Setting Up My New Tank

[moochy13]

so ive finished making a stand for my 4 foot fish tank. does anybody know how to turn that into litres ? according to the internet its area of base x length? im rubbish at maths. the tank is L48 x H14 x W12 (inches)and it currently has no lid. my plan is as follows :

get water, gravel, rock, wood and pump in tank, get everything moving.
get plants in tank

while this is going on i should hopefully have built a simple little lid. first question is how massively important is it to have a light when the plants are in the tank ? hopefully there wont be a time when there are plants but no light/lid, but things go wrong.

second question is where i can get a light fitting for as cheap as possible to fit the tank? would i be looking for a 3 foot bulb ? i dont know. looking at my little juwel tank, the bulb sits just a couple of inches off the water. is this for a reason, or just to keep the lid as low profile as possible, which is something id like to do.

is there a cheap alternative to getting gravel/rocks/wood from pet shops ? i understand wood can be difficult to sort out yourself to make it ready for a tank, but is it difficult to prepare your own rock or gravel ? im sure you're paying a premium for 'special' aquarium rock and stones.

so just a couple of questions then until i get the tank planted in. the filter/pump i should hopefully be using is well overspecced for the tank. my mate took it out of his enormous tank before he had even used it, as he had to replace it with something that could be left while he worked offshore.

the next questions will probably be about types of plants im looking for.

thanks

 

[anon02]

Theres a calculator in beginners resources, where you will also find guidance on the nitrogen cycle, most members would recommend the fishless cycle

Light is very important both to fish and plants, have a look in the plants and planted tank section of the forum for some ideas

Good luck

 

[moochy13]

great thanks. my tanks a 132L then.

i wondered about the plants as there never seems to be any direct light on plants when in fish shops, yet they all look healthy. i obviously know plants need light etc, but i was wondering if the plants would be ok for a few days with just the ambient light.

i know everybody would suggest a fishless cycle, but im setting the tank up as i need to urgently remove a few fish from my smaller tank. when setting tha tank up, is it helpful to have 'second hand' substrate in the tank ? im trying to get hold of some used filter media to help. would water out of my current fish tank help the cycle ?

 

[anon02]

great thanks. my tanks a 132L then.

i wondered about the plants as there never seems to be any direct light on plants when in fish shops, yet they all look healthy. i obviously know plants need light etc, but i was wondering if the plants would be ok for a few days with just the ambient light.

i know everybody would suggest a fishless cycle, but im setting the tank up as i need to urgently remove a few fish from my smaller tank. when setting tha tank up, is it helpful to have 'second hand' substrate in the tank ? im trying to get hold of some used filter media to help. would water out of my current fish tank help the cycle ?

I`m still a novice myself but I`ve read that 99% of the nitrifying bacteria is in the filter media and housing. The mature media will help but you will need liquid reagent tests for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, a test for pH will come in handy too. If you decide to re house fish in your new tank, follow the fish in guide
There are loads of members on this forum that will be only too happy to help see you through

 

[11gatorgal11]

Ok since you are moving your fish, if you could move anything from the tank they are currently in to the larger tank that would definitely help, whether it be a filter cartridge, gravel/rocks, any decorations, and so forth. As far as I know the bacteria live on the things in the water, so the "second-hand" substrate would definitely be a plus.
As for the gravel/rock question, if you are talking about using those as a substrate, you could go with play sand, which for a 50lb bag is like 4bucks or so. If you are just looking to have it for like decoration and such always look on craigslist and things like that, you could technically find one in a river or lake, but you would have to boil it for a long time to make sure anything that was on it is dead.
Of course the lighting for plants are a necessity, some plants though don't need much lighting, you would just have to research a bunch to figure out what would work with what you have. Also once you have moved the fish into the larger tank really pay attention to the ammonia and nitrite levels. If you move some of the stuff from the smaller tank you will already have the beneficial bacteria in it, but you may not have enough to consume the bio-load at first, so just pay close attention to make sure the levels are all in check!
Good luck!

 

[moochy13]

ive had a quick scan on ebay for lighting and as expected all manner of weird and wonderful solutions come up. certainly plenty within my budget.

would something like this work ?

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/12V-48-LED-FLEXIBLE-STRIP-LIGHT-12v-SUPPLY-AQUARIUM-/280529124872?pt=UK_Pet_Supplies_Fish&hash=item4150d6be08

as im making the lid, a smaller light would make the job a lot easier. and one that i could submerge would be massively easier. or is submerging the light generally 'not done' ?

what sort of size and output/wattage should i be aiming for ?

 

[Curiosity101]

In a tank that has been cycled the filter media is where 99% of bacteria live. Not because we say so, but because bacteria tend to congregate in the area best suited for them to live. These bacteria need oxygen and nutrients aswell as a porus surface to grow on. The filter is constantly pulling through fresh oxygenated water straigh from the fish so it will also have trace levels of ammonia in it.

How much benefit your old tank items makes depends on how cycled it was and what type of filter you had (if any).

In a tank with no filter some bacteria form (not enough to keep ammonia levels down though) and they tend to form on any open surfaces ie. glass, decor, plants, gravel etc. If this is the cast then I would suggest moving as much of stuff from the old tank to the new tank as possible.

In a tank with an UGF the bacteria settle in the gravel as this is where their needs are best met. So you would only need to move the gravel.

In a tank with a power filter the bacteria settle on the media of the filter. So just move the media from the old filter into the new filter.

Water contribute practically nothing with regards to bacteria numbers so although it doesn't hurt to move it across I never really bother. May help the fish acclimatise faster, though if you're doing regular water changes your tank stats should be similar to your tap water anyways.
Just make sure anything that may have high numbers of bacteria on it doesn't dry out, and that it doesn't come into contact with tap water until it's been dechlorinated. When setting up new tanks with mature media I often let the filter run with no media in it purely to let it mix up the water to make sure it's all dechlored, then pop all the media in 10-30mins later (depends on tank size).

Whatever your cycling situation, make sure you have a liquid based test kit handy and a good understanding of the cycling process n you wont go far wrong. There are links in my sig to help you out if you get stuck.

 

[moochy13]

thanks for your replies.

i cant move the filter media over (sponges) because the little tank will still be housing fish aswell. i'll have to see what i can do.

anybody knwo about the lighting situation ? what about the light i linked to in my previous post ?

 

[moochy13]

could really do with some help on those lights.

im also pricing up a filter off ebay. i want something like is in my little juwel tank, where the filter and heater are in one unit. i keep looking at ones on ebay but they all seem to be just filters, unless im missing something. i need to get these things sorted before i even think about putting water in the tank.

 

[waterdrop]

No, submerging lights is not done. And, no, don't do those LED strips - not enough light for your plants. I would do a traditional T8 (T8 means the diameter of the fluorescent light is 8/8's.. ie, one inch in diameter) fluorescent of a standard lengh that you can get bulbs in readily or possibly one or another type of T5 fixture (either straight or U-tube or such.) By going as plain and traditional as possible you'll greatly increase the choices of color/spectrum you can choose later (such as 6500k).

Your tank is 132L/35G so you are going to want to put at least 35W of lighting and probably not as high as 70W (1 watt per US gallon being a safer "low-light technique" amount than if you were up at 2w/g.) That presumes you are not going to set up a system to provide the plants with CO2. If you run a pressurized CO2 system you can run higher light.

If you really want to seriously plant the tank and bring in fish right away then I suggest you start a thread over in the planted section where they can guide you on a fish-in cycle. (The subforum you are in now would be better if you were doing a bare-tank household ammonia fishless cycle to prepare the biofilter prior to exposing the fish to the poisons or if you had accidently found yourself in a fish-in situation with too many fish, those sorts of things.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[moochy13]

hi thanks for your help.

i didnt think those lights would work but thought id check as it seemed an easy option. i wont be using co2.

i do really want to get fish in asap as the whole point of the tank is to get fish out of the tank thats too small for them. i could probably leave it a week or so but a month for a fishless cycle is too long.

 

[waterdrop]

So you're splitting the fish load right?.. not bringing over the whole bioload and the filter (you probably already said this.)

 

[moochy13]

yeah i dont want to stop using the smaller tank as its fine for some of the fish. im setting this larger one up to take some of the fish that shouldnt be in the smaller tank. hence why i wanted to do it quickest to help get the fish in a better tank soon as possible. to begin with i wont be able to buy any fish due to spending all my money on my old car, im going to have to spend to get the tank filled and ready. so to begin with the only fish going in will be the refugees from the small tank.

so i cant take all the media out of the small tank, but ive noticed that 30% of the media is ok to move over to my new tank, unless i can get mature mdeia for it from somewhere else. the small tank has sponge pads, im not sure how i could do a swap or which bits i would swap ?

im hoping to get the tank running this weekend, im begging and borrowing off my mates for filters and lights until i can get something better sorted. i intend to plant the tank as soon as possible, then put a fish in - provided i can move some mature media over. i wont put fish in straight away if im starting from scratch with my bacteria. here are the fish i intend on moving at the moment :

sailfin plec
humbug catfish
headstander
synodontis
algae eater
2 red eye tetra

all the fish are still very young and small, other than the tetras which are normal adult size, but obviously still small. if all goes to plan, at the weekend i'll have a planted tank with a bit of mature media in it. if thats the case which of those fish would be best to enter the tank first, as i will gradually move them over during a couple of weeks maybe ? i know i need a fish to get the bacteria growing, but which would be best/safest ?