Choosing Fish\ Setting Up Aquarium

[agusf]

Hello I just bought a 150 liter\ 40 gallon tank. i have a jbl clearprofi 200 liter\55 gallon filter, heater, eheim feeder
thermometer, lighting\cap. gravel, thermometer,
I alredy put tetra aquasafe and easybalance. I plan for my tank to be freshwater. I was planning to but very exotic
but also easy to handle fishes(since Im a beginner) Im having some help from an expert friend with the same type of tank as me.
what fish species do you recommend me to buy? also, any tips on setting up my tank? and finally, what sort of plants should I buy?

 

[BethK]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Before adding fish, please have a read of the two below links;

What is cycling?
fishless cycle

Once your tank is cycled, then the fun begins........adding your fish and watching your tank bloom

There is no time limit in cycling but if you are able to get your hands on some mature/cycled media for your filter, it will help you along the way.

During a cycle, you have the fun part of selecting your tank stocking and you've come to the right place for hints/tips/advice.

If you are able to tell us what the pH of your tank water is, it will help us with giving you info on stocking.

Do you have a water parameter testing kit? i.e. API freshwater test kit

 

[agusf]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Before adding fish, please have a read of the two below links;

What is cycling?
fishless cycle

Once your tank is cycled, then the fun begins........adding your fish and watching your tank bloom

There is no time limit in cycling but if you are able to get your hands on some mature/cycled media for your filter, it will help you along the way.

During a cycle, you have the fun part of selecting your tank stocking and you've come to the right place for hints/tips/advice.

If you are able to tell us what the pH of your tank water is, it will help us with giving you info on stocking.

Do you have a water parameter testing kit? i.e. API freshwater test kit

Im gonna buy th master test kit today and will give you my stats as soon as possible.
one small question, i read an article saying i shouldnt do fishless cycling if i will
have plants in my tank. whats up with that? heres the link:
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/299827-why-we-should-not-fishless-cycle-planted-tanks/
And also, is it a good idea to buy jbl filterstart? it says it has the important bacteria
which eats the ammonia.
thanks!

 

[waterdrop]

I believe JBL Filterstart is another example of what we term a "bottled bacteria" product. Given that we work hard in this subforum to help beginners understand that bacteria are living things that need the right balance of oxygen, ammonia concentration, water flow and surface type inside the filter and that they will die quite quickly without these things being right, its not a great leap to realize that if there were any bacteria in the bottle, they are probably dead. And that is in fact what we find. Pouring the bottle contents in we usually see the effects of decaying organic matter - direct introduction of nitrate, nitrite and ammonia as well as organics that will begin breaking down into ammonia once the heterotrophic bacteria in your tank see them. So the bottled bacteria ends up amounting to an ammonia source and a "confounder" of your test readings if you are in the midst of a proper fishless cycle.

For average beginners interested in setting up a freshwater tropical community tank as their first introduction to the hobby, the article about setting up a "silent cycle" in a heavily planted tank can be quite confusing (the idea, not the article itself.) To over-simplify, there is essentially a whole different hobby out there that meshes with the basic fishkeeping hobby that is more mainstream. There are many names for it but it has ended up being called the "planted tank" hobby most often.

Its a complicated topic and difficult to discuss in a short introduction without making statements that could be construed to be controversial but for brevity I'm going to again over-simplify and term this an "advanced aquarist" branch of the hobby. This comes despite the fact that right here in our own planted tank forum I believe we have gone a long way to helping the beginning hobbyist who wants to go directly in to this direction of the hobby. Each person must decide for himself. I will of necessity slant these statements towards the true beginner who has not yet run a tank for two years and has started out focused on a community of tropical fish.

The problem for the fishkeeper beginner is that in order to use a large mass of plants to filter the water during a fish-in cycle, you must be reasonably adept at getting the mass of plants to become established and begin healthy growth, so that their natural life cycle is in full effect. In my experience, the ability and circumstances of beginners to pull this off varies wildly. There are some who may have immediate success but many others sometimes struggle. To add to this (and this is purely opinion with which others will disagree) I feel that learning the details of one of the several pathways to a successful planted tank is somewhat -more- difficult than learning the first basic mainstream freshwater skills, which are hard enough in themselves. (..not difficult per se, but like any skill it just takes time to correctly absorb and put it in to real practice.. mistakes must be made.)

I absolutely love planted tanks and am quite interested in the hobby myself but I feel the ideal path down the hobby lane is to experience, as I say, a mainstream freshwater tank for a couple of years that is running properly. After this the full impact of going off on different paths will be more deeply appreciated I believe.

So, to summarize my answer to your question, both a mainstream fishless cycle with household ammonia and an advanced silent plant fish-in cycle require great patience and can be difficult but it is my opinion that the plant fish-in cycle can be somewhat more difficult to do. In either case the members will usually hold your hand so to speak and try to give help and if you're motivated, it won't be hard to follow their directions. The most frequent worry about the plants is that if they begin to die, the extra ammonia created by the plant tissue breaking down can make the cycling harder rather than easier.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[agusf]

alright my ph is around 8-8.5
...that isnt normal right? normal is 7.
What to do!!!

 

[waterdrop]

pH is almost never anywhere near the serious concern that beginners worry about. Desirable pH is completely different during the fishless cycle than during the normal life of the tank.

You have the ideal pH (if it continues, which is not always the case) for the "bacterial growing soup" which you will need during your fishless cycle: a pH of 8.0 to 8.4 is ideal and even if the pH goes above or below that for a ways it will work well for bacterial growth.

Its a big mistake to watch your pH during cycling and think that it necessarily is telling you what your tank will be like later with fish. It will often be different and you'll have to wait until it becomes stable later to really know. This doesn't mean you can log instances of your tap water pH in your notebook. You can also perform jar experiments with and without your substrate to determine if it is likely to effect your pH.

A major principle during stock planning is to accept what your tap water is (in terms of hardness and pH) and let that guide you in your community planning. Most fish will thrive in a -stable- pH regardless of whether the numerical pH happens to be within the ideal range for the species. This dominates most plans but there are still things to be learned about fish that prefer to be toward the softer, more acid side or fish that prefer to be toward the harder, higher pH side of things. It can help to build a community of fish that all work together in that regard. Hardness and pH are not things that we like to alter, especially for beginners.

~~waterdrop~~