hi im a newbie to my new tropical tank.
i washed my bog wood in warm water and also my gravel. now ive noticed the tank is gone a brownish colour and the bog wood has clear slime on it! aaah! and i was going to put my gold fish in the tank to grow the good bacteria? how long do i have to wait then to put tropical fish in? and do i have to do a 50% water check every week that the tank is cycling?
welcome to the fourms
now the bogwood, the browning/yelloish colour in the water is tannis being released from the bogwood. did you soak the bogwood for about a month or untill the tanins stoped being releaced. if not take it out of the water, put it in a bucket of lukewarm water and soak for 24 hours, replace the water after the 24 hours and repeat, do this for a minimum of a month or untill the water stays 99% clear after 24hours of the bogwood being in it. the slime im unsure of but are you sure its bogwood, if its not bogwood then that could explain the slime. now back to the bogwood, what size is your tank, filtration type? and do a few 50% water changes untill the water is clear (while soaking bogwood) and add active carbon the your filter (if you have an external filter it is easyer, and better for your fish), the active carbon will help remove any remaining tannis made by the bogwood and when you add the bogwood replace the carbon in your filter with new carbon, every 2 months replace it too (whilst using medication remove the active carbon as it will rempve the medication rendering the medication useless).
now to cycling, do a fishless cycle on your tank (the link is a pinned one called "fishless cycling") that will explain how to do fishless cycling.
now you said about a
and do i have to do a 50% water check every week that the tank is cycling?
i think you mean a water change, 20% weekly will be sufishent, unless you have badweter quality (invest in a water test kit, PH, Ammonia, NitrIte and NitrAte are the ones you will
need.
hope this helps, shang hi
Edit: miss spell and extra information
