Messed Up With Decorations

[Anele]

Story so far: Got 100 litres tank, filled with water to find that my extrenal filter (tetra 600) has got one faulty pipe. While I was waiting for the new pipe to arrive (about a week), the water was stagnating in the tank. After getting new pipe and turning the filter on I also added moon rock and some soaked bog wood. After 2 weeks of cycling went to the shop to buy some fish and luckily mentined to the shop assistant about my decor. I was told to take the rocks out and change all the water in the tank. However, I am a bit concern about changing all the water at once. Surely it's not good for the bacteria in the filter. What would you advise? I also have cold water tank with gold fish and I already added some water from there. How long do you think it will take to get the water ready for the fish? Thanks.
Anele

 

[PRW1988]

the water really has not much to do with adding the fish, the bacteria is the main concern as water itself has very little bacteria in it. The filter is what you need to be concerned with, so long as you keep it moistend it will hopfully retain most of it's bacteriums and the water will be ready quickly. (still it may take upwards of a month or more dependent on the cycle you've chose to do.)

 

[Anele]

Well, the problem is that the water became too hard after I've added moon rocks. So, do you think that if I change all water at once (adding dechlorinater, of course) that would not affect the bacteria in the filter? I thought that could lead to a 'new fish tank' syndrome. Please, help.

 

[Anele]

I've just discovered some white thick slime on rubber parts of my filter. It looks a bit like a ...snot. What could that be?

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Anele,

I've just re-read all your posts and I'm not convinced we've helped you get started correctly - your case may have slipped through the cracks! I hope I'm wrong but I'm worried about the way you used the term cycling at the top of this thread. It doesn't sound (I mean I can't really tell) like you've been doing the usual fishless cycling.

Give us an update on whether your goal is to fishless cycle. When you buy a new filter it is only hardware and there can be many weeks ahead of preparing it with the proper two species of bacteria so that it becomes a living biofilter. The vast majority of these bacteria are attached to the media in your filter and its ok to change virtually all the tank water as long as the bacteria stay wet and then begin getting ammonia again after the change.

For beginners here, we members often recommend the Beginners Resource Center, Cycling Resource Center links at the top of the forum. Follow those links and find the articles by AlienAnna and MissWiggle. Then the article by rdd1952 is the main working document to use while you do fishless cycling (again, you may already have read these and are doing this, I just couldn't tell and its so important for us to help you gain this knowledge before you go off and get fish too soon!)

Have you got a good liquid test kit yet? Has anyone helped you with the details of good water change technique? These are essentials for getting started.

Let us know if we've missed helping you in the right ways.

~~waterdrop~~