My New Tank Setup

[tyyrlym]

I'm a big fan of anything involving tetras and corys myself.

 

[pscl227]

hmm interesting, i just put the dimensions of my tank into your aquarium calculator and it said that it is 83 Litres compared with the packaging that advertises it as 65 Litres

its dimensions are 50x49x34cm

 

[minxfishy]

You have to take into account the height of the tank hood!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hmm interesting, i just put the dimensions of my tank into your aquarium calculator and it said that it is 83 Litres compared with the packaging that advertises it as 65 Litres

its dimensions are 50x49x34cm

is that internal/external calculations? you'd be amazed how much difference the thickness of the glass all round makes!!

 

[pscl227]

Well for anyone who is keeping up with my progress, my Tetratec ex600 external canister filter arrived today.

Oh my what a difference, it is so much more powerful than the UGF system i had in before! Getting lots of little air bubbles into the water and disturbing the surface a fair amount

Was a bit of a challenge to shoe horn it into my little tank but i got there in the end, the plan was to keep the UGF running along side it, but there is really no point what so ever.

The only problem is that it is a lot more noisey that the last system, and i have the tank in my bedroom! oops! think i will be sleeping with earplugs!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

glad you've a decent filter on the tank, should make life a lot easier

and i agree no point running the UG alongside, just bin it.

lol, you'll get used to the faint hum of a filter and the trickle of water!

 

[pscl227]

lol, you'll get used to the faint hum of a filter and the trickle of water!

trickle of water.......try raging torrent! lol

 

[pscl227]

Update:

Well as some of you may have seen in another thread of mine i had been having some success with the use of the dreaded "bacteria in a bottle," however despite this i still intended on running my tank for a good 6 weeks to make sure everything was in check.

Anyway moving onto last night i ended up round at one of my parents friends houses only to find they had a beautiful tropical aquarium (almost looked marine!), anyway long story short, i came away with a good half kilogram of gravel from the tank and some of his ceramic filter media score!

Popped it all inside my tank last night, and i have woken up this morning to cloudy, kind of milky white water, this normal? will it all settle down?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Most likely a bacteria bloom, fairly likely to happen after adding mature media, just keep adding the 5ppm ammonia as per the fishless cycle, hopefully you'll see great results now you've got the media in

 

[pscl227]

assuming all goes well, how long should it take the colonies to start to flourish in my filter media?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

too many factors to predict, some people add mature media and find their tank is cycled instantly sometimes it's just a couple of days, sometimes it's 2/3 weeks....... really depends on a lot of different variables so there's no way of telling.

just add your ammonia and monitor it closely!

 

[waterdrop]

Agreed, milky white bacterial blooms are extremely common in a new tank and are nothing to worry about, as they go away relatively quickly.

They are caused mostly by a sudden temporary overpopulation of "heterotrophic" bacteria (not the bacteria we are trying to grow but different, faster growing bacteria that break down the waste in the tank into ammonia) it is believed.

An external cannister shouldn't be making enough noise to bother you. You may have the spray bar output adjusted to high at the water surface. You should be able to slide it down relative to the surface such that it creates a lot of movement but very little noise. This will still promote a lot of the desired gaseous exchange. Another thing to check, if you haven't already, is whether any air bubbles from the media are trapped up at the pump head. Whenever you re-prime and start an external cannister it is good to lift the entire cannister and rotate the head at slight angles, giving it a shaking motion as you do this. If there is any air, you should hear it as it hits the impeller and then hear it shoot out of the spraybar. Be careful that you don't pull off any hoses when you do this.

Also be aware that you can try different water stream positions of your spraybar outlets to change the flow pattern in the aquarium. An external running on a 17g could possibly wind up blowing the fish around rather swiftly and you may want to watch them swim rather than be blown around. Sometimes pointing the output holes back at the glass will work.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[pscl227]

Agreed, milky white bacterial blooms are extremely common in a new tank and are nothing to worry about, as they go away relatively quickly.

They are caused mostly by a sudden temporary overpopulation of "heterotrophic" bacteria (not the bacteria we are trying to grow but different, faster growing bacteria that break down the waste in the tank into ammonia) it is believed.

An external cannister shouldn't be making enough noise to bother you. You may have the spray bar output adjusted to high at the water surface. You should be able to slide it down relative to the surface such that it creates a lot of movement but very little noise. This will still promote a lot of the desired gaseous exchange. Another thing to check, if you haven't already, is whether any air bubbles from the media are trapped up at the pump head. Whenever you re-prime and start an external cannister it is good to lift the entire cannister and rotate the head at slight angles, giving it a shaking motion as you do this. If there is any air, you should hear it as it hits the impeller and then hear it shoot out of the spraybar. Be careful that you don't pull off any hoses when you do this.

Also be aware that you can try different water stream positions of your spraybar outlets to change the flow pattern in the aquarium. An external running on a 17g could possibly wind up blowing the fish around rather swiftly and you may want to watch them swim rather than be blown around. Sometimes pointing the output holes back at the glass will work.

~~waterdrop~~

thanks for the input pal, yer it is the spray bar making all the noise havent really tried to reposition it yet, never even thaught about it, duh! shall give that a go later on

cheers!

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, my spraybar is held in position by two suction cups. I happen to have mine at the back where there is also an open space in my cover. I've found by lucky happenstance that I can simply reach back, position my hands over the back wall and use my two thumbs to raise or lower the spraybar by sliding the suction cups up and down the glass. Its so easy I can do it daily or anytime I want to adjust the amount of surface disturbance for whatever reason. ('course I'm just asking for a jumpout disaster by having that openspace, keep meaning to get on that... )

~~waterdrop~~

 

[pscl227]

so i've altered my spraybar so that it just disturbs the water rather than breaking the water and putting lots of bubbles into it, should this be ok?