how hard is fish to keep!?

[transposia]

I cycled one time with gouramis, and I have yet to do a fishless cycle, but it seems so brutally painless to do without fish, I'd really recommend giving it a shot. Either way it'll take the same amount of time (if not less) and you can use that time to decorate your tank and research your upcoming inhabitants!

Just food for thought

 

[mandapanda]

is it nessicary to have so many guppies to cycle with!? i dont want to spend alot of money on fish that will probably die! if i cycle with them, want they probably die? if i use guppies, minow (can it be the regular ones from the creek), or danios how many do i need for a 29 gallon tank???

 

[The-Wolf]

if you really want to cycle with fish, Zebra danios are the way to go
start with 3 for the first week and add 3 a week later. Although they are a hardy fish you may still loose some of them.

I'd just like to add that a wise woman once said
"unfortunatly, fish keeping is not as easy as keeping fish"

In my interpritaion of that, you are not just keeping fish, you are trying to keep an entire eco-system.

 

[swampcat]

You can use feeder guppies not fancy. These are $1 a dozen at the most. You can cycle with two tuff fish like the danio too.

What kind of filter are you using? What kind of material (filter media) are you using to house the bacteria? The bacteria needs a good home. You can use lava rock,ceramic cylinders, an extra sponge or some synthetic medias such as bio chem stars by aquarium pharm co.. It will take a good 6-8 weeks for this cycle to complete itself. During this time you must resist the temptation of adding new fish, and you must add fish slowly. One here, then one there, not 10 at a time, your patience will pay off.

Get your self an ammonia test kit and a nitrite test kit keep tabs on these conditions and do water changes during the process. Dechlorinate your water and watch for drastic changes in water temp ( adding cold water), so you do not disrupt any bacteria forming .

The first bacteria to form (nitrosomas) will use ammonia for food and produce nitrite, the second bacteria to form (nitrobacter) will use nitrite for food and produce nitrate which is the least toxic and will be removed with water changes. Live Plants will aid with this too.

Once you have this bacteria living fish keeping is quite easy. The cycle is 90% and the least understood, the rest is pretty easy. I do maint. once a week about 1-2 hours every sat. morn with a 100 gallon, a 55 gallon, and a 20 gallon. ***NOTE: what ever you choose for a media for your bacteria to live * NEVER CLEAN IT*. Just a light rinse in some water removed from tank during a water change, and I rarely do that!

 

[NinjaSmurf]

I got fish because my mom said no to a dog.



Everytime I do a water change now I just look at her and say 'Yeah, so much easier than a dog mom.' while heaving a full five gallon bucket of water around in her living room...

 

[rich]

The first couple of months are the hardest, constantly assessing the water, counting your fish, lots of water changes. After a while you realise your fish are fine and now it takes 1 hour every 10 days to look after my tanks.

But for my tropical tank I went for hardy fish to reduce maintenance, while having a nice display. I also cycled on minnows and borrowed some water from the cold tank.

 

[Susielyd]

just wondering, if you don't want to spend money on fish that are likely to die during or shortly after a cycle, why don't you do fishless cycling? All you have to spend then is the money on the bottle of ammonia - much cheaper (and more humane really) than fish!
just a thought...