My First Tank

[The Fish Fan]

The tank measures 61cm W x 40cm H x 30cm D - £20 from ebay
50 litres of tap water in it (treated with Stress coat) Stress Zyme
Gravel, Stones, Juwel Terrace Rock A
15'' and 18'' tubes on split timers, 10 hours a day with 30 minutes difference to reduce sudden changes
Blue LED lighting inside and outside the tank
Interpet PF2 Internal Filter
Heater, stick-on external thermometer
TetraTec APS 50 airpump non return valve and two airstones with valve to regulate flow
API master kit

It's been two weeks since I first put water in the tank, I planted it a few days later which introduced lots of snails.
Here's a recent picture with a piece of bogwood I had soaking in a bucket under a dripping tap for two weeks.

The snails have grow really quickly, scary stuff!!

I guess these are snail's eggs, the whole clutch measures 5mm across at the widest point, in case you haven't guessed I do have an extreme close-up lens on the camera. And there's another little chap in there on the bottom right too, so small in real life he's just a spec.

I've been taking water readings and adding ammonia from time to time, the nitrate is showing well and I'm hoping to add fish soon. Thanks for all the info on here.

My only concern now is what livestock to add when the time comes.
It's not a big tank, so I thought perhaps 5 cherry barbs and then a shrimp after a few more weeks? How about a dwarf puffer? We don't want an overstocked tank, just happy fish in the best conditions.

Thanks Folks, Duncan.

 

[guppy_man]

Nice buy. nice looking tank too.

Whats that little bug, bottom right of the snail egg pic?

 

[The Fish Fan]

Nice buy. nice looking tank too.

Whats that little bug, bottom right of the snail egg pic?

I don't know what he is, but he's less than half a millimetre across! And seems to have a red mouth like some of the snails.

 

[fifefish]

so how long have you had the tank?

 

[OzeN]

nice tank mate... an some realy nice photos.. well done mate..

 

[Pleccy]

Nice buy. nice looking tank too.

Whats that little bug, bottom right of the snail egg pic?

I don't know what he is, but he's less than half a millimetre across! And seems to have a red mouth like some of the snails.

That's a very nice tank! Also about your little critter it could be a dragonfly larva, which often come in through live plants.

 

[murphyk32]

its lookin good, make sure pics come when the fish are in!

 

[The Fish Fan]

so how long have you had the tank?

I filled the tank on the 11th of October, so it's been cycling for two weeks now. I've had two lots of Stress Zyme (need to put more in now) and I've put some Flora Boost in too. I don't think the long thin plants are going to survive for much longer, they are breaking down a bit now.

 

[fifefish]

soon you will be able to start a fish cycle...when starting a tank the plants always tend to not do well until it is fully cycled..
what sort of rock/ornaments do you have in your tank?

 

[The Fish Fan]

soon you will be able to start a fish cycle...when starting a tank the plants always tend to not do well until it is fully cycled..
what sort of rock/ornaments do you have in your tank?

Thanks for the plant advice, I found a great sticky in this forum about pruning plants too.

There's a Juwel Terrace Rock A on the back left, I'm glad I didn't buy two of them.
And I've just put the bogwood in too. It's a nice bit with holes in that'll hopefully offer the fish some cover. The gravel is quite small stuff, and there's about 7 kilos of it in there.

Duncan.

 

[OldMan47]

The unidentified fish food in the snail picture is called cyclops in the aquarium hobby. There is a picture of one here [URL="http/www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html...ip/cyclops.html"]http/www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html...ip/cyclops.html[/URL] I had to google "pond cyclops" to get away from the mythology references.

 

[The Fish Fan]

Repaired Cyclops Link

Thanks for the link, it's funny that my camera is taking good photos of something found on a microscopy web site !!

We went back to our LFS and have decided on getting 5 neon tetra and 2 peppered corys.

 

[OldMan47]

I hope I'm not too late with this but it is too soon to put fish into your tank. It needs to be cycled first.

 

[The Fish Fan]

I hope I'm not too late with this but it is too soon to put fish into your tank. It needs to be cycled first.

Hiya OldMan47.

I've been cycling since the 11th, I add ammonia up to 3-4ppm every night and the next night it's almost back to 0, and so is the nitrite. It's almost fully cycled surely?

As a followup to the snails eggs, they've changed a lot since yesterday:

Saturday

Sunday

Tape measure for scale

 

[doresy]

Hi, like the look of your set up although personally I would bring the water level up a bit.

I would try to remove the the snails and their eggs before you introduce fish as their numbers will increase even more when you start adding food.

Smaller tanks can take a lot longer to cycle....your results look good on paper but without a bit of history they could be misleading.
Processing ammonia at this stage is expected. It would be good if nitrites are at 0 too but ONLY if they have previously hit a high spike first and are on their way down. Also, showing nitrate levels are not neccessarily the end result of the cycle, it could be present at your level in the tapwater so that needs testing too.

*edit* If thinking of Cory (when the time comes) 4 is considered the minimum, 6 is better and all the same kind