Need someone to hold my hand. :)

[darthjoe]

Some of you may remember me from last fall. My only aquarium experience comes from small tanks I had as a kid, and was mostly a passing hobby. Late last August/early September, my wife and I decided to buy a ten gallon tank. We set it up, and like most unknowledgeable people, we added the fish too soon, and added way too many at once, knowing nothing about cycling or good fish keeping. We lost 7 tiger barbs and a RTBS, within weeks of setting up our tank.

Now that the holidays have passed, I've decided to give it another go. I had previously drained all the water from the tank, and it's sat for nearly 5 months, with no water in it. Earlier today, we rinsed all the gravel and the tank out, as it had collected some dust. I just finished filling the tank with tap water, and added dechlorinator. Tomorrow, I plan on getting some gravel from my uncles pre-established tank and to start adding ammonia, in order to do a fishless cycle. I have read over the various fishless cycle articles, and I understand how it works, so there are no problems there.

Here's the questions I do have though:

1) Since the tank sat so long without water in it, do you think I did the right thing in just rinsing everything good, and filling the tank with water again, or do you think I'll run into any problems?

2) Just for kicks and giggles, I tested the water with test strips, and the alkalinity and PH are really high. Alkalinity is at least 300 ppm, as that's as high as the test strips go, and PH is up above 8.0. Is this something I should be worried about, and if so, what is the best thing I can do to lower them?

3) I used cold water to fill the tank with, and the temp reads about 50F right now. Should I allow the temperature of the water to raise up around 70 or so before I start adding the ammonia to start cycling the tank, or does the temp of the water really not matter during cycling?

4) Am I worrying too much? If I am, sorry. I just don't want to make any big mistakes again, and want to get as much info as I can before I bring any more fishies under my care.

 

[maestro]

1) ive done that before and it was fine, to be honest they are going to bad bugs fungus etc in the tank anyways just by the laws of nature, if ur water parametres are good and the fish are healthy they wont get sick, the problem comes when they are stressed and the water parametres are out

2) the tap water with me is nearly 8 and the hardness 13dh, not sure what that is in ppm and the fish are fine, the problems come with the ph fluctuates but if u are aiming to keep softwater fishes that are sensitive then u may need to do something but for most fish this will be fine

3) it doesnt really matter if u add it now or later but the bacteria wont multiply rapidly at that low temperature, so if u add it now the bacteria wont start to do their job before the temp rises, so yes teh temperature does matter

just a note that 10 gallons is quite small and certainly too small for tiger barbs but i imagine u know this now, do u have any idea what fish u would like to keep

 

[darthjoe]

just a note that 10 gallons is quite small and certainly too small for tiger barbs but i imagine u know this now, do u have any idea what fish u would like to keep

Thanks for the reply.

I do realize, now, that a ten gallon is too small for tiger barbs, as I've done a lot more reading around these forums and on other fish sites.

As for what fish I'll be keeping, that leads to my next set of questions.

I want a beta, but I've read pros and cons about keeping them in a community tank, and also about keeping them in a tank over 5 gallons. Guess it just depends on who you're talking to, and what their experience has been, as it seems different betas have different temperments and personalities.

I've thought about livebearers, such as platies, guppies and swordtails, but I'm worried about reproduction, as I don't have anywhere to keep fry. But on the up side, they seem a lot easier to keep than other types of fish.

I remember having a couple of Khouli (sp?) loaches as a kid, and thought they were cool, but haven't done much research on them yet.

Other than that, I'm not really sure.

I'm going to my LFS in just a few minutes to look at fish, see what I like, and then come back home and do some research, as I'm being a lot more cautious this time.