Lots Of Newbie Questions

[fishtodd]

Hi everyone! I've set up my first ever tank. It's a Fluval 190 corner aquarium with a fluval 205 filter and a couple of T5 25W lights. The tank holds 174 liters. It's been running for 3 weeks now. I have added rocks, wood and 7 live plants. Initially i was going to wit a good 5-6 weeks before introducing fish slowly however after a week and a half a friend gave me 10 of his fish. Basically he was 'giving up' his tank so i took them. I had already done a few water changes and added the bacteria stuff to kick start the tank (not 100% sure this is approved by all you experts?). I also added around 5 liters of his aquarium water to my tank.
Anyway the fish i added were 2 x peral danios, 2 x leopard danios, 2 x dwarf danios (i think), 3 x gold barbs and 1 x a red and black molly (not 100% sure on this either but the molly is the closest looking fish i can find to what i have). All fish are currently doing/looking really well. Infact they have a lot more space now than in their old tank. Last weekend i also added 6 x neon tetras. So far so good but i have the following (probably dumb) questions:

1. I currently have an air pump which pumps bubbles up from a rock that i bought. However this seems to pump quite a lot of air out and hence there is a lot of water movement. The danios seems to love it but the tetras don't seem to keen. Eventually i want to regulate this but I have yet to buy a regulator. Can i just turn it off for the time being or will the water not receive enough dissolved oxygen?
2. My plants (some of them) are developing brown patches. Is this normal or is it because i don't have any CO2 or because they are not true aquarium plants? I don't know the names of any of these plants so i don't know if i've been sold true aquarium plants or not. I have added Nutrafin Plant Gro weekly.
3. How many more fish could i add to my tank? With 174 litrers and 16 small(ish) fish I would like to add more but i don't want to overstock.
4. Finally a general observation is that their seem to be lots of contradictions for keeping fish, plants etc. Is it just a learn as you go hobby is there some kind of fish bible i should follow?

Many thanks in advance for any answers to the above/info you can give me!

 

[doresy]

before investing in any more fish, i would seriously think of getting a water test kit. |The freash water master kit is one of the better ones

 

[fishtodd]

before investing in any more fish, i would seriously think of getting a water test kit. |The freash water master kit is one of the better ones

Sorry I forgot to add that the last water test i did (1 week ago) came up with the following;

pH = 7.0 to 7.5 9close to 7.0)
NH3 Ammonia = 0
NO3 Nitrate = 20
NO2 Nitrite = 0.1 to 0.3 9(closer to 0.1)

I will carry out another test tomorrow

 

[Neo8223]

Hi and welcome to TFF!

Right, i'm not the best aquariast and most of my knowledge has been learned by mistakes.

In terms of the bacteria, this stuff does work although i have personally not used it. When you are trying to get the bacteria in the tank, you are actually trying to get your filter to get bacteria to perform the nirtogen cycle. (Basically, fish poo, decaying matter... etc etc. produces ammonia. This in high amounts is deadly to your fish. This ammonia is then broken down to nitrites. This is also bad for your fish. Once it turns ino nitrites, it is broken into nitrates, which is less harmful to your tank and the final part to the nitrogen cycle. This is what you intend to remove when doing a partial water change.)

As your tank is absolutely huge and well understocked, i dont think that you will be too affected by your tank getting a huge ammonia spike... although it could happen as all your plants seem to be dieing, which brings me onto my second paragraph.

Your tank is about 46 gallons. To give your fish a fighting chance of survival, you want to have roughly double the amount of wattage of light, to that of gallons of water. Therefore, you want about 90 watts, and a reflector for all of these aswell. A rough guide of lighting levels is about 6-8 hours a day. With this amount of lighting and the CO2, you shouldnt get a very big algae problem, although you do want some fast growers in your tank. Two plants that come to mind are:

Hornwart
Wysteria

Another way of sorting out the algae is to employee pleccos. Brisslenose plecs are good for that and they will not out grow your tank at all

I am always being a culprit of overstocking my tank, so i cant give you the answer to the amount of fish you should have lol.

Finally, i'm not too sure if there is a big fish bible to follow, but as long as you feed your fish GOOD QUALITY flakes, dont over feed but also give live treats every now and then, it is a good step forward. Your external fluval 205 filter is pretty decent and i believe it is more than capable of cleaning your tank. clean your filter once every 3-4 weeks (with the current level of fish you have) with FISH TANK water, so to not kill the bacteria mentioned earlier, but also clean the gravel using a gravel vacume. Try to change 20% of the water every week, using aquasafe or equivilence and do water tests every now and then to check water parameters. You are mainly aiming for ammonia = 0, nitrite = 0, nitrate... (Ok i forgotten, but someone else can fill in that 1) You can test these water parameters by using water testing kits, easilly available from your local fish store (LFS) or if not, then ebay is your good ole friend This may all sound dauntingly long, but if you are anything like me, then you will be a fishaholic and wont mind at all!

Hope this helps. Any more questions, just ask

enjoy

 

[Neo8223]

whoops, didnt see your water parameters.

I'd do a water change as your nitrites could do with neutralising. It seems as if your tank is practically cycled in terms of the nitrogen cycle, but still it might not be at full strength, so i would leave it about a week before adding another couple of fish, so your tank can settle.

 

[fishlette]

Hi and welcome to TFF!

Right, i'm not the best aquariast and most of my knowledge has been learned by mistakes.

In terms of the bacteria, this stuff does work although i have personally not used it. When you are trying to get the bacteria in the tank, you are actually trying to get your filter to get bacteria to perform the nirtogen cycle. (Basically, fish poo, decaying matter... etc etc. produces ammonia. This in high amounts is deadly to your fish. This ammonia is then broken down to nitrites. This is also bad for your fish. Once it turns ino nitrites, it is broken into nitrates, which is less harmful to your tank and the final part to the nitrogen cycle. This is what you intend to remove when doing a partial water change.)

As your tank is absolutely huge and well understocked, i dont think that you will be too affected by your tank getting a huge ammonia spike... although it could happen as all your plants seem to be dieing, which brings me onto my second paragraph.

Your tank is about 46 gallons. To give your fish a fighting chance of survival, you want to have roughly double the amount of wattage of light, to that of gallons of water. Therefore, you want about 90 watts, and a reflector for all of these aswell. A rough guide of lighting levels is about 6-8 hours a day. With this amount of lighting and the CO2, you shouldnt get a very big algae problem, although you do want some fast growers in your tank. Two plants that come to mind are:

Hornwart
Wysteria

Another way of sorting out the algae is to employee pleccos. Brisslenose plecs are good for that and they will not out grow your tank at all

I am always being a culprit of overstocking my tank, so i cant give you the answer to the amount of fish you should have lol.

Finally, i'm not too sure if there is a big fish bible to follow, but as long as you feed your fish GOOD QUALITY flakes, dont over feed but also give live treats every now and then, it is a good step forward. Your external fluval 205 filter is pretty decent and i believe it is more than capable of cleaning your tank. clean your filter once every 3-4 weeks (with the current level of fish you have) with FISH TANK water, so to not kill the bacteria mentioned earlier, but also clean the gravel using a gravel vacume. Try to change 20% of the water every week, using aquasafe or equivilence and do water tests every now and then to check water parameters. You are mainly aiming for ammonia = 0, nitrite = 0, nitrate... (Ok i forgotten, but someone else can fill in that 1) You can test these water parameters by using water testing kits, easilly available from your local fish store (LFS) or if not, then ebay is your good ole friend This may all sound dauntingly long, but if you are anything like me, then you will be a fishaholic and wont mind at all!

Hope this helps. Any more questions, just ask

enjoy

safe levels are everything 0 with nitrate being ok up to a point of 40. obviously well under this is better

 

[rdd1952]

With that man fish in a cycling tank, you should be testing your water daily. If not, the ammonia and nitrite levels will soon be very high. Usually, when cycling with fish, you only add 3 to 5 to begin with.

As for your questions:
1) You should be fine in rmoving the air pump. I don't run any on my tanks.

2) Brown algae is normal in a cycling tank but if the plants are turning brown themselves, then there is probably a problem. Part of the problem could be the air stone. Adding extra oxygen lowers the CO2 level so the plants don't have what they need. You mentioned thm possibly not being true aquatic plants. It's hard to say without seeing them but as a general rule, any plant with varigated leaves is not suited for underwater growth. They will grow fine around water but not submerged. Also, 50 watts really isnt' enough light except for low light plants. Here is a link to a plant site that has a list of low light plants.

3) I would not any more fish until you have gone a full week with the ammonia and nitrite at zero all the time. As I mentioned,you will need to test the water daily and do partial water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrite below .5 ppm until there is enough bactera present to handle the waste.

4) Fishkeeping has really changed over the last 10 years or so. Before that, there weren't many test kits and no one had ever heard of fishless cycling. People bought a few danios and hoped they all lived. No one ever tested for ammonia, nitrite, etc. and they always lost some fish in getting started. Most of the books you see were written prior to that so they give a lot of advice that today is considered bad. Read the pinned topics on here and search for anything that you want to know. You will get a lot of good advice by asking questions as there are a lot of very knowledgeable members here.

Good luck!!!

 

[vinylman]

Bacteria in a bottle is next to useless; a pinch of flake food does a better job of kick-starting ammonia.

 

[fishtodd]

Thanks your all your answers to my questions and advice! I'm going to try and test the water every few days and wait a few more weeks before thinking of adding any more fish. I've switched off the air pump and all the fish still seem very happy! I've also got some low light aquarium plants ordered so i'll be planting them this coming week. Many thanks again.

 

[vinylman]

When your new plants arrive, give them a chance; a lot of plants will appear to die off after being introduced to a tank. Just remove any dead leaves and give the plants a couple of weeks; just like fish, they can take a little time to adjust to your tank's conditions.