Help... Please

[Jay1983]

Hi I have been using this website for information for a few months now and it has been really helpful, so thank you. I have finally decided to start posting now to make sure what I am doing is correct and that my fish will live a long healthy life.

I have a 110l tank which I fully cycled before adding fish this process took about 4 weeks as I used some 'mature' media for my filter from a friends tank (the cycling was done with the aid of this site!) the tank is well planted and has bogwood and 3 big pebbles. My stocking is 10 fire tetra's, 6 sparkling gouramis, 5 black phantoms (did buy 6 but 1 died within a few hours of being introduced to the tank),2 clown plecs and a female ram (will be getting a male soon), the fish were all introduced over a period of time and the water stats have always been good with them all reading 0. The tank has had fish in it for 5 months now with the female ram going in about 2 weeks ago everything seems healthy and happy.

Is my stocking ok? do I have to many fish for the size of tank? at the moment I have the standard internal juwel filter which came with the tank but I have ordered a fluval 205 external filter(was this a good idea!!!?) I do a 15-20% water change prob about every 3 days, is that overkill???

Thank you in advance

James

 

[Duz]

Well seems like your tank is doing well at the minute so well done to you on that point Personally, I would start making the water changes slightly further apart, try and stretch them out so you only need to do them once a week. I would do this gradually to help the maintain the water balance, next do a change at 4 days, then at 5, then at 6 then at 7 and keep it at 7. That way you won't have to do them so frequently, so you might find it easier if you have a busy life. Saying that, I would still keep them at around 15-20%.

As for you buying the fluval 205 external filter, that doesn't really matter. Juwel will provide a big enough interal filter to do the job, however it does mean more cleaning/replacing of sponges. External filters lower the amount of maintaince they need, it is down to personal choice and doesn't really matter, they should both be good enough to clean the tank. If you are coming up to 5months you may want to think about changing some of the sponges, but if you are getting this external filter that will replace the sponges. Overall, looks like your doing well, keep it up

 

[fluttermoth]

Hi Jay; welcome to the forum (sort of anyway). Glad we've been of help and it's nice to have you talking

Your stocking sounds fine to me. I don't think you have too many fish; in fact I think you could probably up your black phantoms to 10 or twelve as well as adding a male ram (if you want to; rams don't always get on and I used to have a female ram that was very aggressive, so do watch them).

More filtration (as long as you avoid the washing machine effect!) is usually a good thing; just make sure you use all the media from the Juwel filter when you change over.

I don't consider any water change regime as overkill, but you could probably ease back a bit; maybe do a larger one less often? I always think (but I've got bigger tanks!) that while I've got the hoses and stuff out I might as well do 50/60% and then I don't have to bother for another week or ten days, but it's up to you; if smaller more frequent changes are easier for you, it's not a problem as long as your water's good.

I would check that you're doing your nitrite test properly though; it's very, very rare for a tank to have zero nitrates; even(!) mine have between 5 and 10ppm.

If you are coming up to 5months you may want to think about changing some of the sponges,

Why?!

There's no need to ever change filter sponges, unless they're falling to pieces; but I've got sponges that have been in almost constant use for 15/20 years and they're fine

 

[Duz]

Juwel recommend changing the filters every so often, I notice in my tank that the polywool pads don't always catch 100% of the dirt but more like 98% so I clean them every now and again and change them every so often. Juwel say that the polywool pads are meant to be changed every 1-2 weeks. Coarse blue sponges every 4-6 months, fine blue sponges every 6-9 months. Carbon every month and nitrate every 3 months.

External filters work slightly differently, in the fact they don't need to be cleaned as often (all the dirt will stay in the external filter). However, with an internal filter the dirt won't always stay there, some bits will move into the aquarium. Ok we are talking about really small bits, but some dirt won't be broken down and so will have to be removed.

I will just state this is the recommendation by Juwel (I have a sheet somewhere with how often you are meant to change the sponges), but I will agree that the sponges can last a lot longer.

 

[fluttermoth]

The only reason manufacturers say that is to get more money off you! I do agree about the polywool/floss type stuff, ys, but the others will go on practically forever.

There's no point using the carbon or nitrate ones; you'd be better off with more normal ones

 

[KISSfn]

+1 fluttermoth!

 

[Duz]

I don't use the carbon/nitrate sponges, unless I am removing meditcation in which case I will use carbon. My fine sponges don't really get replaced until like you said they fall apart. However, my coarse ones do as like I said earlier the polywool pads don't collect all of the dirt and some of the it ends up on the coarse pads so they get replaced roughly once a year.

 

[Jay1983]

Thank you for the quick replies!!! my nitrite test sheet only goes from 0.1 ---> 3.3mg/L it is when tested usually the 0.1 or slightly less so me saying '0' was a tad wrong sorry.

Yes I will make sure I use the filter sponges from the internal filter thanks

My Phantoms do not seem to shoal together it seems they (especially the 2 males) have taken little territories in the tank... is this normal? The Gouramis seem to make a clicking sound which is pretty cool

Again thank you for the replies most appreciated, may go and get some more black phantoms today!!

Cheers
James

 

[This Old Spouse]

"my nitrite test sheet only goes from 0.1 ---> 3.3mg/L it is when tested usually the 0.1 or slightly less so me saying '0' was a tad wrong sorry."


If I can add my two cents' here ... I'd suggest you get yourself a liquid pro test kit like API so you can be more confident with your results.

 

[Jay1983]

"my nitrite test sheet only goes from 0.1 ---> 3.3mg/L it is when tested usually the 0.1 or slightly less so me saying '0' was a tad wrong sorry."


If I can add my two cents' here ... I'd suggest you get yourself a liquid pro test kit like API so you can be more confident with your results.

It's a liquid test... a nutrafin 1... thats all the shop had when i got it

 

[Randi]

For a lot of fish, shoaling is a defense mechanism. They make themselves look bigger when threatened. If your tetras are not shoaling I would say it is a sign that they are comfortable in the tank. My serpaes only shoal when I am in the tank rearranging decorations or something.

 

[Caprichoso]

Hi I have been using this website for information for a few months now and it has been really helpful, so thank you. I have finally decided to start posting now to make sure what I am doing is correct and that my fish will live a long healthy life.

I have a 110l tank which I fully cycled before adding fish this process took about 4 weeks as I used some 'mature' media for my filter from a friends tank (the cycling was done with the aid of this site!) the tank is well planted and has bogwood and 3 big pebbles. My stocking is 10 fire tetra's, 6 sparkling gouramis, 5 black phantoms (did buy 6 but 1 died within a few hours of being introduced to the tank),2 clown plecs and a female ram (will be getting a male soon), the fish were all introduced over a period of time and the water stats have always been good with them all reading 0. The tank has had fish in it for 5 months now with the female ram going in about 2 weeks ago everything seems healthy and happy.

Is my stocking ok? do I have to many fish for the size of tank? at the moment I have the standard internal juwel filter which came with the tank but I have ordered a fluval 205 external filter(was this a good idea!!!?) I do a 15-20% water change prob about every 3 days, is that overkill???

Thank you in advance

James

Your water changes are not overkill but to make it easier, I would do the water change once per week at 50%. Your fish will be happy and healthy with that.

 

[Jay1983]

I have added 6 more black phantoms (was after 5 to make up to 10 but they were buy 5 get 1 free sooo...),this seems to have drawn most of the older phantoms from out of the plants and into the open

 

[Jay1983]

Hi all!

thanks again for the replies and help.... I decided to change my substrate to sand (i'm really glad I did) it's still not finished I want to get some Amazon sword plants to go behind the Java fern at the back. Please let me know what you think and any ways to improve.

Jay

 

[maisy12345]

Hi ,that tank looks bigger than 11ol ,what are the dimensions?