New Aquarium

[simian]

Hi everyone. Just set up a 96 litre FW aquarium (sorry I'm not good with the lingo yet). It's a Juwel Rekord 96. As far as I know the filter and heater/thermostat are set up correctly. It's 24 degrees in there. I've got 5cm of substrate.
I've added the water conditioner (API Stress Coat). I planted quite a lot of plants.
I was told that I have to leave the tank to settle for 7 days before I can add any fish. I got two days left and I'm getting quite excited.
I'm looking for some advice about what fish are good to start with. The book said that the first fish should be quite tough as it's a new aquarium.

One more thing. I also bought some bog wood. At the moment it's soaking in large bucket. The guy in the shop said that I should soak it for two days. But I'm a bit concerned about adding anything to the tank that could harm the fish. Is bog wood a good idea and is there anything I should know about it before I introduce it?

Thanks.

 

[littlest]

Hi simian, welcome to the wonderful world of fish-keeping.

Sorry to ruin your excitement about getting your first fish, but you have quite a way to go yet.

Leaving the tank to settle for a week is a bit of an old wives' tale I'm afraid. It does nothing to prepare the tank for fish.

What you need to do (before adding any fish) is cycle the tank. This involves building up beneficial bacteria that converts the fish's waste to a less harmful substance. If you don't do this, your fish's waste (ammonia) will poison them and lead to illness and in many cases death.

Unfortunately cycling a tank takes a few weeks to do fully, but fortunately there is a thread explaining exactly how to do it here [URL="http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-the-hobby/113861/Fishless-Cycling/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/[/URL]

I know this is probably not something you want to hear, but cycling a tank is definately the best way to go. When I started out I didn't cycling my tank and it led to a lot of work, endless water-changes and the eventual death of my first fish.

Read the thread carefully and post back with any questions

(btw it's the norm for fish shops not to tell you about cycling)

 

[backtotropical]

Hi,

to the forums!

Littlest seems to have covered cycling.

With regard to bogwood, soaking it is a good idea. As you will probably have seen already it will stain the water brown, which many people don't like in their tanks. It will do the fish and plants no harm, in fact quite the opposite, but many people just don't like having brown water. It's really down to personal choice.

Cheers

BTT

 

[Larissa]

Bogwood is completely safe and can be beneficial to your fish and plants because it leaches tannins into the water. This will turn your water a clear-brownish colour, but beside that it should have no ill affects. Many people -including me- actually like the more natural colour the bogwood turns the water. Bogwood may also soften your water depending on how much you put in and may decrease your pH slightly so keep an eye on it.

It sound like you are going to cycle your tank with fish in. You should read up about this as it is more dangerous to your fish than doing a fishless cycle. You should plan on doing water 10-25% water changes every or everyother day. I would suggest investing in a liquid test kit if you don't have one already so that you can moniter the levels of ammonia and nitrite in your tank. These are poisonous to fish at even very low levels so water changes are essential while the tank is cycling. Yes, hardy fish are good. Many people use danios I believe and hardy tetra fish like glowlight or head and tail light tetras.

Here is a thread on fish-in cycling you should read:
http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...ish-in-Cycling/

 

[simian]

Thanks for all your advice and links. I've just read through them. I except that "fishless cycling" is the correct way to go about things (and humane) but who's going to tell my three year old daughter. She asks me about five times a day "Where are the fish?"

So basically, tomorrow I need to:

1. go to the fish shop and get a bottle of pure ammonia and a decent test kit
2. work out how much ammonia I need to add to a 96 litre tank to get the levels up to 5 -6
3. wait for the ppm drop to 1
4. start the process over several times

Oh!

How many days/weeks does this process normally take?

 

[Snooks1!]

Anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months sadly...

For most people it usually takes 3-4 weeks, give or take. If you can, you should get some filter media from your LFS to put into your filter. This will greatly speed up, if not completely eliminate the need to cycle.

 

[rdd1952]

Actually, you will find the ammonia at the grocer or hardware store. Fish stores don't stock it. Just make sure it is "pure" ammonia with only ammonia, water and possibly cheleating agents. You don't want anything with detergent, perfumes or surfactants. As far as calculating the amount you need, usually 1 ml will raise 5 gallon to about 5 ppm so your tank would need about 4 ml to get to about 4 or 5 ppm. That is allowing for the fact that even though your tank is a little over 25 gallons, you will only have a little over 20 gallons in the tank after you figure for displacement of water by substrate, decorations, etc. There is also a tank volume calculator on the top, right side of the page that you an also use to calculate the amount you need based on the concentration of the ammonia. The formula used there is courtesy of backtotropicals.