Setting Up New Large Tank

[Aquatious]

Quick update! I've been monitoring ammonia/nitrite/nitrate throughout this process. I had a small bit of ammonia for the first couple of days (just the faintest touch of green in the yellow so not enough really to get a sensible reading on) but that quickly went bright yellow so that's good - should mean that the bacteria in the filter media are still alive and kicking. No trace of nitrites throughout - small amount of nitrates showing up (15ish?). Based on these readings and the fact that my smaller tank was overcrowded due to the rescue dollars, I started adding the rest of my dollars two at a time with a 3-4 days in between each. The readings haven't got worse (although I did expect more nitrate showing up - but then again it is a big tank so maybe it is just diluted and will take a time to show up).

The water is a little bit murky (looks pretty much from front on but if you look through the 6' of water from the side you can see), and I've got a little film on the surface - I think both of these could be attributable to all the bogwood in there and some bacterial bloom. There is some brown algae starting to form on the glass - we'll see if this is temporary.

So far - 10 dollars looking happy in the new tank, water parameters look good. Inhabitants of the other tank look happier too now they've got a bit more space.

Any suggestions or hints gladly accepted

 

[The Taffy Apple]

Personally, i would have waited for a full weeks' worth of bright yellow '0' on the Ammonia before adding anymore fish...but seeming as you are happy to do regular testing and water changes as required then keep going as you are (maybe not anymore just yet though).
Try not to worry about any bacterial blooms that appear, there are plenty of different ones with only a few that continue longer than several days, but if they do worry you then use the best glass and ornament cleaning product available to us- Good Old Elbow Grease

Terry.

 

[Aquatious]

Nice one Terry. I won't be adding any more for a couple of weeks at least. My wife says the bogwood and rocks looks like a primary school snail garden and she's going to sort it out properly - result

 

[HM Dragon Devil]

Hi,

I've bought a lovely 6x2x2.5 tank from a member of these forums (you may recognise it!). After an "interesting" experience transporting it I've got it mostly set up:

I washed 80kg of Argos play sand by hand using a pillow under the tap - that took quite a while. I filled the tank and treated it with Nutrafin AquaPlus to get rid of the chlorine and other nasties. I've put in a load of bogwood etc and most of it is just about sinking - but don't worry about the placement of it all - I'm a long way off interior decorating. Two heaters have got the water temperature up to 77 degrees.

I've got two filters up and running - an EFX 600 and a Fluval FX5. I've taken a good deal of the chip substrate from the filter in my existing mature tank and swapped it for the substrate in the EFX as it has a layer with the same chips in it. I've also put in a dose of Interpet Filter Start which is apparently "bacteria in a bottle" to give it a bit of a boost. I'm hoping that will start the bacterial colonisation moving fairly quickly.

My existing tank is a bit packed at the moment (some fish that I wanted for the tank came up for sale), and one of the main bunch of hooligans that I want to transfer eventually will be my horde of silver dollars. I've read that silver dollars are hardy and good candidates for putting in first, so I've put a couple in the tank to start making waste to feed the nitrogen cycle. They look chilled and healthy so I'm hoping they are happy! I'll see if they feed tonight.

From my reading on the forum, it looks like I need about 56" of fish to start cycling with (224 US gallons / 4). The dollars are about 4-5" so that would mean putting 11 of them in! Is that going overboard and being risky or should I stick to a couple and put a few more in on a regular basis say 2 a week for 6 weeks?

I'm planning on daily testing with liquid tests for ph, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate. As the forum says, I'll do large water changes when the nitrites hit 0.25. This will of course be a pain in the neck as the tank is so huge. Whilst it is easy to get the water out (siphon to flower bed), and relatively easy to put it back in again (I'm all hosed up from the mixer tap), keeping the temperature stable will be tricky. Any tips?

Thanks in advance,
Matt

Hi, Aquatious. I have nothing to add, but i would like to commend you on your aquarium, it's amazing, i wish i had the room for one that size. Looking forward to seeing this one progress.

Dean.

 

[Aquatious]

The water parameters are looking great a month later.

0 ammonia
0 nitrite
15 nitrate

This is with 11 silver dollars who appear to be enjoying the tank immensely.

However I'm still plagued with algae. The majority of it is brown. I can clean the glass and it is back again in a couple of days. In the last week I've started getting some green algae too. The water is still cloudy.

I'm not doing massive water changes because from looking at the water parameters it doesn't need it. I've read the algae and cloudiness should go eventually, but does this assume I'm doing big water changes?

I'm very pleased with the tank but I am getting a bit impatient waiting for it to actually look nice!

 

[Aquatious]

I've got a couple of big plecs in the other tank which I could transfer in - but I'm not sure how effective they'd be at cleaning up the algae.

Any recommendations on what I could get to keep on top of the algae? Tank mates will be dollars, silver sharks, clown fish (only dollars in there atm).

I just read in another post that aerating the water may help clear the cloudy water. What kind of kit would I needed for this size tank? I've got a small air pump on the other tank but I don't think that is going to cut it in here!

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Sounds like diatoms, bristlenose plecs (expecially the baby ones) and otos would plow though that algae in no time! You wouldn't believe it lol

How long do you have your lights on for?

 

[Aquatious]

About 12 hours a day at the moment - I need to buy some timers!

Bristlenoses and otos look good - what kind of numbers should I be looking at?

 

[Cazgar]

My Oto's don't touch the brown algae, they also need supplemental feeding such as algae wafers, courgette etc if you can get them to eat it
They also don't do well in new set ups.
Try reducing the amount of time your lights are on, that would help with the algae

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Woah! Well that's why cut it back to 6 hours (laaaaame I KNOW!) then when you see improvement slowly increase it up to no more than probably 8 hours a day. I had mine on for 12 hours, I loved it but you'll have probs in a planted tank, as you've seen.

I love my BNS I got two baby ones probably not even 2 inches long at the time and they cleaned my tank completely in like a week, even each plant leaf! I've never had otos but they do better in a bigger group so, as usual with fish that like to be in a group, no less than 6 for sure. I've heard some people have a hard time with otos and they can be quite shy so that's why I went with the BNs

 

[Aquatious]

Thanks guys - your help is much appreciated! I'll turn them on when I get in from work and turn them off before bed. Now I'm sure I saw a post about bristlenosed wotsits...

 

[Aquatious]

BNS on their way. I put my air pipe in with no stone or anything 2 days later I've got clear water hurrah! Less light and the algae isn't quite as rampant as before so that's good too.

Now the bad news... Got a lovely new catfish who is very shy. I left a prawn and a mussel in the tank for him hoping he'd eat them when I went. They'd gone in the morning so I presume he did (the dollars didn't remotely interested). However I noticed in the evening that all the dollars had massive bottom lips! Definitely swollen. Can fish be allergic to shellfish? Confused! The lips have gone down substantially today which is great - but now I've got one dollar missing - he must be in there dead or alive! The catfish isn't big enough to eat a dollar that size I'm sure!

I'm a bit reticent to put more shellfish in the catfish in case it sets off the dollars again... any ideas? Could it be a coincidence? Could it actually be something to do with the water clearing?

 

[Aquatious]

It seems that putting in more prawns and mussels has had no adverse affect so that's good! Plus the catfish is eating. So no idea what blew their lips up! I've still got a dollar missing - quite how I can lose a 4" fish I have no idea... I've moved everything!