Help! I'm New To The Hobby

[Jazee B]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post and I am complete novice! I've always wanted a fish tank after my Grandad had one when i was little girl so my fella bought me one for my birthday.

It is a Jewul Rekord 96, at present it has gravel in the bottom and a nice chunk of bogwood (which I'm sure my Clown pleco's will love when i can get some) it's been up and running since Monday and is at about 79 degrees and that's as far as I have got. I have been to 2 aquatic shops in the past few days and been given completely different information from both. The only thing they did agree on was not to do a fishless cycle and take a sample of water to them on Sunday and they will let me know if the tank is ready. If they deemed the tank fit for inhabitants they said to put the fish and plants in it together on Sunday.

After reading all of the info on this forum I've come to the conclusion that the advice I was given was not the best so I am asking some advice from all of you experienced fish keepers.

Any suggestions and pearls of wisdoms you have will be greatly received!!!! Thank you

 

[Miss Wiggle]

well it seems you have learnt lesson no 1 of fishkeeping - dont trust what the lfs say

of course they will tell you lesson no 1 is don't trust anything anyone on a forum say's.

what i always say to put it into perspective is this.

in an lfs they pay minimum wage, most of them (particularly pets at home type places) are staffed entirley by teenagers with the occasional older staff member. they have to think of profit margins, making a sale and selling you as many products as possible.

on this forum we have several fishkeeping magazine contributors, mr Neale Monks who is one of the most respected published fishkeeping authors, a vet and a few vetinary nurses, a handful of professional breeders not to mention the 20,000 members or so with a combined fishkeeping experience of probably a few hundred thousand years, all with no ulterior motive other than passing on their knowledge and helping like minded people.

All I will say is when you get advice from a forum, remember that we all have strengths and weaknesses and none of us are infallible, so wait until a handful of people have replied to confirm the advice you have been given, then if a few people say it you know you've more chance of getting the right answer.

now aside from all that, i'd say deifnatley do a fishless cycle, it's easier, takes no less time than a cycle with fish, is much less stressful and most importantly it more humane for your fish.

 

[Piltdownpaul]

Couldnt have put it better miss wiggle- fishless cycling has to be the way to go

 

[Jazee B]

Thank you very much for your replies.

I have just being reading the post by rdd1952 in the "new" section and decided on the 1st method add and wait. Probably a daft question but where is the best place to ammonia? should i put my plants in before i start cycling? and when will i need to do my first 25% water change? sorry for all of the questions but it's taking a while for all of this info to sink in!!!

 

[pastabake]

Yes, definitely do a fishless cycle.

To plant or not to plant ...

If you plant now you get a chance to discover which plants are best suited to your tank conditions - water, temp and light. You also get a good opportunity to play around with your planting arrangement. My final planting is nothing like how I originally planted because some plants just dissolved and others needed to be better positioned. Your plants also get a chance to establish before the fish start eat and mess around with them. However, you will almost definitely get algae.

If you don't plant you can keep the tank in the dark and no algae will grow. You can have your temp up at 30C and you can also heavily aerate your tank both of which are good for your bacteria. I'm not saying that you can't do the last two with plants just that they will limit what plants you can grow and how well they will grow ... most of my plants need it lower than 30C and aerating your water takes CO2 out of the water.

IMO adding 1ppm and 10% water change daily is the best way to cycle because success is then far less reliant upon accurate test readings. I'd also suggest (only if you cycle without plants) that adding 1ppm every other day for the first 7 days is even better as it limits the initial build up of ammonia to below 7ppm.

I'm all for water changes during the cycle, which ever method you choose, and you will definitely need to do a big 50-90% water change at the end to remove all the nitrates etc that will have built up over the cycle.

Good luck whatever you decide.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, RDD's Add&Wait writeup is what nearly all of us use. The ammonia question is in fact the next significant one that most arrive at! Use the search tool in upper right corner to search on "ammonia source" or the like -- many of the UK members have the advice fine-tuned, even with pics in some cases (I'm a USA member.) Finding the right ammonia is very important - it must not foam when shaken, only bubble, and be clear and not have fragrences etc.

Whether to do substrate and plants prior to fishless cycling is a personal decision. It has pros and cons:
Cons of plants in fishless cycling:
1) Algae is common duriing fishless cycling and will need to be cleaned from plants and gravel afterward.
2) Plants take up some ammonia and nitrates and so can sometimes thow test readings off a bit in a heavily planted tank.
(there are some others)

Pros of plants in fishless cycling:
1) Most important - the plants, wet with tank water, can introduce a bit of the good bacteria you want.
2) They look nice and give you something creative to work on while the boring cycling goes on.

(my vote, in hindsight, is for plants!)

Water changes are a very important topic. Water changes are needed for different reasons during fishless cycling vs. during normal stocked tank operation: they are needed in fishless when the water chemistry needs to be refreshed because of some problem, typically because the pH has gone too low, down at 6.2 or below. During normal tank operation, you will want to establish good habits, probably a weekly water change and you will have plenty of time during fishless to read about the details (or ask here) of good water change technique.

Things you didn't ask: Besides ammonia, you will need to be looking for a good liquid-based test kit such as the API Freshwater Master Test Kit or a Hagen or tetra or nutra one. Test strips are worthless. You will probably need a couple of glass eyedroppers. Besides the RDD article, I recommend all the pinned reading at the top, particularly articles by AlienAnna and Miss Wiggle found in the Cycling Resource Center link in the Beginners Resource Center. Plus, don't hesitate to read other threads all over the forum, particularly related to your questions. Cycling in particular is not a completely spelled-out process.

Good luck! ~~waterdrop~~

 

[darryl864]

I'm new too and have just completed my fishless cycle. I somehow managed to do this in just over 2 weeks by doing a 98% water change once the nitrites peaked. The reason for this was because the kids just couldn't wait any longer. As it turned out we never did get the fish as we were busy last weekend. Been testing since and just adding ammonia to feed the bacteria.

As for plants I started the cycle without and added plants later. The only downside was having to plant with a full tank which is quite hard. You will get fed up having a tank and no fish so having plants will give you something to do!

As for the Ammonia I got mine from "Lifestye Pharmacy" in bath for £1.11 and you can see a pic on my other post [topic="237855"]Beginner Small Tank Diary[/topic].

Lastly a lot of people mention getting a dropper but I have bought a measuring syringe available from Boots or Superdrug for 89p and have not only used this for adding accurate amounts of ammonia I also use it to fill the test tubes for testing the water.

Good luck with the cycle!

Darryl

 

[waterdrop]

darryl, yes, excellent suggestion! A measuring syringe is definately superior. I should mention it when I mention droppers, been meaning to get a couple myself -- I always mention having a couple of droppers (but same for 2 syringes) because then you don't have to rinse the ammonia one, can just leave it in a special spot for next use.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

check out boots for pure hosehold ammonia, will need to be one of the larger boots stores but most of the decent sized ones sell it. another place is homebase.

 

[Jazee B]

right, so my mission for the weekend is to purchase ammonia, syringes a good liquid testing kit and some hardy plants. thanks for all of your help so far but i'm sure I'll be hassling you all again when i get to the next step!!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

right, so my mission for the weekend is to purchase ammonia, syringes a good liquid testing kit and some hardy plants. thanks for all of your help so far but i'm sure I'll be hassling you all again when i get to the next step!!

no problem, let us know how you're getting on with the cycle


best bet when cyling is to keep a log of every day's activities, what your water test results are, how much ammonia you added, etc etc etc.

if there is a problem and you need to ask us for help we'll all appreciate a god log of what's gone on.

 

[Jazee B]

right, so my mission for the weekend is to purchase ammonia, syringes a good liquid testing kit and some hardy plants. thanks for all of your help so far but i'm sure I'll be hassling you all again when i get to the next step!!

no problem, let us know how you're getting on with the cycle


best bet when cyling is to keep a log of every day's activities, what your water test results are, how much ammonia you added, etc etc etc.

if there is a problem and you need to ask us for help we'll all appreciate a god log of what's gone on.

Thank you for you for that, i'll make sure I keep a log. I've been and got everything today so will be starting the cycle 2moro. i've then got to decided on fish, that will keep me busy whilst waiting for my tank!! Am i right in thinking that you don't mix barbs and tetras? And if I decided on clown plecos because thay are smaller would you suggest more than 1?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Thank you for you for that, i'll make sure I keep a log. I've been and got everything today so will be starting the cycle 2moro. i've then got to decided on fish, that will keep me busy whilst waiting for my tank!! Am i right in thinking that you don't mix barbs and tetras? And if I decided on clown plecos because thay are smaller would you suggest more than 1?

there's lots of species of barbs and lots of species of tetra's, there may be some bad combinations (for example tiger barbs are too nippy to go with congo tetras as they've long fins) however there are plenty of combinations of barb and tetra that could work fine.

not sure on the plec's, ask in the plec section of this forum and they can give you some more detailed advice.