Newbie Questions Sorry

[OldMan47]

You have increased your biological load in the tank quite a bit from the 2 fish it had before. Be sure to keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrites now to make sure they don't go out of control. The plants that you have are helping keep things from going bad quickly so they may continue to help with this new waste load too. An approach to fish that we seldom encourage with a new fish keeper uses heavy plantings of fast growing plants as the primary means of dealing with wastes. It can be very effective but is much harder for a new person to get right so we usually focus on the mechanical and bacterial means of keeping fish wastes from building up. The plants will help in either case so don't be too surprised if the chemistry stays relatively OK.
Replacing a filter element because a month has gone by is a terrible idea. It will remove all of the beneficial bacteria that you have managed to grow. If the filter starts to show signs of plugging up, rinse out the filter media in used tank water and put it back into the filter. Some time before the filter media falls apart, you will want to start building a bacterial colony on a new filter element but that could be years from now. I have some of the filters that you throw away after a month that are over 4 years old and still doing their job taking care of ammonia and nitrites.

 

[vinylman]

thanks for the advice,
the fish shop guy didnt ask any questions just sold me the fish, i had read that the otto and cory would do better in a mature tank, didn't realise the same for the cardinals.

Don't beat yourself up too much, that's exactly what a lot of LFS staff tell people who really need reliable advice. Just try to keep on top of your water changes; if things go wrong in a small tank, they go wrong very quickly. If you find yourself thinking ''Should I do a water change?'' the answer 99 times out of 100 is ''yes''. At worst it won't do any harm; at best you'll be diluting (potential) toxins - never a bad thing.

 

[Gary-S]

thanks everyone for the advice,
i managed to tie the bogwood down to two stones ,its looking quite good, but unsure on the java fern the roots are just floating around was told they dont go into the substrate just attach to the wood, anyway i'll see how it goes.
i'll take a picture of the tank when i get a chance.

if anyone can give some advice on the grass i read up a bit about getting rid of the snails, and will put a piece of lettuce in the tank and see how it goes, will corrys or ottos eat the eggs?

 

[OldMan47]

Cories and otocinclus will not eat snail eggs. they will pretty much ignore the snail eggs along with most of your other fish.

 

[waterdrop]

You've got the right idea about your Java Ferns. They do best when their roots have attached to bogwood (by which I mean any underwater wood you've got.) You can be creative getting them to hold there while they attach. Sometimes you can find a crevice in the wood and catch some of the roots in it. Most of the time people actually tie it on with fishing line (some use thin dark green or brown sewing threads to draw less attention.) Some use rubber bands (ideally thin and weak.) You get the idea. I don't know how long it takes on average.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Gary-S]

thanks again waterdrop, i'll leave it till the weekend,think i'v stressed the new cardinals enough .