Cycling?

[stucolls]

Hey guys, I know there are countless posts on cycling, fishless and with fish, but after my fry died this morning (exept one, now named HERCULES )
I wanna make aure I get it right. My main tank is 19 to 20 Gallons, I didnt cycle it correctly but everyone is happy.
My fry tank is about 6 Gallons.
This morning after my fry died i did the following.....
emptied tank and rinsed off, tank, rocks,plastic plant, and changed wool from filter to new wool.
Filled tank with 75% tap water, and 25% water from main tank.
Tank is now filled and funcioning with the box filter and it has literally just 2 rocks, a broken pot and fake plant. No substarte.

My questions are......

do I need to add anything else to the water? I was planning on leaving it as it is until sunday afternoon, then adding my 3 corys to help cycle it, is this correct?

any help would be great, just wanna make sure for the first time ever I get it right lol

 

[rdd1952]

The only thing you can add to the water to help would be ammonia. Otherwise it won't cycle. Be very carefule adding corys to cycle as they are generally not hardy and don't handle the ammonia well. If your main tank is cycled, take some of the filter media from it and add to the filter on the fry tank. You will have a jump start on the bacteria colony.

 

[stucolls]

ok, so to clarify, by leaving it as it is, its doing nothing becuase there is nothing to grow (except anythng from the 25% main tank water it was filled with) and to make it cycle I need to add ammonia, or......................against alot of opinions, a coplue of hardy fish?
thanks for reply

 

[orange shark]

Have you added dechlorinator? Is hercules in the tank now? If he is id add a couple of hardy fish but if not add ammonia and fishless cycle it!

 

[stucolls]

well..........

No I didnt add dechlorinator (but I can do) only because I had long chat with davidtq by PM, he is from torquay like me and has been keeping fish for 3 generations, he said all he does with his water is let it stand for 24 hours and use an air stone on it as it breaks down the chlorine and allows it pass out f the tank as a gas leaving nothing behind whearas dechlorinators leave something behind, which although not a problem can change to sodium chloride or something like that? but I can add it if you recommend it,

and the MIGHTY HERCULES, is now in a breeding trap in the main tank, looking lonely yet happy (as my liquifry finally turned up to)

so is it just a case of adding ammonia (what if I dont have any)?

 

[orange shark]

Add dechlorinator, leaving it to stand for 24 hours is fine but it can leave some chlorine in the water. You can get some ammonia from boots, its called household ammonia, i think its aboout £2. Id suggest you read the fishless cycling thread through a couple of times so you get an understanding for it!

 

[Lorna]

Hi stucolls, i would suggest using a dechlorinator every time. Do you have a maidenhead aquatics near you? If you do buy a product called soll bactinettes. It is live bacteria you put in your filter media to cycle your tank a lot quicker. My tank cycled in 10days using it, rather then waiting 8 weeks like others doing a fish/fishless cycle.

 

[rdd1952]

The one potential problem with not using dechlor is that some water companies also add chloramine to the water. Chlorine will disipate if you let the water stand or aerate it. Chloramine will not and has to be neutralized with dechlor. As cheap as dechlor is, I just use it anyway. A lot easier than running buckets of water and letting them stand.

 

[stucolls]

our water source down here is just chlorine, no chloramines, not sure about a maidenhead aquatics, will try to find out though, and will pop to boots tomorrow anyway.

thanks everyone

 

[Davidtq]

Theres a maidenhead aquatics at jacks patch garden centre.

 

[Davidtq]

If you go down the ammonia route you have to do a full fishless cycle, you cant mix methods, you cant start doing a fish cycle and add ammonia and expect to get away with it, you will also need ammonia tests so you can tell when the ammonia is being used up and when it gets to 0 etc. Also with it being a fry tank its VERY possible that building up a filter to full population with fishless cycling then placing fry in their reducing ammonia production will caus you another bacterial bloom as the filter bacteria die off due to reduced bio load.

Also corydoras ARE generally considered hardy fish, one of most likelly to survive tank disasters due to their ability to breath atmospheric oxygen. Perhaps it depends on local water conditions but our local soft water is ideal for most cory's, and cory's were the sole survivors of a recent tank disaster at my parents house, when they went on holiday my sisters boyfriend came round and saw that the fish "looked hungry" so fed them half a tub of food "to last them" till my parents got back, they came back to a tank of green water and dead bodies, and a small shoal of cory's streessed but still alive . We lost 3 breeding pairs of sevrums in that incident but the corys soldiered on as they often do in such situations.

Also liquifry itself is not really a fry food in itself, liquifry is more of a food to encourage infusoria (microscopic organisms) to colonise the tank to provide food for the fry normally used for smaller fry than live bearers, you can expect results from liquifry in 1-2 days, normally youd put it in 2 days before eggs are due to hatch for egg layers \ bubble nesters.

 

[stucolls]

thanks david, seeing as your my local expert I will take your advice on this one as you know our water better than most, but thankyou everyone elso for your opinions too.

I thought Corys were supposed to be hardy little fellows so lets hope so lol

as for Hercules.....................HE HAS A FRIEND!!!!
whilst moving bogwood in the main tank trying for half an hour to catch tyson the terrible (chinese algae eater) out popped Hercules friend!!!

so my next question is.......... what shall I call him/her?

thanks everyone

 

[Davidtq]

I thought I had said in my pms to only go for 1-2 corys to begin with in the fry tank.

You can get a full analasys of our local water from the water companies web site, they tell you what they add to our water and waht they do with it etc.

As for hercules little friend glad to hear it survived in the main tank, for live bearers I dont normally "try" to raise them normally cabomba in the tank gives them all they need to survive in mass numbers in the main tank. less stressfull than breeding traps.

 

[stucolls]

you did indeed so im only adding one of them (on sunday)

so what do you reckon for hercules friend? btw im only desperately trying to rear these 2 because they are my first fry and because I was gonna take 15 of them to one of the local stores and try to exchange for more corys (albinos).

Cheers David
(might see you in one of the stores over w/end lol)

 

[orange shark]

call him/her zeus!!!!!