OP
OP
MattM1124
Fish Fanatic
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A Month Into My 1st Fishless Cycle...
- Thread starter MattM1124
- Start date
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
OK Matt,
With your tap water showing 4dKH (and yes, each german degree of carbonate hardness (KH) is 17.9 ppm or mg/L as it says there on the API chart and as mr bliss estimated way back up there at ~18)...
and your tank water showing 3dKH, you are actually doing pretty well in the KH department and I believe you may be reading too much into these numbers.
Once you get cycled (and we need to review where the heck you are with that because we are off on so many tangents in this thread that I've lost track!) your bacteria populations will come into equilibrium with your fish stocking and thus there will be much less bacterial growth and the bacteria will need less Calcium and Magnesium for cell structures, so they will "eat" less of your 'carbs & 'bicarbs (which is what the KH is measuring) and your KH won't go down as fast and thus your pH won't go down as fast.
In fact, it is my belief that a good weekly water change is going to be just fine for holding your KH and pH to a nice decent steady state. You won't need the crushed coral or anything else and that's good, good, good!
I believe you do not need to worry so much about matching the species you stock to these KH and pH numbers. Yes, there are a few exceptions, but the vast majority of fish we buy in our LFS are either farm raised or are types that can handle differences from the ideal, as long as things to not wildly swing in the tank. I'm sure MW will come in and help me here - this is a classic case where you are going to be able to have a pretty normal community tank with a very full set of stocking choices.
By getting your KH kit and learning more about hardness, KH and pH, you are putting yourself in a good position to monitor the situation and later you would be able to take action if things really called for it. But the ideal world in freshwater tropical fishkeeping is to rely on your tap water just as it is, with only conditioner clearing out the chlorine/chloramines and nice weekly water changes going in and no extra chemicals or other changes needing to be kept after! So you want to first strive to have this situation and only be pushed away from it (say to putting crushed coral in) if you are absolutely forced to.
Hope that makes sense,
~~waterdrop~~
With your tap water showing 4dKH (and yes, each german degree of carbonate hardness (KH) is 17.9 ppm or mg/L as it says there on the API chart and as mr bliss estimated way back up there at ~18)...
and your tank water showing 3dKH, you are actually doing pretty well in the KH department and I believe you may be reading too much into these numbers.
Once you get cycled (and we need to review where the heck you are with that because we are off on so many tangents in this thread that I've lost track!) your bacteria populations will come into equilibrium with your fish stocking and thus there will be much less bacterial growth and the bacteria will need less Calcium and Magnesium for cell structures, so they will "eat" less of your 'carbs & 'bicarbs (which is what the KH is measuring) and your KH won't go down as fast and thus your pH won't go down as fast.
In fact, it is my belief that a good weekly water change is going to be just fine for holding your KH and pH to a nice decent steady state. You won't need the crushed coral or anything else and that's good, good, good!
I believe you do not need to worry so much about matching the species you stock to these KH and pH numbers. Yes, there are a few exceptions, but the vast majority of fish we buy in our LFS are either farm raised or are types that can handle differences from the ideal, as long as things to not wildly swing in the tank. I'm sure MW will come in and help me here - this is a classic case where you are going to be able to have a pretty normal community tank with a very full set of stocking choices.
By getting your KH kit and learning more about hardness, KH and pH, you are putting yourself in a good position to monitor the situation and later you would be able to take action if things really called for it. But the ideal world in freshwater tropical fishkeeping is to rely on your tap water just as it is, with only conditioner clearing out the chlorine/chloramines and nice weekly water changes going in and no extra chemicals or other changes needing to be kept after! So you want to first strive to have this situation and only be pushed away from it (say to putting crushed coral in) if you are absolutely forced to.
Hope that makes sense,
~~waterdrop~~
OP
OP
MattM1124
Fish Fanatic
Very useful information and it makes perfect sense to me. I actually am cycled and I'm going to get fish next Thursday. I put the ammonia in the tank every night to get it back up to 5 ppm and within 12 hours both the ammonia and nitrite are down to 0. It's been like this for about a week now. Thursday's the first day I can get out to get them though. Thursday morning I'm also going to do a 90% water change and then that night get the fish in the tank.
And I know this topic got off on all kind of tangents and I really appreciate all of the help you both have given me. The only question I have left was about a quarantine tank. I asked about it up in Post number 71. If you could just give me an answer to that one, I think I might be out of questions haha.
thanks again,
Matt
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Oh, that's great to hear! You are one of the few to do a nice solid qualification of your filter. I'll bet your fish will zip around feeling delighted with their new home!
OK, my thoughts about having the extra little tank: For reasonably small sized community tanks like you and I have my feeling is sort of "the smaller the better" because I always find I would rather introduce fish in small numbers and I don't have plans, at least for now, for particularly large individual fish. So yes, a nice small little tank and very simple filter, perhaps a little system kit one like you are saying should be great. I have a leftover little 2.5g around the house I would use, that kind of thing. The trick is to see if you can get the main sponge it comes with or a sponge that would fit in it and figure out a way to fit that in your existing main tank filter and keep it there permanently until you need it. Now don't go doing this right now on your just-finished system -- you want to let your first batch of fish have some nice months first and you want your bacteria to have some more months (say, 3?) to mature more.
But then, after that time, it would be great to get a significant amount of media that could be used in the QT tank worked into the main tanks filter. Now there are any number of ways to do this. It could be that you could just plan to take 1/3 of your ceramic pebbles or ceramic rings or such and pull them out to use in the QT tank filter (you see, you just do this right when you need to quarantine some new fish, you don't keep it running all the time!) Or if you want to have a largeish sponge, then cut it in sections and introduce it to your main filter gradually so that you won't be displacing very much mature media when you do it. When not being used the QT tank and filter (other than the media) just sit in the closet. No substrate or much else needed for a QT tank.
~~waterdrop~~
OK, my thoughts about having the extra little tank: For reasonably small sized community tanks like you and I have my feeling is sort of "the smaller the better" because I always find I would rather introduce fish in small numbers and I don't have plans, at least for now, for particularly large individual fish. So yes, a nice small little tank and very simple filter, perhaps a little system kit one like you are saying should be great. I have a leftover little 2.5g around the house I would use, that kind of thing. The trick is to see if you can get the main sponge it comes with or a sponge that would fit in it and figure out a way to fit that in your existing main tank filter and keep it there permanently until you need it. Now don't go doing this right now on your just-finished system -- you want to let your first batch of fish have some nice months first and you want your bacteria to have some more months (say, 3?) to mature more.
But then, after that time, it would be great to get a significant amount of media that could be used in the QT tank worked into the main tanks filter. Now there are any number of ways to do this. It could be that you could just plan to take 1/3 of your ceramic pebbles or ceramic rings or such and pull them out to use in the QT tank filter (you see, you just do this right when you need to quarantine some new fish, you don't keep it running all the time!) Or if you want to have a largeish sponge, then cut it in sections and introduce it to your main filter gradually so that you won't be displacing very much mature media when you do it. When not being used the QT tank and filter (other than the media) just sit in the closet. No substrate or much else needed for a QT tank.
~~waterdrop~~
OP
OP
MattM1124
Fish Fanatic
Thanks for the help again! I hope my fish appreciate what I have done for them lol. Is there an ideal temperature to try and keep the community tank at? I think last time I tried to keep it around 76 or so. Also I already told my girlfriend his but I wanted to just post here and make sure. She really wants a Blood Red Parrot Cichlid. I told her that they get too big and you can't mix them in with the other tropical fish. That's all true right?
Miss Wiggle
Practically perfect in every way
oops sorry if we missed a Q, hard keeping on top of all this somethimes
so temp -i work in centigrade and keep my tanks between 24 and 26 degress, dunno what the translation for Farenheight is but i'm sure you can google it!!
parrots - get around 10" and can be agressive, they're a hybrid chichlid. chiclids are always very varied temperment wise, one may be peaceful but get another and it may be boisterous, it's part of their charm but you do need to be fairly careful with tankmates to take this into account. Hybrids also tend to have this unpredictable characteristic because of the gene mixes being just that bit different every time! So while I adore parrots, some of them can be extremley agressive, at the very list you'd expect it to be able to stand up for itself. This means they are not suitable to go in a standard community tank.
q tank - what you need to consider is what is the biggest fish you plan on keeping? Work out the smallest acceptable tank size for this fish for a couple of weeks for quarantine or hospital and get that. Best to get a tank with a seperate filter and just hook the filter up on the main tank, after it's been on there for 2-4 weeks it'll be cycled and when you need to use the tank you just fill it with water, move the filter across and you're ready to go. Remember though after quarantine or hospital you need to sterilise the filter and media (i just sling the media and use new as it's not that expensive) before it goes back on the main tank, it'll then be uncycled and you need to take a couple of weeks before using it again.
so temp -i work in centigrade and keep my tanks between 24 and 26 degress, dunno what the translation for Farenheight is but i'm sure you can google it!!
parrots - get around 10" and can be agressive, they're a hybrid chichlid. chiclids are always very varied temperment wise, one may be peaceful but get another and it may be boisterous, it's part of their charm but you do need to be fairly careful with tankmates to take this into account. Hybrids also tend to have this unpredictable characteristic because of the gene mixes being just that bit different every time! So while I adore parrots, some of them can be extremley agressive, at the very list you'd expect it to be able to stand up for itself. This means they are not suitable to go in a standard community tank.
q tank - what you need to consider is what is the biggest fish you plan on keeping? Work out the smallest acceptable tank size for this fish for a couple of weeks for quarantine or hospital and get that. Best to get a tank with a seperate filter and just hook the filter up on the main tank, after it's been on there for 2-4 weeks it'll be cycled and when you need to use the tank you just fill it with water, move the filter across and you're ready to go. Remember though after quarantine or hospital you need to sterilise the filter and media (i just sling the media and use new as it's not that expensive) before it goes back on the main tank, it'll then be uncycled and you need to take a couple of weeks before using it again.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
(Hi MW, missed ya)
Yes, the 24-26C is 75-79F. Let me give you an example from my tank: 2 main species, when I looked them up in the specific species sections on TFF, had perferred temperature ranges apart from each other, one higher and one a lower range, but they overlapped at about 76F. (76F was top of one range, bottom of the other). So I thought, great I'll try to keep adjusting my heater down so that it gets down there to 76F. Well, this summer its never done that, just sits at 78F but both groups of fish are fine, energetic, even showing breeding behaviours. Temperatures are another one of those things that are just general. The range we're describing here is a good one for freshwater tropical, but write down the ranges for all your species and have a think about it yourself, just finding a sort of happy medium.
I'd say your 20g could only hold 2 parrots and if you put them in they'd probably kill each other, or you could put in just one plus your community and then the parrot would kill the rest of the community (arrgh, just exaggerating...) You'll have to ease her off parrots (didn't we have to do that once before??) Even boring looking little freshwater fish have a way of growing on the people that live with them -- your gf will probably get to liking any community you build up, so build up a safe one I'd say.
q tank: yes, MW has described the "moving filter method" (lol) very well and if you have the money and find the right filter for the job that's easier in a way than the "move the media" method I probably described earlier.
~~waterdrop~~
Yes, the 24-26C is 75-79F. Let me give you an example from my tank: 2 main species, when I looked them up in the specific species sections on TFF, had perferred temperature ranges apart from each other, one higher and one a lower range, but they overlapped at about 76F. (76F was top of one range, bottom of the other). So I thought, great I'll try to keep adjusting my heater down so that it gets down there to 76F. Well, this summer its never done that, just sits at 78F but both groups of fish are fine, energetic, even showing breeding behaviours. Temperatures are another one of those things that are just general. The range we're describing here is a good one for freshwater tropical, but write down the ranges for all your species and have a think about it yourself, just finding a sort of happy medium.
I'd say your 20g could only hold 2 parrots and if you put them in they'd probably kill each other, or you could put in just one plus your community and then the parrot would kill the rest of the community (arrgh, just exaggerating...) You'll have to ease her off parrots (didn't we have to do that once before??) Even boring looking little freshwater fish have a way of growing on the people that live with them -- your gf will probably get to liking any community you build up, so build up a safe one I'd say.
q tank: yes, MW has described the "moving filter method" (lol) very well and if you have the money and find the right filter for the job that's easier in a way than the "move the media" method I probably described earlier.
~~waterdrop~~
OP
OP
MattM1124
Fish Fanatic
Well, tomorrow I'm getting fish!! I'm going to add one more dose of ammonia tonight and then tomorrow morning I'm going to do a 90% water change and then tomorrow night I'm going to get the fish! Sound good?
Miss Wiggle
Practically perfect in every way
missed you lot en all! I'm still quite poorly though, had a migraine for 3 weeks now and i'm extremley photosensitive, the light on the screen of the pc is just too bright for me, can only come on for about 10 mins a day.
excellent! remember to get us some piccies when you've got them!
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
really like the thought of helping somebody bring home fish in the city where my first fish were brought home (in the late 1950s!!)
OP
OP
MattM1124
Fish Fanatic
really like the thought of helping somebody bring home fish in the city where my first fish were brought home (in the late 1950s!!)
It really is a small world! And MW, I'll definitely get pics up ASAP.
Just so you have something to do today, what's the best way to introduce all the fish to the tank today. I've always just let the bag float in the tank for about 30 mins and then added them. I read somewhere, can't find it now that it's good to keep adding fish tank water into the bag though. What's the best method? I also usually have trouble after opening to the bag to add the tank water, the bag loses all the air and the bad becomes very tight and the fish don't have room so then I just add them to the tank..
Miss Wiggle
Practically perfect in every way
thats a very big question you've asked there. there's a whole load of different methods, you'll find a good in depth discussion of a few of them here http
/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=201084&hl=
all i do personally is float the fish for half an hr to let temp acclimitise then plop the fish and the water into the tank.
people say don't add tank water as you may be transferring in pollutants, diseases or toxic water, to be honest if i'm in the least bit concerned about something i'm buying then it should be going straight into quarantine for 1 month before going into the main tank. I figure if it's diseases it'll go in with the fish anyway, and as i've a big tank even if i add water with exceptionally high nitrate it's not even gonna cause much of a blip in my readings.
/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=201084&hl=all i do personally is float the fish for half an hr to let temp acclimitise then plop the fish and the water into the tank.
people say don't add tank water as you may be transferring in pollutants, diseases or toxic water, to be honest if i'm in the least bit concerned about something i'm buying then it should be going straight into quarantine for 1 month before going into the main tank. I figure if it's diseases it'll go in with the fish anyway, and as i've a big tank even if i add water with exceptionally high nitrate it's not even gonna cause much of a blip in my readings.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Well, when I added my first round of fish I decided to do the net thing. I floated the bags for a half hour, just like MW, but then I got a bucket, held my net over it and gently poured the water and fish from the bag, through the net, letting the water go into the bucket (not the tank.) The I just released the fish from the net into the aquarium. It just made sense to me that I was happy with my water, I was only interested in temperature match, wasn't worried about pH with these common fish and even though its small, didn't want to help out any bad stuff that might be in the bag water.
By the way, I believe the various methods (and they can get pretty tedious and complicated!) of acclimating fish like the one you mentioned, often have to do with adjusting pH and alkalinity when you know there is a big difference and/or you know the particular species is quite sensitive to it. (this probably means I won't know the answer to your next question, lol...)
~~waterdrop~~
By the way, I believe the various methods (and they can get pretty tedious and complicated!) of acclimating fish like the one you mentioned, often have to do with adjusting pH and alkalinity when you know there is a big difference and/or you know the particular species is quite sensitive to it. (this probably means I won't know the answer to your next question, lol...)
~~waterdrop~~
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
alright there steeler, we haven't heard if you made it to the store.....
OP
OP
MattM1124
Fish Fanatic
Haha..sorry! We made it to the store and the fish all seem petty happy in their new home.
I got:
6 Danio's
6 Glow lamp Tetra (I think that's what they're called. They have like a pinkish glow to them in their bodies and eyes.
2 red swordtails (I was gonna get 3 but they only had 2 left)
About my lighting situation. I got a timer but I read somewhere it's not good to turn lights on and off because it scares the fish. I wanted to have the hood light come on for maybe 4 hours in the morning and then like 4 hours or so in the evening. Would it scare the fish to say just have the bright hood light just come on all of a sudden and then back off into the pitch black and then back on again? I don't have windows in my room if you remember.
I was also considering getting 2 timers and having my lamp come on in the room inbetween the time the hood light is off. was trying to cut down on them being shocked with the bright light just coming on. Unless it really doesn't matter if they go from light to pitch black to light again.
Oh and how often should I vacuum the gravel? Every week? I'm gonna do water changes every week for sure but was unsure about the vacumming part. Also, should I remove all my plants before vacumming or just vacuum around them?
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