First Tropical Tank

[oxfordmark]

Hey

I have just purchased a Marina Style 60 Tropical Aquarium Set to house tropical fish. The tank looks nice. The only problem is something is vibrating on the tank (guessing the pump) which make it a bit noisy. Other than that its great.

We are going to start putting fish in on Wednesday. What do you guys recommend starting off with?

My girlfriend wants a one or two of the orange fish with a few black and white stripes (cant remember the name) and some Cardinal Tetra.

Your advice would be great

Thanks

 

[phoenixgsd]

have you cycled the filter?

 

[oxfordmark]

have you cycled the filter?

Hello

What do you mean by this? If you mean allowing the water to go through the filter then yes.

 

[phoenixgsd]

no, you need to read all about cycling before you buy your fish in the beginers resource center http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/ it will save you time money and fish deaths, in short, your filter needs to build up bacteria to keep the fish alive this is called cycling

 

[Peter C]

I found this out the hard way mark And I'm guessing your about to lol

 

[phoenixgsd]

I found this out the hard way mark And I'm guessing your about to lol

as most of us did peter, it was only because of advice here i lost only one fish, but boy, it was really hard work and time consuming

 

[fluttermoth]

Hi Mark, to the forum.

Before you even think about adding fish, you must get an understanding of 'cycling'. Fish produce ammonia as a byproduct, which is highly toxic to them. 'Cycling' means growing a colony of beneficial bacteria that eat the ammonia and turn it into nitrite (which is also toxic) and then another family of bacteria eat the nitrite and turn it into nitrate, which is only toxic at very high levels, and which we reduce with regular, partial water changes.

There are two methods of cycling; 'fish-in', where you add fish to produce the ammonia and 'fishless' where you add household cleaning ammonia to replicate that which will be produced by the fish.

We always recommend fishless cycles here, as fish in almost inevitably exposes the fish to toxic ammonia and can kill them and means a lot of hard work for the aquarist, as you'll be having to do daily, sometimes twice daily, large water changes to keep the ammonia from hurting the fish while the bacterial colonies grow.

Can I point you towards our beginner's resource centre (the link is in my sig)? It's full of useful articles for newcomers to the hobby and goes into more details of the nitrogen cycle and cycling tanks.

The fish your girlfriend wants wouldn't be clownfish, like 'Nemo', from the film, would they? If so, they're a marine fish and need a specialist set up with salt water, which I wouldn't recommend for beginners. Or they could be clown loaches, which would get too big for your tank, but there are a lot of orange and black striped fish, so we'd really need a more positive ID before we could properly advise you

 

[oxfordmark]

I have been using Nutrafin cycle in the tank for the last few days.

I will have a look at the link you included.

Thanks

 

[Gilli]

If its the air pump thats making the noise you dont need it and can take it out saving you electricity as well..As long as your outlet filter nossle is pointing towards the top of the tank and moving the surface around gently the water will have enough oxygen in it.

 

[oxfordmark]

If its the air pump thats making the noise you dont need it and can take it out saving you electricity as well..As long as your outlet filter nossle is pointing towards the top of the tank and moving the surface around gently the water will have enough oxygen in it.

Hello

I think its the pump that is taking the water up through the filter. Turning that off will stop the filter.

 

[Judgejudy]

When you have finished cicling the filter, you could add some platies or guppies as cardinal tetras are harder to look after. You could also have some sort of cory ( fish that stays at th botton sucking up the waste and food ) i really like them. That fish that your talking about, could it be a tiger barb?

 

[fluttermoth]

Depending on exactly what kind of filter it is it could be; air trapped inside (sometimes tilting it slightly, gentle shaking or filling over the top can release that), it touching on something and 'echoing' (try moving it a little bit), or it could just be that the impeller needs to bed in a bit more (in which case you should find it quietening down over the next few days)

None of us have much faith in 'instant cycle' products (please don't let TwoTankAmin and Ianho start again on this thread Sorry, in-joke there, Mark! ), but put simply, and the way most of us would agree on, there's no way the bacteria can survive in a bottle as they need a flow of oxygenated water and an ammonia source, which those bottled products just can't provide.

You can, however, get a god headstart, or even an instantly cycled tank, if you can get hold of some already mature, cycled filter media (that's the stuff that goes in your filter, like sponges or ceramic 'noodle'), maybe from a friend with a tank, or some local fish shops (LFS) will give or sell you some if you ask nicely.

I would also advise you to invest in a decent, liquid or tablet, based test kit. The API master test kit is the one that most people on here recommend and use, but Nutrafin do one too. You'll need tests for, at the very least, ammonia and nitrite, and preferably pH and nitrate too, but they're not as important as the first two. It really is vital that you're able monitor the levels of toxins in your tank, whichever method of cycling you eventually decide to go with.

 

[fluttermoth]

You could also have some sort of cory ( fish that stays at th botton sucking up the waste and food ) i really like them. That fish that your talking about, could it be a tiger barb?

Cories do not 'suck up waste'; they need proper food of their own and to be kept in shoals. There are no fish that do anything to clean up tanks; even the ones that eat some algae make far more mess than they ever clean up with their poop.

You should never, ever get any fish to do a 'job' for you. All fish need appropriate food and proper housing adequate for their needs.

 

[phoenixgsd]

also a valuable piece of advice is always take the advice of a shop, fish or chain store, with a pinch of salt, they are there to sell you products not for the health of the fish, there are some good ones but they are few and far between

 

[oxfordmark]

When you have finished cicling the filter, you could add some platies or guppies as cardinal tetras are harder to look after. You could also have some sort of cory ( fish that stays at th botton sucking up the waste and food ) i really like them. That fish that your talking about, could it be a tiger barb?

Hey

Thanks, not its not a tiger barb, although that one looks nice.

It was a clownfish she wanted, one unhappy gf at home lol.

I have purchased an API master test kit. Is it best to do weekly checks?