Need Cichlid Advice

[ImperfectFaerie]

well the "dumb" LFS looked at me like I was from Mars when I started talking about fishless cycling to them and trying to get the amonio levels up to 5ppm (luckily they'res also a smarf LFS near us). Anyways, after they told me they didn't have amonia and they tried to sell me the jump start cycle stuff and I told them that it doesn't work I just left.

However, I did wander through the local hardware store and found amonio (no additives, just water and amonia) and just got the levels up to 5 ppm along with the addition of some filter media from our small tank so we'll see how it goes!

Thanks for all the patience here too guys, I appreciate it

 

[corrosive]

well the "dumb" LFS looked at me like I was from Mars when I started talking about fishless cycling to them and trying to get the amonio levels up to 5ppm (luckily they'res also a smarf LFS near us). Anyways, after they told me they didn't have amonia and they tried to sell me the jump start cycle stuff and I told them that it doesn't work I just left.

However, I did wander through the local hardware store and found amonio (no additives, just water and amonia) and just got the levels up to 5 ppm along with the addition of some filter media from our small tank so we'll see how it goes!

Thanks for all the patience here too guys, I appreciate it

If you follow advice from the inteligent people on this forum, and use your own eniciative(sp?) you will have a brillient fish tank! Cant wait to see updated pictures of how its taking off once the fish are in.

 

[ImperfectFaerie]

well as always something had to go wrong with this plan...

I came home today and our smaller tank with 3 black skirts, 3 glo lites, 1 black kulhi loach, an african dwarf frog and a couple snails was working horribly. The filter was barely pumping any water and the light was burnt out. So I checked the amonia levels for that tank and the newly cycled tank (with all of the smaller thanks' filter media now) and they were both below .5 ppm so I was forced to move all of them over to the new tank just 2 days after adding 5ppm of amonia. It looks like we might be cycling with fish now.

Although I am worried out of my mind, after drinking a 40 I realized that there is nothing else i can do at this point. My main concern is the african dwarf frog becasue the 29 gallon is so tall, so i will try to repair the small tank tomorrow.

I'll keep you guys updated with pictures in the near future!

 

[Bullrock74]

well as always something had to go wrong with this plan...

I came home today and our smaller tank with 3 black skirts, 3 glo lites, 1 black kulhi loach, an african dwarf frog and a couple snails was working horribly. The filter was barely pumping any water and the light was burnt out. So I checked the amonia levels for that tank and the newly cycled tank (with all of the smaller thanks' filter media now) and they were both below .5 ppm so I was forced to move all of them over to the new tank just 2 days after adding 5ppm of amonia. It looks like we might be cycling with fish now.

Although I am worried out of my mind, after drinking a 40 I realized that there is nothing else i can do at this point. My main concern is the african dwarf frog becasue the 29 gallon is so tall, so i will try to repair the small tank tomorrow.

I'll keep you guys updated with pictures in the near future!

Most fish can tolerate that level of ammonia, but I'm a little worried about what your nitite level must be right now. If it is much over 1.0 ppm you might have a few problems...but fish can be surprisingly resilient. Good luck!

 

[ImperfectFaerie]

*FYI*- there are 2 of us using the same SN (it's easier to keep mine logged in LOL). This is the girlfriend (HI!) just wanted to give an update- everyone made it through the night quite swimmingly After a bit of tinkering on the small tank, Skip got everything working again and after a water change/letting it run for awhile we moved most of the fish (the glo-lites, the adf) back to that. The black-skirt tetras however, really seemed to enjoy the bigger tank much more. We didn't have the heart to move them back, they are so active in there and the plants are so much bigger in there. These are the same fish that survived when we bought our tank and fish in the same night (yeah, I know, we've learned, that's why we were TRYING to fishless cycle the new one). So we will see how they do. Thanks for the advice!- CJ

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

add some central/south american dwarf cichlids in like rams and such, those would do good! and there arent too agressive and would do fine with bigger (2-4 inch) community fish, although by the looks of it i might be too late giving my opion...

 

[ImperfectFaerie]

No, not too late at all! All opinions are definately welcome and apprecriated ;-} We will wait until the tank has finished cycling before we stock it, besides from the 3 tetras that are in there who may or may not stay in there. So keep the ideas comin please!- CJ