Couple With New Tank

[Lee gsi]

Me and my wife have bought a fish tank from ebay.

The tank is bigger than we expected as it was advertised as a Juwel Delta 200 and turned out to be a Juewl Delta 300 lol.

It now sitting in the corner of our room waiying for us to get everything readyto get started.

Our filter arrived today so thats now set up. Next on the list is to decided on what sand to get and start the fishless cycling.


Really looking forward to learning and then getting the fish

 

[fatheadminnow]

Very happy to see you two going in and doing a fishless cycle! Congrats on doing your research first and not getting stuck in the "norm" of things and listening to LFS (local fish stores) that advise against a fishless cycle and prefer you to do a fish-in cycle!

Let us know how everything works out!

Any pics! We love pics!

-FHM

 

[Loops]

Very nice! Be patient with the cycle it's so worth it, your fish will be so happy

Do you have a water testing kit?

 

[Assaye]

Welcome to the forum!

Nice to see you are starting out with the sensible tank size

Have a read of this -

Resource Centre

Loads of good info in there to get you started.

 

[erk628]

I'm very glad to see that you will be doing s fishless cycle. While your tank is cycling it will give you guys time to do research on the fish that you guys will want to keep!

 

[Lee gsi]

Off to the LFS tomorrow to get the sand and start to get everything ready for the water and start the cycling.

 

[erk628]

Is there a specfic type or color of sand your looking for? I use playsand in all mine which is $4.00 for a 50 pound bag. They have it at a hardware store or I heard you can get playsand at toyRus. The only colors I've seen are brown and white though.

 

[Lee gsi]

After talking to the guy in the shop we decided to go for small gravel and not sand.

Just finished setting it up and now waiting for the cloudy water to clear.

 

[Assaye]

After talking to the guy in the shop we decided to go for small gravel and not sand.

Just finished setting it up and now waiting for the cloudy water to clear.

What fishless cycling method are you using?

All sounds good so far =)

 

[Lee gsi]

I thought there was only one?

Test it everyday and make a note on the readings and add the right amount of ammonia till it drops to zero.

 

[doresy]

I thought there was only one?

Test it everyday and make a note on the readings and add the right amount of ammonia till it drops to zero.

Save your testing kit!

Put in the required amount of ammonia (using the aquarium calculator on here), test to make sure then wait a week - 10 days as nothing will happen before that time unless you are lucky enough to have the use of matured media (media from an established filter) Then test

What test kit are you going to use? Hopefully API liquid kit

 

[Assaye]

I thought there was only one?

Test it everyday and make a note on the readings and add the right amount of ammonia till it drops to zero.

Some people use fish food, live shrimp/snails or even frozen (well, thawed) prawns.

The neat ammonia method is more reliable.

I would test daily (I know some people avoid testing for a few days/a week as results are unlikely to change) because you don't want to miss when it starts lowering (and thus miss the re-dose day). It'll also help you make a journal which will hopefully help you understand the cycle better.

 

[Curiosity101]

Also, why the switch from sand to gravel? Sand (for alot of bottom level fish) will be more natural than gravel. As alot will live in areas lined with soil/mud on the bottom.
It doesn't matter too much, because so long as it's round gravel then it shouldn't do them damage. But some bottom level fish do a bit of filter feeding, as in they like to take a mouth full of sand/soil etc and spit it out through the gills.

I'm going to guess that the guy in the shop probably said sand is harder to clean? If he did then that's total rubbish.

 

[Lee gsi]

He said it is harder to clean due to anaerobic pockets forming easier than in the gravel.

Its small round gravel (Not the normal bigger stuff).

Stated the fishless cycling with 'Cycle' and now adding ammonia. The filter was seconhand so I think that has helped too.

As of last night this what we have using the API liquid kit:

Tonight's reading:
pH: 7.4
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 80 ppm
Nitrite: 1 ppm

 

[Curiosity101]

True the anarobic pockets do form easier than with gravel. But if you have Malaysian Trumpet Snails, or simply stir the top layer with something every couple of weeks then it'll never become a problem. The areas with plants and roots also don't form anaerobic areas easily. So all in all, although what he said is true. It's really a minimal difference.

Hmm, they are extremely good results?
I don't want this to come across wrong, but have you definitely put in the correct amount of ammonia? I mean it is possible that they second hand filter has really bump started it... but did it dry out? Or did you put it in while it was still damp from it's previous tank?