New 260 Litre Tank, Little Help Please....

[rick_wolves]

Hi, its my first time on this forum, im hoping to get some constructive advice from some of you out there!

I currently am in the process of upgrading from a 60litre tank to a 260litre tank, its a juwel vision aquarium with 2 x 54w t5 lights.

my 60 litre has 8 cherry barbs, 2 siamese algae eaters and 2 peppered corydoras

Im looking to set up a community aquarium which is moderately planted, but needs a bit of help with a few matters....

1) What is the best way to start the cycle on my 260litre tank

- should i use filter media from the old filter and put it in the new one; and if so can i then add my fish from the 60litre straight in?

- or should i just start a fresh with some new fish to cycle it, before adding the old fish in? For a tank of this size, how many fish would i need to cycle it? can i just use one male betta, or a pair of guppies, or would i need more fish because of its size?

2)can anyone recommend some species of plants which will be suitable for my tank, esp foreground plants, i have plant substrate medium and will be providing C02.

3)i want a schooling species which will school tightly and use the middle to upper part of tank - tank is 121cm long, any ideas?

thank you so much for taking time to read all that - i really would appreciate your help. Will be posting some pics when its done!

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Rick Wolves.
1) The best way to start a new cycle depends a lot on what you will be doing with the existing tank and filter. If you intend to keep using the existing tank, the best way I have found to provide an initial colony of the right bacteria is to clean an existing filter in my new tank as if it was my cleaning bucket. After that, I do a fishless cycle using ammonia for about a week just to finish up cycling the new filter. If you are not familiar with fishless cycling, there is a link to a thread about how to do it in my signature area. Be aware that the method they describe will be for a tank that will not have your advantages. Your cycle will go much faster than they assume.
If you do not intend to use the old tank any longer, move all of the media to the new tank and you can move the fish at the same time.

2) You are going to have low to medium light for plant growth. If you go to the planted section of the forum, you will find lots of folks ready to help you pick out suitable plants for those light levels. Some of my favorite low light plants include Anubias nana, Java fern and various Crytocoryne species. For medium low light I choose amazon swords, and valisneria most often. I am sure the people in the planted section can give a much better listing than that though.

3) The tightest schooling fish around is rummy nose tetras. They do indeed use the top portion of the tank but are far from the only nice fish you could place there. I personally like the rasboras and black neons but they do not school as tightly.

 

[rick_wolves]

thanks for the advice. I will let you know how i get on...

 

[Dave Spencer]

Don`t cycle a high tech planted tank!

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/299827-why-we-should-not-fishless-cycle-planted-tanks/

Dave.

 

[OldMan47]

As Dave has said, a heavy enough and vigorous enough plant growth makes a cycle unnecessary. In that case you get the plants growing like crazy and then just add in the fish. Unfortunately, for most new fish keepers, such a situation of plant growth is not really an option. The need to have exactly the right condition to grow plants that vigorously is not something the average new fish keeper can approach with any confidence. That is one of the main reasons that we advocate a fishless cycle. I do maintain a few Walstad style NPT tanks that are virtually uncycled when I add fish and I have no trouble with them at all, but I am no beginner in this process. In the typical newcomer's tank, plants are an added complication that they are not really ready to deal with. That brings me back to recommending only a fishless or fish-in cycle using conventional techniques.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Rick_Wolves and welcome to TFF!

I agree with both OM47 and Dave Spencer (two people I have learned many, many good things from!) in that as one who hangs out here in the freshwater beginners section along with OM47, I see many newcomers who do not appear ready to add the raising of a full tank of plants to the struggle they appear to be about to have with their first-ever tank and fish...

But in your case there are parts of your message that make it appear you are trying to gather the equipment and know-how to go after one of these beautiful heavily planted tanks (hope I'm right about that, just let us know.) The fact that your lights are the T5 type does mean they will be more efficient than the normal T8s or T12s. Your 108watts, if it were T8 would be in the upper range (you're at 1.5w/g) of low-light technique but it may really be in the range of high-tech lighting since the system is T5. You also indicate you have worked on a special substrate and intend to inject CO2 I believe.

So it does sound like you'd be a good candidate for Dave's planted cycle technique over in the planted tank section and I'm sure he'll help you get it off the ground - there are a bunch of great advisors over there who will also help! As OM47 touches on, the trick to revving up a fish-healthy environment right from the start via a large mass of healthy plants is that they must grow and stay alive. If a lot of them start to die, they quickly reverse from taking care of the fish to providing the ammonia that can hurt the fish! That will be one of the important things that will underlie your goals with the planted-cycle I think. Good luck and drop us a post back here on how it goes!

~~waterdrop~~