Hello And A Few Questions To Help Me On The Way.....

excellent - going to get the fish this weekend. cloudness is clearing however temperature is struggling to get to 26C however around 24.5/25 at mo. more photos will be taken... and advise comments please type

OldMan47 said:

Welcome lil2012 and congrats on choosing a tank. Now you will need to cycle it before adding fish. We have a decent thread here that will get you started on a fishless cycle. You can link to it from my signature area.

Click to expand...

Hi lil2012, i would have to point you towards oldman's question there, which didn't get an answer....
Are you aware that a tank (well, actually, the filter) needs to complete a Nitrogen Cycle before you can stock your tank to your liking?
Depending which way you choose to do it can last from 3/4 weeks to 3/4 months !!!
Follow the links in oldmans' signature if you are unaware, or feel free to abuse me if you're clued up on the subject
But certainly have a quick read BEFORE you got o purchase your first fish this weekend.


Terry.

ok thanks for this I see the link in the signature now.. just reading it as you say these newbies just rush straight in!!!!

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/113861-fishless-cycling/

Have to be honestly I don't totally understand, I understand why with fish poo..etc.. however putting it in practice is a different thing.

Can you advise on what things I need to get using this link as this is the closest pet shop http/www.petsathome.com/shop/fish/fish-treatments/

Sorry about missing post - however this forum is so good you can get lost.. and seem to spend most of the time looking at Tank of the month and getting ideas on the design rather than the chemical side




The cloudness as cleared and at 26C

Don't bother with all those chemicals that 'guarantee' an end result that a simple water change can do !!
A couple of things that you WILL need are as follows..
A good quality 'de-chlorinator', Seachem Prime is very good, very concentrated
A liquid based test kit, API Master Test Kit is highly recommended, £20 on Ebay.
Some household ammonia, available from Boots the chemist and/or online.
A diary/log book..keep an up-to-date record of EVERYTHING you do and add to your tank, remembering to write down each test result when you see them.

Terry.

The link that you put on your last post tells it all. I'm just starting a fishless cycle on my new tank and what I learnt from my first tank is that you have to be patient and if you use fish to cycle the tank (as I did) you are putting them under stress, even if they are considered 'hardy'! It's well worth waiting the few weeks because your tank will be a really good place for fish to be and you will have fewer problems in the future. I'm doing the 'add and wait' method. I bought the ammonia from the internet (Jeyes) and I've worked out how many drops to put in using a plastic dropper. Today I put the same number of drips of water into a small plastic measuring cup (like the ones you get with bottles of medicine) so that next time I don't have to laboriously count the drops. I'm writing a diary of the process as suggested by Taffy. Keep in touch if it helps.

you need household ammonia from a small local family hardware store. you are much more likely to get it from one of those that a big chain. kleen off household ammonia works well. you need an api freshwater master kit, they are about £10 cheaper online than they are in pets at home. your fishless cycle will take about 35 days but it is worth it.

http/www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm

(scroll to the bottom)

a 46 ltr tank will require 2.5mls of ammonia to get it to 4ppm

Here's the link for the ammonia I bought - it's recommended for this process but Boots do the same apparently.

http/www.africanaquatic.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=130

thanks for all the advise again..

I've bought a testing kit and here are the results...



the ammonia was between 0 and 0.25 ppm, the PH was 7.6 / 7.8.

We hopefully going to have angelfish and neons in this tank. I've reading this ph should be slight higher? i.e. 6.4 / 6.6 for this?