waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Gosh, some people have all the luck, tonyshadow! I would have loved to have stumbled on this particular forum as a first place for information on the hobby when I was new to the hobby and on top of that to have a daughter who already knows she doesn't want goldfish! (goldfish are a recurring problem for us because we have to hand out the bad news that they are pond fish or need absolutely huge tanks...)
Anyway, welcome to the beginners section and I hope you enjoy your stay.
The information above is correct, the point of fishless cycling is to prepare a robust "biofilter" that is ready to handle an entire stocking of the tank if one wanted to do that. Its also correct however that few people choose a stocking plan in which all of the chosen species are appropriate for introduction to a new tank. For instance, one of the most popular fish since the hobby became big in the early 1900's, the neon tetra (or cardinal tetra for that matter) need to ideally be introduced only after the tank is fully 6 months old, regardless of when the cycle ended. So many people introduce the -majority- of their stocking plan at the first introduction, but add a few other fish later and only introduce those later additions slowly.
It is true that we say that fishless cycling (with ammonia) averages between 3 weeks and 2 months (or sometimes more in a few cases) to complete, but its also true that fish-in cycling takes pretty much just as long. The big difference is that fish-in cycling can be exhausting because of sometimes daily water changes, which are a lot of work, whereas squirting in a few droppers of ammonia and doing the same tests with your liquid test kit as you would for fish-in too is much less work. This is not to mention that fish-in cycling is usually permanently shortening the lives of the fish that are exposed or is killing them, if done poorly.
Many of us have been through the various kid problems with these tank setups. Its not that hard to make your ammonia bottle inaccessible to the younger kids and its really very much worth it to fishless cycle in this manner. Its a core thing that our beginners section is all about. Many of the great members here have got the fishless cycling process down to a bit of a fine art. The other kid trouble is how long it takes, but the answer there is that its actually worse to not understand about cycling and to end up trying to explain to your kids why their new pets are sick or dying.
A 29g is a pretty good tank, I've had quite a few of them. They are the very smallest tank that could handle a pair of angelfish, which is significant sometimes. On the other hand, they are a bit tall, especially for young arms to get to reach down and work with the plants and decorations at substrate level and that can be a great kid experience to really work inside their own tank! The "sweetspot" in tank volume for beginners, I think, ranges from 20g up through maybe 40 or 50g and there are some nice shallower shapes around 40 US gallons sometimes that allow for a nicer variety of fish and can give a wonderful sense of 3D by having more depth front to back. A plain rectangular tank (not a bowfront) is the best at letting the viewer see depth. Another "by the way" is that all this trouble of having a larger tank (30,40,50g) is worth it from a water chemistry standpoint as it will give you more time to see problems, whereas a smaller tank can change parameters very fast.. so a bigger volume of water is easier for beginner families.
OK, gotta run but glad to see you are getting help. Resist making sudden decisions. Putting together a custom set of parts can be worth a couple extra days!
~~waterdrop~~ ps. read, read, read all the help center articles and other people's threads!
Anyway, welcome to the beginners section and I hope you enjoy your stay.
The information above is correct, the point of fishless cycling is to prepare a robust "biofilter" that is ready to handle an entire stocking of the tank if one wanted to do that. Its also correct however that few people choose a stocking plan in which all of the chosen species are appropriate for introduction to a new tank. For instance, one of the most popular fish since the hobby became big in the early 1900's, the neon tetra (or cardinal tetra for that matter) need to ideally be introduced only after the tank is fully 6 months old, regardless of when the cycle ended. So many people introduce the -majority- of their stocking plan at the first introduction, but add a few other fish later and only introduce those later additions slowly.
It is true that we say that fishless cycling (with ammonia) averages between 3 weeks and 2 months (or sometimes more in a few cases) to complete, but its also true that fish-in cycling takes pretty much just as long. The big difference is that fish-in cycling can be exhausting because of sometimes daily water changes, which are a lot of work, whereas squirting in a few droppers of ammonia and doing the same tests with your liquid test kit as you would for fish-in too is much less work. This is not to mention that fish-in cycling is usually permanently shortening the lives of the fish that are exposed or is killing them, if done poorly.
Many of us have been through the various kid problems with these tank setups. Its not that hard to make your ammonia bottle inaccessible to the younger kids and its really very much worth it to fishless cycle in this manner. Its a core thing that our beginners section is all about. Many of the great members here have got the fishless cycling process down to a bit of a fine art. The other kid trouble is how long it takes, but the answer there is that its actually worse to not understand about cycling and to end up trying to explain to your kids why their new pets are sick or dying.
A 29g is a pretty good tank, I've had quite a few of them. They are the very smallest tank that could handle a pair of angelfish, which is significant sometimes. On the other hand, they are a bit tall, especially for young arms to get to reach down and work with the plants and decorations at substrate level and that can be a great kid experience to really work inside their own tank! The "sweetspot" in tank volume for beginners, I think, ranges from 20g up through maybe 40 or 50g and there are some nice shallower shapes around 40 US gallons sometimes that allow for a nicer variety of fish and can give a wonderful sense of 3D by having more depth front to back. A plain rectangular tank (not a bowfront) is the best at letting the viewer see depth. Another "by the way" is that all this trouble of having a larger tank (30,40,50g) is worth it from a water chemistry standpoint as it will give you more time to see problems, whereas a smaller tank can change parameters very fast.. so a bigger volume of water is easier for beginner families.
OK, gotta run but glad to see you are getting help. Resist making sudden decisions. Putting together a custom set of parts can be worth a couple extra days!
~~waterdrop~~ ps. read, read, read all the help center articles and other people's threads!
