new tank

[jamesward76]

hello all i just started over from scratch. my fish tank had some type of infection wich looked liked ich. i killed every fish i attempted to put in the tank. i just recently killed 5 black cons. so i emptied the tank and threw the gravel away, so my question now is, ounce i refill my tank and buy new gravel how long do i have to wait before i can put fish in the tank. i also would like to use sand instead of gravel, and live plants. are there any cichlids i can put in the tank that wont uproot the plants.

 

[Jaded_Pulse]

Hi, sorry to hear about your fish

There's a great article pinned here about cycling ur tank to get the water good for fish before u put any in there. I read it a tad too late, and even though i didn't lose any fish while cycling, they would have been a lot happier & healthier if I did things a bit differently lol.

I don't know that there are any cichlids that won't dig up ur plants, but maybe if u try the plant varieties that u can tie to a rock or cave, I'm not too sure on that one. Cichlids r great, loads of personality, but I have a feeling they're best in a larger tank (not sure how big urs is). They can also be agressive so watch what tankmates u put with them.

Also, if u didn't know this already (I didn't till I read it here lol) - there are a lot of medications u can get at ur fish store to kill paracites, infections, etc. So long as u follow the instructions, & r sure what's wrong with the fish, they should work ok (just in case something similar happens again )

Anyways, someone else will probably be able to give u a lot more useful info than this newbie. Goodluck

 

[jamesward76]

thanks for the advice i forgot to mention that the tank was 75 gal. is it any more difficult to manage a tank with sand than it is with gravel.

 

[modernhamlet]

Given the painful lesson learned, you might consider Fishless Cycling.

 

[surfer3]

how big is your tank? If the tank is large enough you could put some cyprochromis in the tank that wont uproot the plants. In my expierence julies and altolamprologus compressicus dwarf sumbu shell dwellers could go in a smaller tank and wont uproot plants.

 

[Erika_4404]

I would buy this stuff called PRIME trust it works...