if not most breeders rely on water changes to help keep their fish in the absolute best condition possible. I am on well water so my tap can go straight into the tanks. It is easy to bring pH up, but it is very hard to bring it down. For my African cichlid tank I add the proper lake salts and buffer right when I start to fill the tank again so that they are dissolved as it is filled. If you need it down from your tap, you need to have it ready before the water change. This is why I carry out and highly recommend big frequent water changes at or about the rate of 50-75% weekly.

[CJ1]

Weekly water changes of 10-20% is plenty.

[jeffs99dime]

Weekly water changes of 10-20% is plenty.

i disagree. reptileguy knows what he's talking about