Needing suggestions on a tank

[fish_lady]

Ok I have a cycled, fishless 29 gallon tank.

Was thinking Male beta, black mollies, and some in the catfish family for bottom care lol. I was going to go with one school of about 6 females to one male Ivory Mollies, One school of 1 male to 6 female black, One male beta, and 4-6 of corydoras Catfish , as they do good in groups.

I have 6 live plants varying from aponogetons, Cabomba. which is currently in the tank and doing rather nicely.

Water is set at 78 degrees and we are ready for fish. Now my question is I was told to add the fish in stages, which I concurred is a smart move as it gives each group of fish time to adjust. I was going to add the cats first, then the white mollies, then the black then eventually the beta which I have by himself in a 5 gallon tank until I got this big one processed ready for fish.

I will add one group of fish a week and observe to make sure everyone is doing ok.

I do have some other fixtures in there such as a castle and various drift woods and a couple of caves.

Undergravel filter and rock bottom. As the plants are live i added eco rock to both feed the plants and it helped starting this tank as it was packed in bio water , then my buddy gave me some of his water out of a 150 gallon tank to get the process moving also.

Will all of the fish I named off work or will I have a problem on my hands?

Who feeds live food versus flake and which works best?

Who uses tap water vs RO water? Which is best. I did start this tank with rO water and then added my buddys tank water plus the water that the bio rock was packed in.

[kimmers318]

Okay, first, mollies prefer a slightly brackish water with salt in it, the other fish you mentioned won't really appreciate that.
Next, you mentioned you have a cycled tank, unfortunately, adding water from another tank won't do the cycle for you. If it was totally cycled, sitting for a week the bacteria you need will have mostly died off also. You need a source of ammonia to keep the live bacteria going.
A short explanation is this....when you start a tank, you are starting with clean water that doesn't have any beneficial bacteria or toxins from fish in it. As the fish eat, excrete feces and urine, and food that doesn't get eaten starts to decay you end up with ammonia in your water. Soon, a bacteria will grow that will eat up that ammonia, but the waste product from that becomes nitrite. Ammonia and nitrites are toxic to fish, ammonia more so. Then another bacteria will come along to eat up the nitrite and the waste product from that is nitrate. The only way to get rid of nitrate build up is thru water changes. These beneficial bacterias live on decor, gravel and filter media, not so much in the water column itself. When you have a fully cycled tank you have enough bacteria to eat up the ammonia and nitrites as they are put into the water and you do weekly water changes to decrease the nitrates. The only way to really know where you stand with these is by testing the water for the 3 mentioned toxins. If you begin to put fish in now, they will have to live thru this process, and each time you add more fish you will increase the toxins (bioload) and the bacteria will have to increase to "catch up" to the new toxin levels which can cause small cycles to occur. One way to avoid all of this is thru fishless cycling where you introduce a source of pure ammonia in larger amounts than what your fish will, allow the bacteria to work its magic and when you are done you have a tank that is ready to be fully stocked.
When cycling with fish, you must start with small amounts of fish, watch your water carefully and be ready to do water changes to keep the toxins down.
Last, but not least, you mentioned you filled the tank with a mix of RO water and someone else's tank water. Is this how you plan to keep doing water changes? The RO water should be relatively pure and soft without alot of minerals in it, but your tap water may be harder and have more minerals in it. If you start doing water changes with tap water you will be increasing the mineral content in your water, possibly adding water that has a much higher PH level and that will cause the water in your tank to increase it's PH. Then the fish will be subjected to the changes in PH and this, along with the cycling, can cause weakened fish who will probably succumb to diseases. Unless you plan on continuing the RO water and learn the science behind regenerating it to the proper PH, I suggest you stick with your tap water only. Most fish can adapt to a PH higher or lower than what their natural habitat is but they will be weakened by the constantly swinging PH levels if you don't do it properly. People that use RO for their tanks use products to regenerate the RO water to the proper levels they want it at. I tried one time to mix RO water with my tap to achieve a lower PH and it was disastrous. My harder water just kept buffering the PH way up in the RO water and thus I would do a water change with softer water, dropping the PH in my tank, over the week the tap water would buffer it right back up and it would start all over again. My fish suffered, and alot of them died. They have since adjusted to the higher PH and are fine with it.
Please don't let all of this information frustrate you. If you want to avoid cycling I suggest you talk to the friend who gave you the water and see if you can run your filter for a week or so in their established tank or use old filter media from his/her filter to start your tank. This gives you a jumpstart on supplying your tank with good bacteria and although your tank will be touchy for a few weeks, you will experience alot less issues with cycling and your fish will thank you.
Keep us posted and we will keep helping you. William has written a very good ebook on aquariums, read it, do some research and understand everything before you end up frustrated with dying fish.

[Lady Hobbs]

Mollies can be very aggression when mating and if you don't want to put up with that aspect, you could try getting just males.

You will have trouble with the UGF and plants. Root systems get entangled around those plates and render them pretty useless. Most of us here that have tried UGF in the end have taken them back out.....plants or no plants. Too much debris gets left under those plates and it makes for a good breeding ground for ick and worms.

You don't mention another type of filtering. I hope you have more than the UGF. Those just pull the gunk out and toss it around it the tank. You need something to take it out of the water.

As mentioned above, you have not cycled by just using a friends water. Very little bacteria is in the water but it's in the gravel and filter media. Ask him for some grungy filter media, as well, and that will help your cycle along. However, only get it from him if he has very good clean tanks and disease free fish.

[cocoa_pleco]

GREAT article kimmers! nothing i can add

[Drumachine09]

I, personally, wouldnt do a betta in a community. you could do a couple dwarf gouramis, 2-3, 8 guppies (2m 6 f), 4-6 corys (i reccomend albinos), and 1 bristle nosed pleco.

[sergo]

i have a female betta in my community tank. she does just fine all of the others. i think females are bettere off than males due to the fact that females are LITTLE less aggressive than males. all long as you don't have any other fish that look like a male betta you can keep a male betta in there. jmo

[Rue]

...and I have bettas in my community tank...no problems!

[kimmers318]

Thank you cocoa!

As for a betta in a community tank, it is always up to the temperment of each betta. My male was fine with several types of gourami, but this was also a larger understocked tank which means they had plenty of room to avoid each other if need be. The betta would flare at the dwarf flame gourami alot, but he never nipped, even when they were sharing a veg wager together.
Here is a shot of my betta right in front of my dwarf gourami...no harm, no foul. But I have heard of others who have tried it and it has been disastrous......Just like Hobbs rogue angelfish who won't play well with others.
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[Glasstapper]

Well, I think everyone's covered your questions (very well, I might add!) except for the food question. I never fed live food to my fish just because I was paranoid about introducing parasites to my tank, but there are plenty of places you can get "clean" live foods. They aren't necessary, though. You do, however, want to feed more than just flakes all the time. A nice varied diet is what is preferred. Maybe once a week you could substitue their flakes for some frozen or freeze dried bloodworms OR some people even make their own homemade food that will have vitamins, protein, veggies, and other nutritional stuff in there. Giving them the same thing all the time will not only make them finicky eaters in the future, but they may not be getting all the vitamins and nutrients they need.

So in summary, live foods disease-and-parasite-free can be a beneficial supplement to their flake diet (and slightly more expensive), but if you want to keep it cheap then frozen or freeze-dried is a good alternative to live foods. Be sure to research your fish's diet to see if you can try to give them all the nutrients they need to thrive.

And I'm sure you already know this, but I want to hit on it again just to make sure. Only feed them what they can eat in a few minutes. Leftover food will foul your water quality quicker than you think. They always "look hungry" so you can't go by that. Once or twice a day feedings are what most of us feed. Some people even skip feeding one day a week just for the fish to clean out their system a bit, but that's entirely up to you. I tried it and didn't notice any difference in behavior or health whether they ate every day or skipped a meal once in a while.

Sounds like you're on the right track just by doing a little research and asking for help along the way. Good luck to you and enjoy the hobby!