Help Ideas And Options

[Ginga@139]

Good morning every body .. only joined this morning,
My Daughter was given a tank and bits ages ago , well begin of summer
its 65L tank came with interpet PF2 power filter 100watt heating system
pot of tap safe and bottle of filter start, all brand new in box
Had to say thanks when my freinds gave it to here
then it made it way to loft
anyhow

Got it down last week

Last friday 10th got out box
clean it
we bought load gravel , washed it
filled tank
added tapsafe
have been adding filter stuff about 2ml every other day

so the questions now start
what do i do from here
when can i put fish in
wat would people recommend
who many , when
....

As i side note my daughter is 4
so its not going to be her problems just her heart break, so would like to get this as right as i can

would prefer decent size fish not huge not small preferablly with bit of colour

So help please

thanks for reading my ramblings at 8.30 in the morning

Every body have great day

 

[glolite]

Hiya and welcome to the forums

When you say you are adding filter stuff what do you mean?

Basically you need to be adding ammonia to set off a cycle so that your new filter begins to work and produce a good bacteria which colonises the tank to make it safe for any fish. Fish produce waste which makes ammonia but this builds up and poisons the fish unless you do water changes, so it's better to add ammonia not fish if you see what I mean.

Read the fishless cycling section in the 'New to the hobby' section for full details. It's at the top of the page, pinned article 'Beginners resource section'.

Good luck

 

[arobinson1984]

Agree with glolite here,

The filter, as it comes out of the box isnt ready to safely use to keep fish healthy. It needs to go through what is called a cycle.

Basically as glolite said, fish create waste which causes ammonia. Now ammonia is poisonous to fish so the filter needs beneficial bacteria in it to be able to break down the ammonia and detoxify it as it were.

A basic cycle goes:

Fish create ammonia (poisonous) ---> Ammonia gets changed into nitrITES (also poisonous) ---> nitrITES get changed into nitrATES (no where near as poisonous except in large amounts)
So a cycle over 4-6 weeks gradually creates the benficial bacteria to change ammonia to nitrite then to nitrate.

I know it must seem confusing but its really not that bad.

Now a cycle needs a source of ammonia to be able to start, there are 2 ways of doing a cycle:

A fish-in cycle where you put fish in the tank and the fish waste (ammonia) kick starts the cycle. When doing a fish in cycle you'd be putting the fishes health at risk and would probably need to do 2/3 water changes a day for about 6 weeks in that size tank so this probably woundnt be the best option with the feelings of a 4 year old to consider lol

A fishless cycle, basically you would need some household ammonia which you use as a substitute for the fish waste to kick start the cycle, this way is much less work, obviously with no fish it means no health risks but the only downside would be looking at an empty tank for 4-6 weeks lol but that can be a good time to use for researching fish you want, plants, decorating tank etc etc

Read the links given below and you will get a better insight into the whole cycle process:

Whats cycling?
The Nitrogen Cycle
Fish-In Cycling
Fishless Cycling <--- Recommended

If you know anybody with an established fish tank, you can use a little bit of their filter media which will speed up the process of the cycle.

Couple of things you will need:

A bottle of water conditioner that removes chlorine and chloramine from tap water
A good liquid based test kit (the recommend choice by many is the API freshwater master kit) make sure you get freshwater and not saltwater version
A gravel vac

Hope this helps a little, better stop writing now as my arms starting to ache lol

Dont be afraid to ask any questions, there are many very knowledgable members on this forum who are happy to help

Andy