Taking Over A Friends Established Tank.

[Essjay]

So the tank now has no fish in it? If you wait a couple of weeks before doing anything else, the bacteria in the filter will die, or at least become inactive so that when you do restock you'll find yourself in a mini cycle if not a full cycle.
You haven't mentioned whether or not you have your own test kit or whether the shop did the test. If you don't have a test kit it would be better if you bought your own, one with liquid reagents not strips. Then you'll be able to monitor your ammonia and nitrite levels and start adding ammonia to feed the bacteria until you restock the tank. At the very least add some fish food which will break down to make ammonia. That way when you do get fish you'll have a filter that's fully stocked with bacteria.

 

[DaveIOW]

Yes, the tank now has no fish in.

My LFS conducted the test using liquid reagents. They recommended that I should come back in two weeks for further testing. The LFS in question wasn't a nationwide chain, it was a local small independent one recommended my many saying these guys actually know what they are on about.

You think I should retest my water in 7 days instead?

 

[Essjay]

I would test it more often. You need to know when your ammonia reading drops to zero so you know when to start adding ammonia or fish food to keep the filter bacteria going.

 

[DaveIOW]

Ok, I'll buy myself a test kit.

Any recommendations?

 

[sadguppy]

Pop in a bit of fish food every day to keep it cycled, usually a spike won't last longer than a few days. Well done on getting rid of the fish, none were suitable and there are so many options for you now!

A good test kit is the API freshwater master kit, you can get ot on ebay for about £20, however if money is tight and your LFS are good at testing water (most would probably have sold you fish regardless so asking you to come back is encouraging) then go back there to have it tested, but I don't think it will need two whole weeks to get back to normal.

 

[DaveIOW]

Hi, thanks for the recommendation, hopefully it will be here on tuesday.

Indeed, a now empty tank will give me many options.

I've been doing a lot of googling and have quite a list of potential fish I'm interested in.

This is the list I'm interested in, if someone could cast an eye over it and suggest what will work, that would be great. Obviously I would be picking a few off this list that work together, not stocking all of them.

Apistogramma cacatuoides
Dwarf badis
Daniel margaritatus
Dario dario
red pencil fish
Zebra otocincilus
Congo tetra

I've no idea what could really work together.

Ideally I would like a male apistogramma cacatuoides, a few red pencil fish and a few zebra otocincilus. Is this a viable mix?

 

[DaveIOW]

Any ideas on compatibility?