New Tank Set up

[beckyavery]

Hi

I have jsut purchased myself a second hand Juwel tank, the chap I bought it from assures me that he is simply giving up keeping fish and that they didn't died from disease.

With this in mind he has given me a very large (and very nice) piece of bog wood and the filter still has the old sponges. the tank has been empty for over 2 weeks

With Cycling the tank in mind and obviously having no way of know if the fish died of old age or disease should I be cleaning everything throughly or do you think it would be safe to put the bog wood in as my bacteria source?

If there were to be anything nasty on there, how long would this take to die off?

Sorry for all the questions!

 

[playfulalliecat]

I have always cleaned new used tanks when I get them. The exception being when they were gotten from a well-trusted friend and had just been torn down.

Regardless of whether you clean the stuff or not, you will still have to cycle the tank. The bacteria could not have survived that long without water.

 

[emma12321]

I would boil the sponges and the bog wood just in case, if the wood is too big just soak it in hot water.

Emma

 

[beckyavery]

Hello

I dont suppose anyone would be willing to send me a small amount of gravel from their tank to I can have some lovely bacteria?? I will happily pay the P & P??

Thanks very much!

 

[Vivienne]

Where do you live ?

Gravel would be expensive to post and you don't know if the bacteria would survive the trip. I got some a big bag of seeded gravel free from my local fish shop - just getting to the end of my cycle I think (4 weeks and counting) so I'm not sure just how much the gravel helped. Try asking your lfs - my local Dobbies garden centre wouldn't do it, risk of disease etc, but the smaller lfs was fine. I guess they want to help out future customers.

 

[beckyavery]

LFS wouldn't let me have any either and I'm not going to go asking the local Pets At Home!!

How much gravel will I need to get my colony going?