Cycle A New Tank With Gold Fish?

[restricted_alchemy]

I have one existing tropical tank (about 6 weeks old - fully cycled).

What's the best way to get my new 2nd tank cycled and ready? I intend to try using water from water changes in the existing tank.

Would putting a couple of gold fish ing (because they're hardy?) be a better idea than taking a couple of my existing tropical fish.

My existing tank has:

• 4 X Cardinal tetra
• 6 X Black Phantom Tetra
• 2 X Red Rainbow
• 2 X Red Sailfin
• 6 X Panda Cory
• 2 X Golden Algae Eater
• 2 X Chinese Algae Eater

If I were to use one or more of my existing fish, which would tolerate a cycling tank best?

Many thanks in advance.

Mike

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The best way to cycle the tank would be to either do a fishless cycle (see http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=73365 ), or to clone the tank.
To clone a tank all you do is stick the filter for the new tank and put it in your existing tank and let it run for 2 weeks alongside your current tank filter- squeezing some of the muck from your old tank filter into the new one will also help a great deal. After 2 weeks of running alongside your old tank filter, the new one should be cycled and you can move it into the new tank with the fish you want to go into the new tank (you must move the filter and the fish into the new tank at the same time though).
Either fishless cycling or cloning the tank will take a lot quicker to do than cycling the tank with fish and will be a lot less stressful for the fish involved .

I have to warn you though that your algae eaters (also known as Chinese Algae Eaters/CAE's) are very territorial fish towards their own kind and will certainly kill each other as they mature if you keep more than one in the same tank, so i would advise either rehoming 2-3 of them or setting up a total of 4-5 tanks. You may also face issues with your red sailfin pleco and the CAE's as CAE's are generally pretty intolerant of other bottom dwelling fish and can become pretty violent towards them, particularly as the CAE matures, so its not advisable to keep them with other bottom dwelling fish like plecos, corys, loaches etc.
Are you aware how large your sailfin may grow to as well? Many people are not aware of how large these fish can grow when they buy them;

http/www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/speci...?species_id=148

At the bare minimum you will need a 5ftx18"x18" tank if you plan on keeping this fish in the long term, but if your sailfin turns out to be one of the larger growing varieties, at least a 6x2x2ft tank is advised. For keeping CAE's, i would advise at least a 35gallon long tank (they usually grow to 8-10inches long on average) and keep them only with small quick and identicle shoaling fish and critters like shrimps.

Just letting you know these things so you can prepare for the future with your fish easier .

 

[restricted_alchemy]

Thanks for the info.

 

[mark.w.jones]

I do have an issue with the filter clone procedure. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1. Currently their are a finely balanced number of bacteria in the mature tanks filter which can live off of the waste produced by the current stock. So if you reduce the number of fish then bacteria will die back and vice versa.
2. Surely if you add a second filter to this tank then a large number of the original bacteria will die off as new bacteria colonise the new filter.
3. Eventually though you will reach a happy equalibrium in the tank and there will be a roughly 50:50 split of bacteria in both filters who can live off the waste being produced by the stock in that tank.
4. But then, you remove one of the filters (about half of the bacteria in that tank). Won't this cause an ammonia spike until new bacteria grow to cope with the stock again? I know that bacteria multiply fast but you may have problems, especially with sensitive fish / inverts.
5. Your new cloned filter goes into your new tank with surely not enough bacteria to fully stock your new tank. Would it not have been better to have fishless cycled the new filter and tank using some of the existing media from the mature filter.

Any thoughts?

 

[rdd1952]

You can generally remove half the bacteria in a tank safely. Nitrifying bacteria can double in about 24 hours so if you remove half, the colony will be back to full size in about 24 hours or less. As for cloning the tank, to me, the easiest way is to simply remove half the media from the current filter (replace it with new media) and place it in the new filter. It's lot quicker than running the new filter for 2 weeks in the old tank.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

there is a 50/50 split that you talk of jonesyUK, but with a mature bacteria colony it will multiply back up to the normal levels within 24hrs apparently.

think it's one of those things that;s a theoretical risk to your bacteria colony but is highly unlikely to cause any real issues.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

1. Currently their are a finely balanced number of bacteria in the mature tanks filter which can live off of the waste produced by the current stock. So if you reduce the number of fish then bacteria will die back and vice versa.

Yes you wouldn't reduce the amount of fish in the tank while you were cloning the filter bacteria. You would run the new filter alongside the old one in the old tank with the old stocking, you would only move the fish to the new tank once the new filter has finished the cloning process.

2. Surely if you add a second filter to this tank then a large number of the original bacteria will die off as new bacteria colonise the new filter.

3. Eventually though you will reach a happy equalibrium in the tank and there will be a roughly 50:50 split of bacteria in both filters who can live off the waste being produced by the stock in that tank.

4. But then, you remove one of the filters (about half of the bacteria in that tank). Won't this cause an ammonia spike until new bacteria grow to cope with the stock again? I know that bacteria multiply fast but you may have problems, especially with sensitive fish / inverts.

5. Your new cloned filter goes into your new tank with surely not enough bacteria to fully stock your new tank. Would it not have been better to have fishless cycled the new filter and tank using some of the existing media from the mature filter.

The ammount of beneficial bacteria the filter can hold is actually mostly determined not just by the ammonia/waste produced by the fish in the tank i.e. the bioload, but rather a large factor in determing how much beneficial bacteria the filter can have largely depends on the surface area of the filters sponges, the water flow going through the filter, and the amount of decomposing waste in the filter.

There are two main types of filter sponges when it comes to filtration in tanks- very fine/dense sponges, and sponges which have lots of large holes and are not very dense. The dense sponges are best for biological filtration because with all the small holes in the sponge, they provide a lot of surface area for the bacteria to colonise. However these sponges are not very good for the mechanical filtration of the tank (i.e. removing waste from the tank), and so the large holed sponges are best for mechanical filtration.
Combining these two types of sponges in a filter offers the best filtration as it maximises the waste removal abilities and the bacteria growing abilities of the filter.

When you have two filters in the tank, the bacteria in the tank should not be equally halfed between the filters because of these factors and it will simply take advantage of the new surface area the new filter has to offer for it to grow on. If this guy is planning on splitting his stocking once the new filter is established with bacteria, then it should not matter either way.
The only circumstances you would ever fully and quickly stock a tank is straight after a fishless cycle- and you would only do this as soon as the cycle has finished, as once the tank has been left to run with fish for a couple of months, the excessive levels of bacteria in the filter from the fishless cycle would have gone down to normal levels. Cloning a tank tank allows the tank to be cycled quickly and allows you to stock it to about half to 2 thirds full depending on how long the filter has been left in the established tank for. You would stock fish carefully and gradually after the initial ones have gone in and got accustomed to being in the tank, this would go for any tank which is cycled or established (as even if you add fish to an established/mature tank of 6months or more, regardless of how it was cycled, if you add too many at once you could cause it to mini-cycle).
Cloning tanks speeds the cycling process up a lot since you are not having to start a fish tank and filter off from scratch with no beneficial bacteria, but rather borrow a lot of beneficial bacteria from an existing established filter to kick start the cycle and mature the new filter quickly. Fishless cycling basically involes swamping the filter with pure ammonia in levels that would kill most fish, speading up the bacteria establishing process by giving it a glut of ammonia to live off and quickly reproduce off.

 

[restricted_alchemy]

Hi,

I put the filter in the tank with the old one and turned the venturi valve to blow bubbles through the water. About 3 hours later all the fish had gone very pale. The red rainbow was brown (something he seems to do when he's not happy), the cardinal tetras had lost nearly all their red and the black phantom's where almost translucent, loosing nearly all their black.

I assumed this might be due to over agitation of the water or stress due to change. I turned off the filter last night and now have it running with no bubbles and they have returned to normal colouring. One of the cardinal tetras has died this morning though. I've since turned the flow rate on the new filter right down.

I'm wondering if this is coincidence or the straw that broke the camel's back as it were, because I added some new panda corys last weekend and some algae eaters too.

Furthermore, apparantly the water here (Middlesex/West London) is very hard (180pm GH and 240ppm KH)
I was becomming content that my new tank was running well and all the fish were happy, to the point where I'm preparing another tank for some bigger fish. Now i'm starting to wonder though

Currently the tank has:

6 X black phantom (all seem happy and have grown a lot)
2 X red rainbow (one is usually light beige/goldish colour and the other varies between a rich red and dull brown depending on mood. These are growing too)
2 X red sailfin (haven't grown but seem happy playing together, very good appetite)
3 X cardinal tetra (originally 6, two died on 3rd week of cycling one died this morning)
6 X panda corys (I think they eat flake from the gravel, I was wondering if I should be getting catfish pellets or similar?)
2 X chinese algae eater
2 x golden algae eater
I also had a red claw crab initially which died after cycling completed.


All of the above were selected with a member of the shop, most when the tank was new (the shop knew that as they tested my water).

I had a fair bit of algage when the AE's were added and they cleared it all in a little over 24 hours! The golden ones seem to be getting bigger, the chinese ones don't as yet. I've reduced the amount the light is on now from 11 hours to 9.

I feed the fish daphnia once a week which they gobble up very quickly.

Any advice would be appreciated. At the moment i'm wondering:

Should I move the algae eaters to a new tank, perhaps the one I eventually intend to put clown loaches in?
Is the water simply too hard for cardinals? I'd like to buy another 7 to keep the total at 10 but won't if they are just not going to do well in my tank.

P.S. I've regularly tested the water and it is now consistantly 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite and 20-40 ppm Nitrate. I do a 25/30% water change weekly by siphoning dirt out of the gravel. I use dechlorinator and match the tanks temperature before adding it. Substrate is course gravel, there are various plants and some bogwood.

Any advice greatly appreciated

Mike

 

[vinylman]

Cardinals do much better in a tank that been cycled AND matured; I wouldn't add Cardinals or Neon Tetras until a tank has matured for a good 5-6 weeks after cycling. Adding water from your existing tank to your new one won't do a thing, unfortunately; the required bacteria don't live in the water itself. As has been pointed out, the quickest way would be to add filter material from an existing filter to the one in the new tank.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

How many gallons is this tank and what are its dimensions (length/width/height)? What is the ph of your tank too?
You will have to rehome a lot of the CAE's as before mentioned, they will become particularly agressive towards each other as they mature- they will also eat less and less algae as they mature too as their diet becomes a lot more protein orientated as they mature.
Is the daphinia all you feed the fish?

 

[restricted_alchemy]

How many gallons is this tank and what are its dimensions (length/width/height)? What is the ph of your tank too?
You will have to rehome a lot of the CAE's as before mentioned, they will become particularly agressive towards each other as they mature- they will also eat less and less algae as they mature too as their diet becomes a lot more protein orientated as they mature.
Is the daphinia all you feed the fish?

.
The tank is 18 gallons I believe 24" x 14" x 15". The ph is 7-7.5. I feed them daphnia once a week but nutrafin tropical fish flakes twice a day. I've also fed them brine shrimp but they seem to be more enthusiastic about the daphnia.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

How many gallons is this tank and what are its dimensions (length/width/height)? What is the ph of your tank too?
You will have to rehome a lot of the CAE's as before mentioned, they will become particularly agressive towards each other as they mature- they will also eat less and less algae as they mature too as their diet becomes a lot more protein orientated as they mature.
Is the daphinia all you feed the fish?

.
The tank is 18 gallons I believe 24" x 14" x 15". The ph is 7-7.5. I feed them daphnia once a week but nutrafin tropical fish flakes twice a day. I've also fed them brine shrimp but they seem to be more enthusiastic about the daphnia.

Yeah its more or less 18 UK gals and 20 US gals;

Dimensions 61 x 36 x 38cm/24" x 14" x 15
Surface area 0.22 sqm/2.37 sq ft/ inches sq in
Volume 83 l./18 gal. (21.93 US gal.)
Probable volume 75 l./16 gal. (20 US gal.)


What are the dimensions of the new tank?



With the sailfin plecos, they'll grow about 1inch per month until they get to about 8inches long, where their growth will slow down a bit.
If you are planning on keeping the sailfins, i would advise aiming to get a 6x2x2ft tank by the time the sailfins grow to 7inches long (by which time they will have outgrown your current tank). If you do not see yourself getting such a large tank anytime soon, i would advise rehoming the sailfins. Upgrading to a 50-60gal tank will allow you to keep the sailfins for a lot longer and allow you to hold off getting such a large tank anytime soon.
Sailfins are generally very peaceful fish, but like common plecos they may become territorial towards each other as they mature- whether this happens or not varies a great deal on the individual pleco. With my common and sailfin plecos, they grew so territorial towards each other as they matured, i had to get them their own tank each.

Diet-wise, i would advise feeding the sailfins and the CAE's algae wafers/tablets on a daily basis while you have them, and feed them catfish pelets (which tend to have more protein) every now and then. Cucumber makes a great food for plecos and loaches like yours, simply slice it down the middle and use something to weight it down and your CAE's and plecos will appreciate it very much- it can be left in the tank for around 24hrs (sometimes more depending on the state of the cucumber after 24hrs in the tank water).
Cooked prawns, squid or mussels can be fed once a fortnight, and like the cucucumber they will need to weighted down with something so they don't float.

Do you feed dried, frozen or live daphinia to the fish?

 

[restricted_alchemy]

How many gallons is this tank and what are its dimensions (length/width/height)? What is the ph of your tank too?
You will have to rehome a lot of the CAE's as before mentioned, they will become particularly agressive towards each other as they mature- they will also eat less and less algae as they mature too as their diet becomes a lot more protein orientated as they mature.
Is the daphinia all you feed the fish?

.
The tank is 18 gallons I believe 24" x 14" x 15". The ph is 7-7.5. I feed them daphnia once a week but nutrafin tropical fish flakes twice a day. I've also fed them brine shrimp but they seem to be more enthusiastic about the daphnia.

Yeah its more or less 18 UK gals and 20 US gals;

Dimensions 61 x 36 x 38cm/24" x 14" x 15
Surface area 0.22 sqm/2.37 sq ft/ inches sq in
Volume 83 l./18 gal. (21.93 US gal.)
Probable volume 75 l./16 gal. (20 US gal.)


What are the dimensions of the new tank?



With the sailfin plecos, they'll grow about 1inch per month until they get to about 8inches long, where their growth will slow down a bit.
If you are planning on keeping the sailfins, i would advise aiming to get a 6x2x2ft tank by the time the sailfins grow to 7inches long (by which time they will have outgrown your current tank). If you do not see yourself getting such a large tank anytime soon, i would advise rehoming the sailfins. Upgrading to a 50-60gal tank will allow you to keep the sailfins for a lot longer and allow you to hold off getting such a large tank anytime soon.
Sailfins are generally very peaceful fish, but like common plecos they may become territorial towards each other as they mature- whether this happens or not varies a great deal on the individual pleco. With my common and sailfin plecos, they grew so territorial towards each other as they matured, i had to get them their own tank each.

Diet-wise, i would advise feeding the sailfins and the CAE's algae wafers/tablets on a daily basis while you have them, and feed them catfish pelets (which tend to have more protein) every now and then. Cucumber makes a great food for plecos and loaches like yours, simply slice it down the middle and use something to weight it down and your CAE's and plecos will appreciate it very much- it can be left in the tank for around 24hrs (sometimes more depending on the state of the cucumber after 24hrs in the tank water).
Cooked prawns, squid or mussels can be fed once a fortnight, and like the cucucumber they will need to weighted down with something so they don't float.

Do you feed dried, frozen or live daphinia to the fish?

The new tank is 3ft x 12 x 12 which I think makes it about 23 UK Gallons. I discovered that the fish were being harassed by the rainbows in the old tank so moved them to the new one, which also now has 3 clown loaches too. I'll get a bigger tank for the loaches when they get a bit bigger.

Perhaps i'm incorrect about the species I have. They were labeled sailfins but i've seen no growth and they don't look quite like the pictures in the link from before. See picture below (poor quality sorry!)


Pic of "Sailfin"?

The daphnia I feed are live. For the clown loaches I've got a couple of different froen foods advised by the LFS, one of which is Artemis, also catfish pellets.

Thanks for the tips on the ucumber/ prawn - I knew crabs ate this but not the algae eaters etc.

 

[-SPB-]

The best way to cycle the tank would be to either do a fishless cycle (see http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=73365 ), or to clone the tank.
To clone a tank all you do is stick the filter for the new tank and put it in your existing tank and let it run for 2 weeks alongside your current tank filter- squeezing some of the muck from your old tank filter into the new one will also help a great deal. After 2 weeks of running alongside your old tank filter, the new one should be cycled and you can move it into the new tank with the fish you want to go into the new tank (you must move the filter and the fish into the new tank at the same time though).
Either fishless cycling or cloning the tank will take a lot quicker to do than cycling the tank with fish and will be a lot less stressful for the fish involved .

I have to warn you though that your algae eaters (also known as Chinese Algae Eaters/CAE's) are very territorial fish towards their own kind and will certainly kill each other as they mature if you keep more than one in the same tank, so i would advise either rehoming 2-3 of them or setting up a total of 4-5 tanks. You may also face issues with your red sailfin pleco and the CAE's as CAE's are generally pretty intolerant of other bottom dwelling fish and can become pretty violent towards them, particularly as the CAE matures, so its not advisable to keep them with other bottom dwelling fish like plecos, corys, loaches etc.
Are you aware how large your sailfin may grow to as well? Many people are not aware of how large these fish can grow when they buy them;

http/www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/speci...?species_id=148

At the bare minimum you will need a 5ftx18"x18" tank if you plan on keeping this fish in the long term, but if your sailfin turns out to be one of the larger growing varieties, at least a 6x2x2ft tank is advised. For keeping CAE's, i would advise at least a 35gallon long tank (they usually grow to 8-10inches long on average) and keep them only with small quick and identicle shoaling fish and critters like shrimps.

Just letting you know these things so you can prepare for the future with your fish easier .

I'm new to this fishkeeping but got a tank with a 3 chinese algae eaters in. I had to get rid of them because they started fighting with other fish. Also, once they get older or about 5inches in length they start to develop a taste for other fish, it may be worth giving them back to your lfs in the long run as they will no doubt cause trouble in your tank as they did mine.

 

[restricted_alchemy]

Here's a couple of pictures of my old/new tanks.

Old tank:

New tank:

Clown loach in new tank: