Hi I'm new to the tropical fish keeping forum and need some advise on switching from goldfish to tropical fish.
I had 2 Fantail Goldfish for 4 years and they have outgrown my 120 Lt 50x50x50 cm aquarium so I have returned them to my local aquarium shop. The Aquarium is fitted with an Eheim Ecco Pro external filter unit.
I raised the temp to 24 deg a few weeks ago and added 5 Neon Tetra and 4 Siamese Algae eaters at the advise of my local Belgium Aquarium shop. The fish appear to be happy along with my one year old Pleco fish and a couple of apple snails. The water quality is good if not better than when I had the fantails with zero nitrites, 10 mg N03. GH is 4 deg d, KH 6 deg, pH 7.2. and Cl2 0 mg/l Apart from adding new plants from time to time the only problem I have had is blue beard algae.
I was going introduce a few more coloured fish but the shopkeeper now tells me that I that I need to restart the tank from scratch if I want to keep tropical fish, Cleaning out the old gravel, filter, tank etc. and adding new plant food substrate, new gravel and new plants.
I know this is going to take a few weeks to cycle the tank and wondered how to keep my existing fish. I don't want the expense of buying another aquarium and don’t want to return the fish and wondered if it would be OK to keep them in a plastic storage container with suitable filtration (I have a small Eheim hang on filter unit I can use) and using the water from my aquarium along with some of the gravel and filter media to keep bio cycle working.
Any help would be appreciated regarding the above and what fish and plants would be suitable for the new tank to make it nice colourful corner piece.
Regards
Dovie