Greetings!

[JBronsveld]

Hello everyone!

Great forum with lots of information which I have been reading for the last few days!
Finally got around to my first introduction post

I'm Jeroen from The Netherlands and I have been keeping fish for about 2,5 years now.

It all started when one night I looked a bit closer at the aquarium of my (former) mother in law and noticed the single goldfish in there wasn't doing all that well.
The fish itself looked fine but the aquarium was covered in algea and wasn't pleasant to look at.
She told me she couldn't keep it clean with water changes and what not.

Being stubborn by nature, not a believer that things can't be done and having recently purchased my own house I had the idea that I could do better.
After checking google for 5 mins and deciding that indeed I could (and would) do better we decided I would take over the aqaurium and the goldfish.

I have now been taking care of the aquarium for 2,5 years.
I have added a few more goldfish (3 total now) and some pleco's since.

One of the goldfish has exploded in size and I have named him 'Moby Dick'
The original goldfish is still alive and well and approaching 10 years (I believe).

In the beginning the pleco's even had little ones (which I think is more luck then wisdom) which was great to see.
As the goldfish grew and being unable to keep the tank looking nice (as all the plants get eaten ofc) the water levels also were getting less and less optimal.
I lost a few pleco's (the smaller ones) due to nitrate being excessively high (my own fault) and at that point decided that I might be wanting to start something new.

This is the reason I found this forum and have been actively reading the content.

My current setup is a Juwel Rio180 with a SB100 tank (around 160L in it currently).

My LFS (Local Fish Seller right?) is a great guy that would rather give me good advice and because of that sell me nothing then selling me 'stuff' that he knows will not work for long and make a quick buck.
I have asked him if he was willing to take over the goldfish and sell them to someone who can take proper care of them again (not the first kid with a fishbowl that wants a goldfish). Luckily he is the type of guy that puts the animal first and the customer second so I can savely hand the fish over to him when I have figured out what I want.

I am looking at doing a planted tropical aquarium with some aquascaping (of which I have seen plenty of awesome examples here).
The kind of fish are still a big question mark and everything is still coming together in my head (planning type of guy ).

Looking forward to reading more and getting to know the community and get some assistance where needed as this will be my first tropical aquarium.

Ps. I will be holding on to the pleco's (which I believe are 1M and 2F) since I like them and would like to give them a chance in the new aquarium with clean water and a nice amount of plants.

Ps2. When this post gets approved I have a few questions which I will post in this topic.

 

[Ltygress]

Welcome! Look forward to the questions!

I'm curious to know what type of plecos you have. It sounds like they are possibly bristlenose, which breed easily!

 

[JBronsveld]

Here are 2 pictures of the plecos. Sorry for the bad quality (quickly took them with my iphone and they were hiding).
I was thinking the one with the spikes on the nose is male and the other female.

Looking forward to know exactly what they are

As for the questions I have right now (I am sure many more will follow):

The glass window in front has a few scratches on the inside from cleaning algea in the past.
With the light reflecting from them you can see them and I was wondering if there might be something I can do about it.
Turning the tank around is not an option as the inlets and filter housing are at the back.

Secondly as I want to keep the plecos, what would be the best way to keep them untill the new tank is ready (cleaning, decor, cycling, ect)?

And thirdly I have read the article about cycling your tank which would take 5-6 weeks.
I was wondering if I could speed it up using some of the water currently in the tank/filters?

Below are the water readings taken 10 mins ago after I did a normal 25% water change (2 days ago):
Ph > Between 6.8 - 7.2
Kh > Between 6 - 10 degrees
Gh > Over 7 degrees (below 14 degrees)
No2 > 0
No3 > 100
Cl2 > 0

(Test was done using test strips)

 

[Ltygress]

Yep, that second pic definitely looks like a bristlenose pleco!

Okay, the glass part. I'm not too sure with you being in the netherlands. But here in the U.S. we have windshield repair resin that could work. But you must make sure it is ABSOLUTELY completely cured, AND clean it with vinegar afterwards.

As for keeping him, it's the same as it would be with normal fish. Plecos (unless actively breeding) prefer the mid to high 70's in temperature, so that would be about 24 to 25C. DEFINITELY give them lots of places to hide though. Almost all plecos love hiding! Make sure it's cycled, and do the normal 25% water change weekly.

As for cycling, YES! You can definitely speed it up that way! As a matter of fact, if you keep all decorations, gravel, and filter media (and keep it all WET) then the bacteria should have no problem settling in to the new aquarium. If you even keep the same tank (just simply lower the water for a while to fix the scratches) then you probably won't even need to cycle it again at all.

There is one exception. More fish = more bioload, and that means possible REcycling. So if you add a lot more fish this time around, it will have to cycle through with the new heavier load. You can avoid most of that by adding only one or two fish at a time, or adding them as really small babies. An existing biological filtration system can absorb the addition of a couple of extra fish. But if you start adding a whole tank's worth at a time, it will probably result in very high Ammonia and Nitrites again.