My New Setup - Newbie :)

[big_anth]

hi guys,

Just signed up as undoubtedly ill need your help in the coming weeks

I’ve just started the hobby and due to an impatient 9yr old we have had to put fish into the tank.

It’s a used 96l tank I bought from eBay, so I put the fish in (5 mollies and 10 guppies with some zebras) - now finding out this was a mistake!!!

My dad used to keep fish a few years ago and I kind of knew about the harmful chemicals but didn’t relies anything about a "cycle" until I started reading about fish (I now know I should have read before jumping into it !)

I’m using ornaments, filter and gravel from a cycled tank (the one I just bought), and I’m waiting for some testers to come from eBay so I can test the water.

Another concern is iv found out the guppies (who we got off a friend) are mixed gender, now I’ve read allot about these breeding and think I could cope with that but my main concern is the "cycle" of the tank

The tank has been setup for 4 days and the fish have been in for 3 days (we lost one molly in the first day)

Any advice that can be offered would be greatly appreciated

I can see me spending allot of time on these forums!

Thanks
Anth

 

[drobbyb]

I would start by reading this thread found here. That should get you pointed in the right direction.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with drobbyb. You're definately in a fish-in cycle and rabbuts article will have some good info for you. It can take up to a month to fish-in cycle a tank. Having a good liquid-reagent based master test kit is going to be essential and water changes (with good technique) are going to be the friend of your fish.

As the article says, test morning and evening, about 12 hours apart and keep a log in your aquarium notebook, a line for each set of tests. Your fish will be causing ammonia (and eventually nitrite) to go upward and because your filter will not be ready to handle that for a month or so, you have to be the "manual" filter, changing out the poisonous water.

Until you know the test result numbers for ammonia and nitrite(NO2) you need to change large amounts, 50-70%, in case things are pretty bad. After you have the test kits, you have to be a bit of a detective and figure out what percentage and frequency of water changes will allow you to do a water change (putting you near zero ppm on the toxins) and then make it for the next 12 hours or so without it going over 0.25ppm until you can be home, test again and perform another water change if you are near or over 0.25ppm on ammonia or nitrite(NO2). The kit helps you sometimes not have to change quite so much water or else helps you know you are not changing enough!

For a cycling tank, always use conditioner to remove chlorine/chloramines (Seachem Prime and Amquel+ are good brands in new tank fish-in situations) and roughly temperature match (your hand is good enough) the return water. As long as you use good technique like this you can change lots and large percentages. Even if the tank goes long periods saying ammonia is zero because of your water changes, there will still be plenty of water "beneath the radar" to grow the bacteria that need to be building up to make the "biofilter," so don't worry about that.

Good Luck! ~~waterdrop~~

 

[big_anth]

thanks for the replys, sound advice, just what i needed

im off out now but when i get ill have a good read of that link

I have been doing 10% changes every day and adding chloring remover (with aloe veria)

so would you recommend a larger change until i get the kits ?

Cheers again

 

[arobinson1984]

With fish-in cycling its a matter of doing a little investigating to work out how much water you need to change each time and how often to keep ammonia and nitrite levels below 0.25ppm which you will obviously be able to measure once the test kit arrives, can i ask which test kit you've bought?

As you have quite a large number of fish for a fish in cycle (its normally done with smaller numbers of around 2-4) you will definateloy need to perform much larger water changes. In general during a fish-in cycle its quite common to require 50% water changes upto 2/3 times a day so with your stocking level I'd certainly say that 50% is the minimum you want to be aiming at changing.

As long as you have a good water change routine, such as dechlorinating fresh water and temperature matching it as best you can with the tank water (judgement by hand is fine) then larger water changes will only benefit your fish.

Another point, you may wish to have a look round at different dechlorinators as some are fairly expensive and you will be using a fair amount over the next 4-6 weeks lol, seachem prime is a good one as it is fairly concentrated so you dont need to use as much, also some fishkeepers as well as myself use pond dechlorinator as that ius much higher concentrate and works out a LOT cheaper but I'd recommend sticking to aquarium dechlorinators until the cycle has finished to be on the safe side

Andy

 

[big_anth]

thanks for the advice, due to work i can only change water once a day and have started with a 50% today

to be honest due to money iv bought the cheapest test stuff i could get, i got them from from a seller on ebay, they are water life nitrate test kit and Ammonia Test Kit
i also bought API PH test kit

havent received them yet but that was probs due to the bank holiday weekend

the fish seem happy (as far as i can see haha)

 

[zoetetra]

i would only feed fish every 3/4 days until the cycle is complete as less food in less ammonia out

 

[big_anth]

i would only feed fish every 3/4 days until the cycle is complete as less food in less ammonia out

seems along wait for food, would they not die of starvation?

 

[razer121]

fish can go a long while without food afaik.....

 

[big_anth]

ok, thanks for the tip, i will try it out

Cheers

 

[drobbyb]

You can not feed your fish for up to 2 weeks and they still survive. However they need to be fed well before the fast.