My Two Fish Tanks. One Very New, One Kind Of New.

[NeonSagaris]

Well I'm juggling a lot of different methods right now... Other members say that using Quick Start is a good idea - put 15ml of that in weekly adding 3 flakes of food in at the same time to give the good bacteria food to grow.

You're idea sounds very good, but I've already been doing this for a week... So many different suggestions, so much confusion...

 

[wirralbull]

you have actual live real working nitrifying filter bacteria available. y add some liquid from a bottle that could be anything/nothing when you have the real deal already. plus using the aged water from youre old tank will provide a healthy environment for the bacteria to live. as long as the bacteria have a constant food source(old fish tank water) they will continue to multiply

 

[NeonSagaris]

I haven't had the other tank long...

So take some water out of older tank and then put new water in older tank after adding water from older tank to the new one? That is such a confusing sentence

 

[wirralbull]

yes . whenever setting up a new tank i always use 50% old tank water and use a piece of old filter media. then i lightly stock the aquarium and change water every 2 days for a week then leave for a week before gradually fully stocking. you could move a cpl of fish over with the media i suppose platties are geberally hardier than neons.

 

[DrSlackBladder]

Using mature water won't help, nor will bottled bacteria. But mature filter media (foam, sponge, ceramic) will speed your cycle along. And mature gravel, plants, rocks, ornaments. They all hold good bacteria essential for cycling new filter.

 

[Flute]

Hey Neon, welcome to the forums!

Setting up a new tank is always a lot of fun The advice the members have given you so far is spot on- fishless cycle is definitely the easiest, cheapest and most importantly the kindest way to go about things. There isn't a great deal of evidence unfortunately that shows that these bottled bacteria products work though, so I wouldn't trust using just them to cycle your tank. Adding it wont hurt, but it probably wont do a great deal to help either.

Fish in cycles are hell of a lot hard work if you want to do it any ethical way- large daily water changes are back breaking (believe me, I know from when I started up >.<). If you don't keep on top of the ammonia and nitrite levels whilst the tank is cycling then it very quickly becomes very harmful to your fish. They are animals at the end of the day and deserve the best

If you're unsure of what cycling a tank involves or what it means, please click on the link in my signature- it'll take you to the Beginners Resource centre where you can learn about practically every aspect about setting up a new tank

 

[the_lock_man]

Hello everyone!

I have completey finished decorating the tank now, and it looks pretty cool I think! I will post some snaps of it up soon-ish.

The other day I went down to my LFS and brought a fish tank test kit - 'King British Water Quality care' - and I have some results which are kind of pleasing. here they are -

• Ammonia - Ideal (yellow)
  
• Nitrate - 25
• Nitrite - 0.5
• GH - 500
• KH - 100
• pH - 7.6

That seems pretty good, and I'm happy about the ideal ammonia reading! However, I'm confused about my GH reading. The water in the area I live in is meant to be a lot softer than that, maybe the strip is faulty... but I'm sure it will be fine. To lower the GH, I'll probably filter my tap water first before using it in a water change. The KH is pretty good I think and, although the pH is in the area which is good for keeping fish in, I'd like it to be a bit lower. (Just a reminder, I'm getting fish on the 4th of January)

Thoughts?

Yeah, my thoughts are that you are spot-on the test strip is faulty. They are notoriously unreliable, and when you eventually get the fish, you will need to know your ammonia and nitrite levels to a much more reliable degree.

My other thought was where the smeg that nitrite reading came from. I know someone suggested adding fish food - have you been doing that? I'm also not sure about the composition of QuickStart - that may have some ammonia in, which could have been converted to nitrite. Or, it could be that the test strip is rubbish.

Pretty much every experienced aquarist on this forum will suggest you invest in a liquid test kit - I use the Nutrafin one, most people here use the API one - the latter is available on Ebay for around &pound;20, and lasts for ages (Dozens of tests, rather than the 25 strips you get in the KB pack).

 

[NeonSagaris]

Maybe I should get that API kit... Thank you.

 

[the_lock_man]

I should get that API kit... Thank you.

I editted that for what you meant . Definitely you should.

 

[DrSlackBladder]

+1 get the API Master Test Kit, you won't regret it.

 

[9murphy9]

instead of going to the lfs and buying quick start,ask them for a mature filter,offer to pay if you must but inevitably it will save you lots of money and fish,

 

[NeonSagaris]

Well that's if I can, but yeah. It's very expensive though...

I've already been what I've been doing for a while, some others think it will be good to use Quick Start.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I've used Quick Start from Tetra. It doesn't speed up the cycle (or it didn't in my case).

The BEST and most tried and TRUE way to do it fast is to use cycled media from a mature tank. You need to get beneficial bacteria into your filter. Just seeding the filter with a little mature media from any tank will do.

Do you have a test kit for ammonia and nitrite? Have you been testing your other tank? If the readings on that tank have been consistently at zero for both ammonia and nitrite, you can just steal a bit (less than 25% of what's there) and add it to the new tank's filter. As long as it fits inside and water is flowing over it, it will work. Then add some fish food - about the same as you feed your fish - to the filter and that will start to produce some ammonia to keep the matured media clicking over.

If you don't have a test kit, you need one pronto. Its a little pricy upfront, but much less so than constantly replacing fish killed by ammonia poisoning. Whether you are going to do a fishless cycle or a fish-in cycle, you need a test kit. Fish-in cycles can work, but they are a lot of effort and a LOT of water changes. Fishless cycles are much easier on your back, but generally much harder on your patience.

I have a link to both methods in my sig. The key to a good fish-in cycle is to stay on top of the water changes. You need to keep the ammonia/nitrite levels well below 0.25ppm. And you need to do massive water changes as often as necessary to keep it well below 0.25ppm.

An example, if you test your tank and the level is 0.50 ppm, I would suggest a 90% water change - take as much water out as possible. Then when refilling, refill with temp matched dechlorinated water. This will lower the level to ~ 0.05ppm, which isn't great, but its much better. If the level was 1.00 ppm, you could still get away with a 90% change, lowering the level to 0.10 ppm, but your next change would be sooner. Also, during a fish-in cycle feed sparingly! More food = more ammonia. I would say to feed no more frequently than every other day. Once you get double zero readings, you can start to increase the feedings, if you want. The fish will be fine without that though. Also, start with a VERY small number of small fish. More fish = more ammonia as well. Start small and slowly build up the numbers to where you want it. Don't put them all in at once... that's guaranteed death.

 

[9murphy9]

it is good to use quick start but not on it's own it's more like something you use in conjunction with the cycling,buying a mature media shouldn't be that expensive your maybe looking at &pound;10 at the most but if you get that you can begin to add fish within a few days,the way your doing it is a lot of hard work and lots of fish usually die,I take it that you want neon tetra's in your tank, say you buy 10 witch is what you'd need for a shoal that's &pound;13.50,in your fish in cycle they'd die so say that's 10 x 2 (if your luck and have hardy neon's) witch equals &pound;27 to buy them and to buy a mature media is &pound;10 (give or take) and 10 neon's is &pound;13.5 that comes to &pound;23.50 so it's not that expensive,also for a clown loach 5 years is really short,they should live for around 15 years so without a cycled tank you cut the clown loaches lifespan down by 2/3 and f.y.i fish do have feelings so it's pretty cruel to put fish though such conditions,why not put a ad in the wanted section and ask your local pet shop because in the end it's not that exspensive and it's a lot more humane,good luck

Alex

 

[NeonSagaris]

That sounds quite good actually... I probably will buy a mature filter then if it's that reliable. Do LFS' usually have mature filters?

Also, I'm not having Neon's any more, I am thinking of getting Cardinal Tetra's instead.

Another thing; in my other 19 liter tank, I am thinking of taking my two Mollies and four Platies back to my LFS and am thinking of replacing them with something like 3 or 4 White Cloud Mountain Minnows. How does that sound?