My First Deecnt Tank

[Essjay]

He's got his units mixed up. It's 1 inch of fish per American gallon. So 1 inch in about 3.5 litres.

 

[Sweeden]

He's got his units mixed up. It's 1 inch of fish per American gallon. So 1 inch in about 3.5 litres.

So i could easily have 10 cardinals?

 

[Sweeden]

Well just came down to my tank just to have a look inside while i literally wait for paint to dry anyway i have INTRUDERS! Just strolling on the front of my tank are 2 snails one big (4mm) one small (2mm) Should i leave or extract them???

Anyway earlier i checked my ammonia levels and they were 0.50 but it hadnt been a full 12hours after i added some ammonia so kind of put that to the back of my mind. so i've just come down stairs and thought what the hell i'll check my nitrite levels and my results seem to good to be true .... 0ppm

Now if my ammonia is being processed in 12hours and my nitrite is at 0ppm does this mean my tank is ready or am i going to experience a rise in nitrite at some point soon?

 

[ian]

you'll have more luck asking a mod to move your thread into the new freshwater section of the forum, Sweeden. Ten cardinals sould be fine in the 10g.

 

[Sweeden]

So after weekend of not being able to get to my tank, i finally tested my water 0ppm on all three (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate) so i topped up the ammonia again and will test tomorrow after work to see where i stand. what results should i be expecting???

 

[Sweeden]

anyone?

 

[frogmarch1987]

it could be that your plants are using up all the ammonia, hence the 0 readings for nitrite and nitrate. Look up the term 'silent cycle' for more info.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Sweeden, was just looking at your thread this morning and wanted to comment - but a bit rushed getting the kids off to school and all that, so I've not been able to review your other threads or generally figure out all the details about your fishless cycle.

When we come in and try to glance at a fishless cycling thread many beginners think we just want to see one day's worth of tank water test results, but nothing could be further from the case, the latest day is just the icing in the cake.

Give us a summary if you can: tank dimensions and volume, filtration flow rate and media choices, tap water test set results, presence/absence of mature media from another filter, number of days since water added (10 days it looks like?), number of days before the initial 4-5ppm of ammonia dropped all the way to zero ppm (assuming that has happened, whether or not nitrite has ever appeared in a test result or has ever been at or above 5ppm, what kind of nitrate results you've been seeing.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JoshuaA]

.......

???

If a tank nitrates were doesed at about 100ppm and the Cardinals survived, do you think they were thriving.
Surviving is not thriving

I'm with Ianho with this one, though what would you define "Thriving" as in fish terms?

I mean in human terms it would mean mass development on an industrial and economical scale. Fish it would mean... swimming around happily, full of colour and not dying? Possibly reproducing...

I agree with Ianho on the cardinals being tougher, I would even go to the extreme length of saying Neons are much tougher than people make out. I introduced Neons 2 weeks after my first batch of fish went in newly cycled tank. Those neons are all alive, vibrant in colour, no deformations and never had any illnesses they have never been droopy or inactive and they've always eaten meals. They've been like that their entire time in my tank.

So where does this rule exactly come from? I've recently moved my neons into a new tank which hasn't established itself due to everything but the filter media and plants being changed, though they've even brighter in colour (mainly due too the lights) and even happier. So where does this come from this rule? It seems silly to me because if you do follow this rule some people or some tanks would end up having 1 platy for 6 months until further "Less hardier" fish are added.

Ianho has a point, though I feel a little stronger about this inaccurate rule of some fish species.

Edit:

My post wasn't meant to reignite the fire, it was to show there are two sides to every story.

 

[waterdrop]

Actually I have watched this same debate involving neons and cardinals go on in the 1960's! It was one I remember and so I've watched it with interest over the last couple years here on TFF and within some searches even.

My current personal observations are as follows. Despite a couple of rounds among experienced keepers here, where we (me included) have speculated that the "sensitivity" of neons might just be down to cases of trace ammonia and nitrite and/or slightly high nitrate in tanks that are not really as fully cycled as we like to get them.. we've always continued to get the observation of people losing neons, on a small percentage basis, even with tanks that we judge to have good water parameters.. but are new. Here's the thing: Its just an "observation," not a thing that has ever connected up with a "cause."

One of the major problems with it is that its just a fairly small percentage thing. All along, there continue to be observations like JoshuaA describes, where neons are introduced to a new tank but they do just fine. You get enough of those and you begin to feel its just down to the usual water things when along comes a case where no one can find fault with the water but the neons just croak. Even in the 1960's I remember some experienced fishkeepers saying to just introduce them to a much more mature tank and you'll almost never experience a death. There's just some other factor about neons that's unrelated to our usual water things and we don't know what it is, I feel. I feel our collected "observation" (as hobbyists in the large sense) is correct to some degree, but I feel no one (at least in my experience) has really had anything to point us in the direction of some different factor that the neons are sensitive to.

If you look at the case of Dwarf Gouramis, the hobby went through a period of mystery about unexplained deaths but then finally a micro-culprit was found and the syndrome was explained to a large degree. It could be that something like this will turn up with respect to neons but for now my feeling is that it doesn't quite "feel" like this.. partly because the reports of total success in more mature tanks seem to go so solidly up to 100%. I know to younger hobbyists, this it bound to have a touchy-feely aspect when they read it but it you'd watched it for a long time you might be surprised to end up with a feeling similar to mine.

Now whenever the neon thing is discussed, I feel it also needs to be noted that losing neons to transport continues to be an observation widely reported. One thought from a scientific standpoint that plays in to this is that if you look at the evolutionary coping strategies of different fish species I believe one can observe a difference in strategies where fish have larger body mass and have developed greater "survival machinery" within the individual fish, VERSUS, shoals of fish with very small body mass who have developed survival strategies with a greater emphasis on shoaling and great numbers. Think for instance of the "light reflecting" trick that neons and other irridescent scaled fish have - its been figured out that they can cause light to reflect and interact with surface water reflections in a way that literally fools larger bottom and mid-dweller predators to think the prey is in a slightly different position - the predator misses the mark, going after the reflection.

Anyway, I do feel that many very small mass fish do not match larger mass fish in their capability to survive -as an individual- but that they do in fact survive just as well when their gene pool is looked at -as a group.- Of course, that gets us no closer to clues about what environmental detail might be the major factor in the higher percentage demise of neons under transport or new tank conditions, if indeed that non-scientific would really hold up if we ever had actual science done on it, which is unlikely of course.

Ah well, just my drop of water in the sea.. ~~waterdrop~~

 

[JoshuaA]

In the years you've been doing this, do you think fish stock has gone to a higher or lower quality standard?

I mean there's more known about the fish these days but there is a greater emphasis on the larger businesses to maximise profits and generally not care too much about the quality of livestock.

 

[waterdrop]

In the years you've been doing this, do you think fish stock has gone to a higher or lower quality standard?

I mean there's more known about the fish these days but there is a greater emphasis on the larger businesses to maximise profits and generally not care too much about the quality of livestock.

I'd feel totally incapable of coming up with a meaningful assessment of that. There are just too many huge variables. I've shopped at completely different LFSs in former and current runs in the hobby and they've all used many different suppliers I'm sure and I've never felt I had an accurate feel for the mix of how many fish are coming from from farms in Florida, from Farms in the Far East and from wild caught and I assume that changes frequently over time too. Even now we're still working our way through the big kill-off episode in Florida which makes things different.

Then on top of that there are all the different tank environments. I shutter to think of how bad some of my own tank stats must have been when I was younger and didn't know what I was doing really. That sort of stuff has a big impact in one's opinion about the quality of stock. I guess if you could somehow magically seek out and poll a bunch of the really good retailers and fish farmers you'd get a more meaningful answer. I'm hoping to socialize with one of the guys who has a big operation down in Florida later this year at a conference, so I'll try to remember to discuss this with him, I'm sure he'd have more insight than me.

WD

 

[JoshuaA]

It would be interesting to hear what you learn from him, I look forward to a nice big post from you.

I can't help but thing the business side of things will have more of a negative effect on most large stores over the benefits of scientific knowledge. Mainly because it is a dog eat dog world out there and not everyone has that scientific knowledge. For example one of my local fish stores believes white spot is purely brought on by poor quality water and that it most definitely not caused by parasites. In response I always get that there is 50 years of experience in her head that I haven't even come close to it. She also believes a fishless cycle is an old method and that bottled bacteria is 100% reliable and if it doesn't work you haven't done it properly.

With these sort of mentalities in stores I do wonder whether fish stock quality has improved or not.

 

[Sweeden]

Well after a little problem with Nitrate readings ive finally finished my cycle....

I had 0 readings for Ammonia and Nitrite so tested the Nitrate and it was extremely high so this morning did a 75% water change with water that i'd left in two buckets overnight.

So later on today im going buying my fish

 

[Timmy_Bee]

Nice one! make sure you get some nice pics!

How long have you been getting 'double zeros'? most people suggest a qualifying week, just to make sure your filter is good to go