Hello All, Sorry It Took Me So Long To Post

[JessJr]

Hello, I am from Florence SC, and just started my 1st tank (55g) in Aug 08. I probably cycled my tank wrong, but it seems to have worked. I filled my tank on Aug 1st with filtered well water( dont know much about the filter system but its a 3 stage)and added aquasafe conditioner and aquarium salt to it and let it run for 4 days to get up to temp. 82 degrees is where I had it set. I purchased 7 Blue Fire Tail tetra from the old Wal-Mart store to use as cycle fish. I let the tank alone for 2 months, did nothing to it at all. I lost one Tetra after about 2 weeks. On Oct 7th I took a water sample to my LFS and had it tested, I was told that I needed to vaccuum the bottom and do a 25% water change. The Tank is cycled and after that I can add fish. When I went to do the water change, before I started we found one small tetra fry .5" in the tank, we checked for more and were very careful when we did the waterchange but just the one fry, we named him "Lucky". I filled my tank back up and went back to LFS to get Fish.

Stocked the following:
2 Sunburst Sailfin Mollies 1 M 2.5" 1 F 3"
6 Black Mollies found out I had 5 M and 1 F all 2"
1 Red/Orange Mollie F 2"
5 Platy's all F 1" - 1.5"
4 SwordTails 1M 3 F all about 2"
1 Leopard Pleco

I set up a water change schedual that I am still using(wife thinks its to much) I am doing a water change every 4 days

Day 4 25%
Day 8 25%
Day 12 40% and clean filter #1
Day 16 25%
Day 20 25%
Day 24 40% and clean filter #2
then start over.

The day after I added the fish I had sail fin fry, 2 days later I had swordtail fry and black mollie fry. I ended up buying 3 more 20g tanks to keep the fry in.
35 sailfin fry
50+ swordtail Fry
50+ black mollie fry

I traded all the fry back into the LFS for credit gave the 20 g tanks to my daughter along with the 4 swordtails and the 4 black mollie males (I kept one that looked the best)

I rearranged my tank to make a good hiding place for fry( stacked rocks, java moss and some fake swordtails)

I was told that the salt would hurt my pleco so for the last 3 water changes I havent been adding any and slowly diluting it.

my test readings yesterday were as follows

Nitrate NO3 0-20ppm
Nitrite NO2 0 ppm
GH 75-150 ppm
KH 40-80 ppm
PH 7.2

Do these seem ok?

My tank is stocked as follows now

7 Blue Firetail tetra
2 Sunburst Sailfin Mollies
2 black mollies
1 red/orange mollie
5 Platy's
1 Leopard Pleco
and added 9 half black yellow fantail guppies 3 m 6 f and had one guppie fry in the bag.
and atleast 3 mollie fry could be more but letting mother nature take over for survival of the fittest

 

[chesterscot]

to tff
scot

 

[Nick16]

hi and welcome, sounds like you have done your research,
1) tap water stats are fine
2) well done on having more females to males (livebearers)
3) i do 2 water changes a week, normally 20-25%.
4) did you wash the filter media in tank water?
5) you didnt need to buy so many tanks, all the fry could have gone in one 20g untill they get to a good enough size to sell or return to shop.

 

[JessJr]

hi and welcome, sounds like you have done your research,
1) tap water stats are fine
2) well done on having more females to males (livebearers)
3) i do 2 water changes a week, normally 20-25%.
4) did you wash the filter media in tank water?
5) you didnt need to buy so many tanks, all the fry could have gone in one 20g untill they get to a good enough size to sell or return to shop.

I only clean one in the tank. I end up with 6 changes in 24 days with 2 being 40% changes and 4 being 25% changes

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome JessJr. That water change frequency is more than enough to keep up the tanks. I cannot criticise overdoing water changes because many problems can be traced to not enough water changes but I would not do that many myself for your stocking level. Unless your mollies were raised in a brackish environment, they don't need salt. What mollies do need, in general, is high levels of dissolved solids and a relatively high pH. Your water I would characterize as moderate but not high in pH or hardness. It may be that you want to add something to raise those values such as crushed shells. In general, plecos can survive in hard water like a molly would like so that would not be a problem. Mollies don't need the extremes that you would find in an african rift lake tank but would probably do OK in one.

 

[Truck]

once the tank is fully cycled you can start to do 20% weekly water changes. and then 30% fornightly changes

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

I never see the point of doing 25% water changes unless you're really just doing it to clean the gravel (which is a valid reason) - I aim for 75% every week or every 2 weeks if the tank's nitrates are low. No reason to do extra work. It seems I'm constantly cleaning my filters (I put a sponge on the intake pipe since I have so much plant debris.

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

Oh and welcome and you obviously are doing something right for all that breeding success. Congratulations!

 

[Colin_T]

don't get to excited about this thread, it's from 2008