My New Tank Will Arrive Tomorrow

[Dutchie]

Apparently, I will be delivered tomorrow night after hours.......

Cant wait................what should I do first off..........??

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yay how exciting! feels like it's been forever you've been waiting for it.

have you planend how to cycle it? just transferring your filter/filter media over?

 

[idlefingers]

Congrats! What size is it?

Cant wait................what should I do first off..........??

Get it out of the packaging is what I'd recommend.

 

[Dutchie]

Thinking of taking some stuff out of my old tank (which will now become my hospital tank) and perhaps either a fishless cycle..........might read about which way to go tomorrow......

I will need to wash the pebbles/gravel tomorrow though....wow, over 40kg of it too...........

The tank size is as per my signature...........and yes, it's been long time overdue........

 

[Miss Wiggle]

thats exactly the sort of descision you can make before the tank comes.

are you transferring all your current fish to the new tank? if so I'd advise you to move all filter media into the new filter, (you'll probably need to top it up with new media as the new filter will be bigger than the old one) and transfer your fish as soon as the tank waters heated up basically. Your filter media can support the current bioload and having it in a bigger tank makes no difference at all. Just don't go adding loads of fish but transfer yours over, wait a week or two before adding more then build up to full stocking slowly.

once you have a mature filter you never really need to fishless cycle

 

[Bozza]

You can really up the number of your fish with the new tank. Its a big jump from 7gal to 59gal. Pics are always good

 

[vinylman]

But don't give in to the temptation of stocking your new bigger tank right up to it's limit. Certainly get more fish, but look at it as a chance to give them plenty of room. They'll be much happier.

 

[Dutchie]

Well, as you can gather, I have had the new tank for 6 days (I think) and added a heap of filter media.......complete bag from the fish store.........(looks like a huge cotton pad around 30 cm X 15cm and came from one of their huge tanks) and added this to my External canister.

ALthough I did have the cotton pad sitting in my external canister before I could fill it up with water for about an hour. Is this still O'K?

I rinsed my pebbles/stones 4 times and added 45kg of that and then let that sit for 24 hrs. (this took nearly 3 hours to do)
I added 3 large pieces of driftwood that I had sitting in a huge container filled with water and lid. I rinsed them all and added this to the tank on day 3.......also added food each day

On 4th day I added the 3 Neons from my smaller tank to help with the bacteria. They seem very active in the bigger tank.
Tank water looks crystal clear so far........checked water and already showing ammonia but no Nitrate or Nitrite. Ph is 7 and Ammonia showing .50

Today, I added 3 blue 6 watt LED moonlights and a large shipwreck broken in half (from Aqua One) and 2 Anubia's and tied them to the driftwood.

Temperature is showing 25 degrees coming from both 300W Aqua One Heater and 2 30 Watt reflector tube lights.

More plants will be added within a fortnight but not too much.

Miss Wiggle, as you saying I can add the other fish from the smaller tank now or talking about once its fully cycled??

I will add photos once its all done but the Moonlights looks awesome..........

 

[Maxta]

Question for you dutchie, how do you have that many fish in a 7 gallon tank? Has it been going for years or something?

 

[Dutchie]

Actually, I only had the Neons, 3 Swordtails, Peppered Cat fish, 1 Bristlenose and both Clownies since early December...........Was told by LFS they would be alright.

They were all very small but the Clownies are now about 5cms so thought the right thing to do was buy a larger tank....

Mine was specially made to size 48 X 14 X 24........ 10 mm think glass........

Would have had it earlier if I was not stuffed around by another LFS earlier....

They are all doing very fine and the tank was really doing its job well....

Now just wondering what my next steps are..........

I added the 3 dwarf barbs and 2 Bristlenoses only yesterday but decided to put them in the smaller tank as I started to doubt my understanding of the post by Miss Wiggle.
The LFS said that with the live media he gave my tank should cycle within a week to fortnight.

Hence my question about live media and how long can it survive outside a tank...........?

 

[Dutchie]

Does anyone know the answers to my earlier posting about live media and if I can put in my current fish?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

move all the media from the filter in your small tank over to the filter for the big tank, and also move all the fish. you should then avoid any fish having to go through a cycle.

don't go adding more fish straight away but the bacteria you have already can support the fish you already have

 

[Dutchie]

Thanks Miss Wiggle but I'm wanting to keep the Dwarf Barbs in the smaller tank hence need to keep the media in that tank.

As I mentioned, my LFS gave me a large swab of live media from one of his tanks.
Unfortunately, when I placed it in my new canister, I did not have time to fill it with water for over an hour.

Would the media survive?

Also, as I'm not showing any Nitrite or Nitrate in the new tank yet............should I be or should it be zero becuase of the live media I recd from my LFS??

cheers

 

[Miss Wiggle]

ah sorry, must have missed that! my mistake!

with the media from the lfs you will have probably experienced some die off however as long as it didn't completely dry out some bacteria will have survived, how much survived is nigh on impossible to tell.

if you've had some readings for ammonia then there enough bacteria to support the fish in there did not survive, so the tanks started cycling. what ammonia readings have you got?

if it was me i'd still transfer all media and fish to the larger tank within a week or two the new media will have been nicely seeded with bacteria and then you can move some media and some fish back to the smaller tank, not guaranteed you'd escape a cycle at some point but if your lucky you'd get away with it!

 

[Dutchie]

Thanks Miss Wiggle........really appreciate the responses.......

I might do this next weekend.....thanks for the responses............

I will also be buying the fish you suggested in about 4 - 6 weeks but introduce them slowly.........