New Tank, Bad Water

[dannym]

hello all,

A friend of mine has just bought a 120 litre tropical tank (new)

he bought the tank 2 days ago and added 2 crabs which seem happy enough, anyway he done a test which showed hes NO2 and NO3 to be high so i told him to do a 30% water change asap and then the same a couple of days after

Now i was thinking of filling up a bucket of my tank water and lending him 1 of my ornaments to put in hes tank, now from what i have been reading from browsing this forum is my water and ornaments will contain good bacteria which will help hes tank to cycle, is this correct?

And how long would it be before he could add any fish?..

Thanks all in advance!

Danny..

Btw what are NO2 & NO3 i know there bad but im not sure what they are...Ammonia?...

 

[pauly]

He needs to cycle his tank. See the sticky threads.

Your water and ornaments wont do anything, its the filter media (sponge inside the filter) that contains the good bacteria. But only give him some if you can spare it, i.e. you're due to change half of yours.

Paul.

 

[darkwolf29a]

What kind of crabs?

Certain crabs are not kept correctly by pet stores. Red claw and fiddlers need dry land as well as brackish water. We ran into an issue where we just couldn't keep the water low enough and do any kind of filteration. It worked, but smelled really bad.

 

[SJ2K]

Nice one for using your head to help a mate but unfortunatly as said, the water and ornament wont help very much. Things you can give that will are 1) Filter media 2) Squeezes from your media 3) A handfull of substrate (gravel/sand etc). The best thing you can give though is a print out of the fishless-cycling walk through

Good luck

 

[sparky1]

if you give media or substrate make sure to keep it wetin some tank water don't let it dry out or the becteria will be lost.

 

[pauly]

The best thing you can give though is a print out of the fishless-cycling walk through

That dude there talks sense

 

[backtotropical]

1) Filter media 2) Squeezes from your media 3) A handfull of substrate (gravel/sand etc).

Substrate will actually contain very limited bacteria unless it comes from a tank which uses an under-gravel filter. Not really worth using otherwise.

 

[SJ2K]

1) Filter media 2) Squeezes from your media 3) A handfull of substrate (gravel/sand etc).

Substrate will actually contain very limited bacteria unless it comes from a tank which uses an under-gravel filter. Not really worth using otherwise.

True but certainly more then both water and ornaments

Anyways, I think thats about as much help as we can be, good luck