Need Or Want

ZoddyZod · Jul 29, 2011

Fishy friend2 said:
55 gallons once I get it set up its gonna have 3 fancy goldfish and 15 of zebra danios and there morphs leopards, long finned, glofish etc

if your tank is currently empty, why are you planning on doing a 'fish-in' cycle? You are putting your fish at unnecessary risk.

Also, are you planning to add ALL of those fish at the same time? That would be a massive load for the filter to handle and you end up needing to do LARGE water changes everyday until the tank cycles.

This Old Spouse · Jul 29, 2011

Tell us exactly what you have now.

Fishy friend2 · Jul 29, 2011

Haven't even got the tank not gonna put all the fish in at same time

Smells a bit fishy · Jul 29, 2011

I saw in another thread that you have a shrimp?? I'm so confused!!

Do a fishless cycle if you don't have fish, yet you ask what the readings should be if you have fish in.

You need a test kit, as you will need to test the water everyday, and later on in the cycle twice. But that has already been covered.

There is a great thread in the beginners section that explains how to do a fishless cycle and the reasons why.

Of course you can do a fish in cycle (very frowned apon if you have a choice) but it means you will have to do daily water changes, which is very hard work (which I can tell you first hand).

So get a test kit and ammonia and do a fishless cycle :good:

Fishy friend2 · Jul 29, 2011

I have 2 tanks

the_lock_man · Jul 30, 2011

Fishy friend2 said:
Haven't even got the tank not gonna put all the fish in at same time

Fishy friend2 said:
I have 2 tanks

Can you see why people are becoming confused? You have posted 2 contradictory comments. People can't help you if you don't help them to help you, you need to post as much information as you can on whatever question you are asking.

This thread started off as a theoretical question, do you need your own test kit, the answer to that is a resounding "YES".

Then you asked what a good test result looks like. With a fully-cycled, and stocked tank, the answer to that is 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite and anything between 20ppm and say 250ppm nitrate. This applies to the two tanks which you currently have, and which are stocked.

With the proposed 55gallon tank, everyone on here would suggest that you cycle that filter using the fishless cycling method which is detailed in the Beginners Resource Centre, and I don't propose to go into detail here.

That's if I've understood your myriad of posts correctly.