Newbie Help Please

[Brutus82]

hello

well been looking at keeping fish for while , something small etc nice and easy , then out of the blue i am given (for free) a juwel rio 180 set up (see here) , which in itself is abit daunting for a newbie lol..

so anyways, it came fishless with gravel in it, its been standing a little bit so i emptied all, filter out and cleaned , noticed from the diagram in the book, its been running with the wrong set up of filters ( so ive ordered new set), im assured fish in before were healthy etc (but ya never know cos i dont know them - friend of a friend ?!) so its all been scrubbed out with scouring pad and hot water only, is this enough ? my local garden centre said use milton steriliser (or any baby ones) to kill anything that could be there

now should i do it ? or is hot water fine , im starting from scratch , got some sand and gravel, will hopefully fill it up this weekend and get the start up solution/bacteria in then get some plants in and start the cycle

hope you can help me out, and looking forward to joining the community

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Brutus82 and Welcome to TFF!

If you would like to go one step beyond plain water in cleaning your used aquarium then the thing to use is a solution you make up of 1 part bleach to 20 parts water. Use this with a sponge to clean all surfaces and objects that will go in, as best you can. Then rinse everying concerned with even more fresh tap water so that you feel all the mild bleach is gone.

Be sure to rinse your gravel/substrate a long time no matter what it says on the bag. There is always a lot of dust and its better to get as much of it as you can out before you put it in your tank.

Contrary to what you might think, hobbyists do not always abide by the manufacturers instructions when choosing media for their filter. Let us know what you think and what you plan to use and the members can discuss it further. Its a nice plus to get this modified and out of the way before the fishless cycle.

Speaking of which, we hope you'll end up considering learning the art of Fishless Cycling as that is one of the core things our subforum is all about. Its a wonderful thing to be able to provide the fish with an environment that's right for them without ever having exposed them to the risk of gill or nerve damage from the cycling process. Its actually usually really good timing to run a fishless cyclng thread and discuss questions about tank startup and work on your stocking plan during the period while the two species of bacteria are growing in the filter. It takes them about a month or two to fully grow and people often find out that stocking plans are more difficult than they thought and so the time is well spent.

The three initial articles to start reading in the Beginners Resource Center are the Nitrogen Cycle article, the Fishless Cycle article and the Fish-In Cycle article. There also should be a good tank startup article by my old friend Miss Wiggle somewhere in there. Good luck with your reading and let us know your questions.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Brutus82]

excellent thanks for that, i shall clean it out today, and i presume this is any old bleach i can use ?

and onto the filter set up, firstly excuse me for this next part i shall explain the best i can -
heres a link to the filter page, (juwel bioflow 3.0)

in the manual the stack of media goes like this (from top to bottom) =

1 white filter wool
1 black carbon sponge
1 green nitrate remover sponge
1 rough blue sponge
---space---
2 fine blue sponges

(the space is for the optional Cirax bio filter, is this a must buy to help my tank ? )


previous owner had this set up =

1 white filter wool
1 black carbon sponge
---space---
1 fine blue sponge
2 rough blue sponges

which is quite far from the manual set up

any help here would be appreciated, thanks


also another quick question , if you open the pdf on the link, theres a little picture of a little filter cover that sits on the wool , which i do not seem to have, with it being above the water at the top, should i need it ? (i am trying to find one on various sites, with no luck at the moment)

 

[waterdrop]

Well, I'd stick with plain bleach, making sure there are not any added soaps.

There are three functions of the filters in our freshwater community settings: Mechanical, chemical and biological filtration. Mechanical filtration refers to the thing most of us are familiar with, trapping particles of various sizes. Chemical filtration refers to media and resins that use chemical properties, usually charge, to catch particles, sometimes down to the molecular level. Chemical filtration is optional and usually used on a temporary basis to acheive a specific objective. Biological filtration refers to the use of living bacteria to process specific chemicals and of course is at the heart of the magic that good aquarium filters can perform.

Most types of media overlap these various functions but each type of media will be best at one or possibly two functions. Sponges, scrubbie pads and ceramics have developed the best reputations for biomedia (biological media) and are often about the best at mechanical filtration also. Carbon and Zeolite are examples of chemical filtration. We keep carbon on the shelf, ready to come out if we need to remove medications from the water after they've done their job, or some of the yellow tannins from wood or a few other minor applications. On a regular basis we don't usually use it though because its generally used up after 3 days. The green "nitrate" sponge is a bit of a marketing thing, aimed at showing beginners a word that seems good. Real nitrate filtration takes a completely different kind of entire filter and is pointless since water changes achieve the same objective and are needed anyway. The green sponge in your case is harmless however and just as good at mechanical filtration as other sponges. Floss, whether loose or in pads, is meant for "fine mechanical" filtration and is about the only media that actually needs replacement pretty often, depending on whether you feel its coming apart.

Cirax is just an example of larger ceramic chunks and might be a good replacement for your carbon sponge if it would seem to occupy that area better. If any experienced users of your actual filter come along I'd value their reports, as I've not used your particular filter myself. The good news is that you do not have anything there that is odd, like an entire filter full of carbon or something. The other factors of filters, by the way, are the flow rate, the provisions they have for surface water movement and the ability they have to ensure that water can't "cheat" and get by the media (their "tightness" so to speak.) Flexibility of media space is important, quietness is important and finally, the overall volume of the media box relative to the size of a tank is important, but of course you already have this filter, so I'm just saying this for completeness. Some people ask, what does an empty space in the media box serve? It often is a place where excess debris can build up and stay trapped while it is being broken down into ammonia by heterotrophic bacteria, and of course the ammonia is then processed by the biomedia that is subsequently moves through.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Brutus82]

thanks for the info there, much appreciated

well its good to know i have it all there, i ordered the missing sponges and cirax, they should be here tomorrow, so as a beginner should i stick with the manual or go with whats in it ?

 

[waterdrop]

?

 

[Brutus82]

Lol sorry, what I meant was, as you said I've not got nothing odd, then shall I go with the set up that previous owner had or am I best to follow the origanal setup.

Also I missed the last part, until I get my pc back tomorrow I have to use my stupid iPhone on here

 

[waterdrop]

I would perhaps set the carbon sponge aside and save it and put cirax in the area where the carbon was if that feels like it makes sense - or put the cirax in another position that perhaps they show in the manual and move a blue sponge where the black sponge was, something like that.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Brutus82]

excellent thankyou

i shall let you know how i go setting up this weekend

cheers

 

[waterdrop]

Once you've decided on the filter media and rinsed the subsrate well and put it all in and have the tank running, the next thing to think about of course is growing the bacteria in the biomedia.

You haven't said, but I'm going to assume that anyone who is thoughtful enough to stop and consider their media first, before filling the tank, is also going to be able to get through the no-brainer of choosing to do a fishless cycle. [note as an aside that I'm assuming you are here because you are a beginner to freshwater aquariums and wish to experience your first freshwater community tank in an average way. There is another whole branch of the hobby that I consider to be more advanced but occasionally we have a beginner who has determined they want to start there and its over in the planted tank section. Here we deal with first tanks that generally have less than 70% of the substrate covered with live plants whereas they can help you with the ones that have that or more. My personal feeling is that its quite a nice pathway in the hobby to experience the average community tank for about 2 years and then reconsider whether you want to take your first stab at serious plant keeping alongside the serious fishkeeping, but I tend to be excessively patient lol.]

So, as I said, let's assume you are choosing a Fishless Cycle and have read the articles related to the fishless cycling and the nitrogen cycle (you -have- done your homework right?) This would mean its time to gather your materials if you haven't already. You will need a good liquid-reagent based test set with at least ammonia, nitrite(NO2), pH and nitrate(NO3) kits and you will need simple household ammonia.

Now the ammonia can be a bit of an adventure to find but lately we've been having things go pretty easily for most of our beginners because if they're in the UK they've been finding it at Boots or Homebase and it they're in the USA they've been finding it at Ace Hardware. It needs to be pure simple aqueous ammonia (aqueous ammonia is usually about 10% pure ammonia gas dissolved in 90% pure distilled water) and in the UK it will usually state the ingredients whereas in the wild west of the USA it may or may not. If you can see in to it you can do the "shake test." It should just bubble for 2 or 3 seconds, like water, and should not foam. We don't want soaps, surfactants, dyes or fragrances in it.

This ammonia of course is going to be the food for growing the two species of bacteria (the Nitrosomonas spp. that process ammonia and the Nitrospira spp. that process nitrite.) We will dose it in a narrow range of tank concentration designed to keep the process moving but to not get so concentrated that we encourage "wrong" species for our purpose. We start and end about 5ppm but we lighten our dose to 3ppm or so during the middle phase we call the "nitrite spike." The 5ppm is most important right at the end of the fishless cycle so that we have a really strong robust pair of colonies for the initial stocking of fish.

The tank temperature should be 29C/84F throughout fishless cycling and the pH that's best is 8.0 to 8.4 but usually we take what our tap water gives us in the pH department. The fishless cycling process itself will generate small amounts of nitric acid, which may use up the mineral buffering of your tap water, depending on how hard your municipal supply is. When this happens the water can go too acid and the bacteria will stop growing temporarily. This is why we keep an eye on pH. The best documentation for fishless cycling is to keep an aquarium notebook. Here you will have already documented your actions regarding the filter media etc. and you'll begin to keep a daily log of test results and any actions you take on the tank or any research you do for purchases etc. You will also perhaps begin editing your first post here in this thread day after day to add a bottom section that shows your log (or even better you could figure out how to incorporate Luke's spreadsheet where you just provide a link that points to a snapshot of your latest results stored on one of those photo sites - I'm not expert at that part.)

OK, a lot of stuff, see ya!

~~waterdrop~~