Speedy cycle!

[Apopli]

My son wants an aquarium in his room. He's only 4, so I'd be doing all the looking after... He has a bookcase in his room that could easily hold a 30 gallon tank. I'll probably pick up one of the cheesy Eclipse systems and put some cute little schooling fish, like cherry barbs, and a group of cories.

But anywho... here's my question. How fast can I cycle the tank if I run the filter on my Oscar's tank and use some of his tank water to fill it?

I've been keeping fish for years and cycling still makes me nervous! I'm so worried I havn't done it properly, even with the testing. lol

 

[clutterydrawer]

heya

IMO if you add some filter media from the oscar's filter to the new filter, it would be ready immediately - but add fish quick, before the bacteria dies off for lack of food. however you would have to add fish gradually, 2-3 each fortnight or something. adding the water is pointless because the beneficial bacteria needed for the cycle live only on solid surfaces in the aquarium, so adding water from another tank just adds nitrates . which is never good.

another point is that cherry barbs aren't strictly schooling, yo ushouldnt really keep more than one male cos they can get aggressive with each other. a trio, 1m 2f, would be good. for a 30g tank a nice combination would be three cherry barbs, a school of cories, and a school of maybe harlequin rasboras, which shoal tightly and are pretty.

HTH

 

[x Fish x]

i don't like the sound of 'bookcase'

i mean, obviously you know what you're doing, but bookcase makes me think of tall, thin/shallow shelving that'll hold the tank up until you leave the room, then *KERSPLASH* all over the place ._O

otherwise, Oscars are messy fish, using his media and perhaps a bit of his gravel would work well, but why not buy tank accessories early and camp them in the Oscars tank a bit? they'll pick up some bacteria all their own. i don't know what you mean by 'cheesy little Eclipse system', are there big ones, or do you mean the 5-10g ones?

a Betta would be great for a little kid; big fins, personality, color. he'll be entranced by the fish.

=D

 

[Apopli]

We have a Betta. He's in the living room in a 10 gallon tank with a big mystery snail.

This bookcase isn't going anywhere. The back of it is straight againced the wall, and the front is tapered... kinda like a pyramid. It's a bit hard to explain. But anyhow... the only way it can be pushed over easily is backwards, but that's the part againced the wall. It's custom built by a family member. When I was pregnant he built me all the furniture for my son's room. Even the dresser, filled with clothes with all the drawers open cannot easily be made to fall forward.

We have Eclipse system tanks here at one of the LFS's that reaches 30 gallons. THey have hex tanks, and just the rectangle ones... comes with brightly colored rainbow gravel, filter, light and all that, and this tacky underwater jungleish backdrop for the tank... My tanks have always been with natural colored or black gravel with black backgrounds, things made to look natural and realistic, so the overly colored accessories seem cheesy to me.

I could try putting some tank accessories in my Oscar's tank, though I can't garentee their survival in there. He has a bit of a habit of attacking anything he *thinks* moved, or whatever seems foreign to him. Should have seen him have a go with the gravel vacuum

 

[Kittycat]

I thought the same thing as xFishx, my concern with the bookcase is not the tank getting pushed and falling over but rather not being able to support the weight of the water (over 300 lbs). I used this wooden shelf before for my 5 gal, it was ok for a few months, then we noticed the wood beginning to break off and give way.

 

[clutterydrawer]

just to add to the chaos i put my 15 gallon tank on a huge, very solidly built wooden sideboard, have just noticed the top of the sideboard is bowing a little. a 30g tank is gonna weigh something like 200 lb when full...so i hope it's a really, really strong bookcase. preferably steel reinforced

 

[x Fish x]

mm, so we have an attack Oscar, a possibly dangerous shelving unit (perhaps a smaller size would do better?) and a little kid who so obviously wants a cheesy tank, as you put it =3 hey, cheese is sometimes good.

maybe you could get him some hearty, active little fish, like Zebra Danios. a few Kuhlii Loaches/Cories and you've already got a cute tank, without ornaments. maybe you could compromise on gravel and get something like dark green or blue (appealing to little kid love of color, your like of uncheese) some silk or real plants, an ornament that could maybe pull off being natural (i have a cracked bell ornament in my Betta tank, it looks more like a rock) and voila, kid is happy.

or you could go down the livebearer lane...

personally, i'm still terrified of shelving. i'm afraid to put my ten gallon IN my nightstand (which is about a half-inch off the ground) and my 2g on a tough shelf that i could sit on. if you think that the shelving can hold the tank, that's good. if you can put a bag of cement or have a few people sit on it, that's better.

-goes back into her shell-

 

[swampcat]

Go with filter media, it works.