new freshwater community tank

[mish]

Hello, advise needed! I am in the (exciting) process of setting up a new 250 litre (55 gallon I think) freshwater community tank. This is out of necessity to find larger lodgings for my BGK. I plan to move across my BGK, the 3 platys and 2 catfish currently in a tank with her (him? sex actually unknown), and to get a second BGK. My query has two elements, basic tank knowhow and BGK specific queries.

Over the weekend I set up the basic tank (gravel, caves, plants) but am struggling with the following:
1. how many plants?
2. how to feed the different fish – my BGK lives off bloodworms which keep her satiated and non aggressive, and the others share her bloodworms supplemented by flakes and algae pills
3. am I correct to feed small amounts twice a day?
4. other suitable community fish - and how many to a tank?
5. How do I go about the weekly gravel cleaning and water changes for a tank this size? Do I still change 20% of total water? And how close to the caves / plants do I use the siphon?
6. should I wait a full 3 weeks for the tank to cycle before I add fish? I have seeded the tank with water siphoned from the gravel of my existing tank
7. should I have more than one thermostat in the tank – the current one seems to leave the tank with a sever temperature gradient! (tank is 1.24m long x 450cm x 450 cm)

Secondly, how to integrate the two BGK. From the forum, it appears that two well fed BGK's of different sizes should be able to co-exist happily if there are sufficient hiding places.
What is sufficient?
What can i use as a large cave for the BGK (she is now about 15 cm long, has outgrown all her rock caves, and a drainpipe seems so impersonal!)
I plan to adda much smaller BGK - should this one be placed in the tank first and allowed to familairise itself with hiding holes before my old lady is added?
Can i vary the BGK diet?
Is it too late to train both BGK to take food by hand?


Any other advice or recommendations would be welcomed

[Bullsnake]

I think your BGK will benefit greatly from a more varied diet. In addition to the bloodworms you're feeding, you can also feed frozen brine shrimp, smallpieces of unpeeled shrimp, and small earthworms.

[mish]

how do i go about feeding her earthworms? am keen to vary her diet, have a nice big pot crawling with earthworms of different sizes, but what now? how small do they need to be (she is about 15cm long). Do i put them in the tank whole or cut them up? how much to feed?

[Carraig]

Sounds like a big setup you're going for.

I've just moved my BGK into her new tank and introduced a trio of BGK's as tank mates.

When it comes to plants BGKs love to hide and slide around in them. My tank is heavily planted at the sides and rear and I only use plants from 4" to 12" tall. Using these smaller plants I have about three for each gallon.

Remeber when you buy a plant at the store you can seperate it out into three or even four smaller plants so long as you dont damage to much of the roots so its not so expensive as it might seem.

Rather than use rock or plastic caves I've taken to using thin pieces of slate. I have 5 of them, varying in size around the front and centre of the tank space. By resting a thin piece of slate against the glass you give your BGK cover with very little displacemnet in your tank and if you set it right then you can still see them.

Hope this helps

[Bullsnake]

mish said:

how do i go about feeding her earthworms?

Earthworms are an excellent high-protein, low-fat food for BGKs.

One thing to keep in mind is that smaller BGKs can't really chew up their foods or swallow large chunks. You may need to experiment a bit to see what size worms or pieces of worms your specimen prefers to eat.

If you find a worm is too big, you can either cut it into smaller sections or you could even squeeze the poop out of the worm. This reduces the diameter of the worm considerably

If your feeding live worms, you may notice them scurrying under the gravel before your fish has a chance to eat them. To prevent this from happening, I put the worms in a paper cup and give them a shot of very hot tap water. This disables or kills the worm and prevents them from hiding in the aquarium.