All Change

[gems]

Hi,

we have recently given our five Danios and two Panda Corys away so we can start our tank again. We were a bit clueless with the cycling and things weren't going that well, so we figured the best thing for the fish was give them a better home with someone else and then we could try again with fishless cycling.

We have also swapped our gravel for sand. It has been in the tank for over a day and the water is still a bit cloudy, although we can almost see to the back of the tank now. We currently have our filter running in a bucket of old aquarium water to save the good bacteria. We were wondering if we should put the filter in yet or will the remaining silt that is still in the water ruin the filter? We have also got some carbon to go in the filter, will running it with that in it help to clear the water?

Thanks

 

[garraty]

The filter should not be hurt by the silt from the sand, it may never clear by itself without a filter or some cleaning. All sand seems to be very dirty and needs to be washed more than I ever want to wash it. Go ahead and put the filter on the tank, add in ammonia and sit back and watch you water get clearer and cycled at the same time.

You can also add ammonia to the bucket and let the filter cycle where it is while you clean up the silt in the fish tank.

 

[gems]

Thanks, we'll do that. We weren't going to add ammonia until the water was cleared - apparently silty water can give inaccurate test results, but we have added some ammonia to the bucket with our filter in so that the bacteria already in it have something to feed on.

Looking forward to doing it all properly and having healthy fish!