New Breeding Tank Set Up

[tinker88]

hi, Im new here.

Ok ive been keeping fishies for years on and off and have recently bought (well few months ago) a Aqua one 620T -very nice community tank.

so i have a variety of fish - all doing well (had some probs at first, new tank syndrom etc) but its all great now.

but we have some pregnant guppies, mollies and platys.

and my Oh has gone a bit over excited at teh thought of being a grandad and bought a fluval tank/stand/everything.

so we set it up (bought it off ebay so has been used, i scrubbed it)

luckily we had the same filter running in our main tank so put the filter sponge in our breeding tank - hope this was ok? thought it would kick start it??

also half of teh water in teh new tank came from the old tank.

ive conditioned the water, got it at approx 7.2ph, and its been running for 24hrs now.

when can the pregnant girls go in? ( we have breeding traps etc?)

Im scared ill get new tank snydrome again? or wont i cos we have put in old water/filter sponges etc?

ive read on our sites it should be ok in a nfew days - i just dont want any1 too die

I have 2 gold fish also, big buggers, i was wondering if i should put those 2 hardy buggers in to get things going

any advise?

kim n crew hugs

 

[Spishkey]

to be honest i personally wouldnt keep goldfidh in with tropicals, and goldfish need huge space 10gallons per fish i believe? they generate an enourmous amount of waste.

id just keep the mollys platys etc in there. if you put in enough hiding spaces and plants, you wont need the breeding traps (nasty cruel torture traps i hate them) as the fry will hide in the plants etc

 

[tinker88]

the goldfish r seperate, i meant put the goldies in for a few days to help get the cycle going b4 the guppies etc go in, just thought the big goldies may get things going quicker? ?

or will it stress the goldies? them seem very hardly n tuff!

 

[Honeythorn]

Please don't put the golds in to "help cycle" that will stress them and expose them to high levels of ammonia while the tank is cycling. It burns the gills and the slime coat on their bodies. Yes goldfish are very tough hardy fish, but they do not deserve that sort of treatment. The whole point of promoting fishless cycling is to prevent people doing what you're suggesting.

If the filter in both tanks is of the same type/model/brand then you can seed/clone the new filter from the old one. When you say you put the filter sponge from the old tank into the new one...you didn't put the whole lot in there did you? Because if you did then your original tank will go through a new complete cycle without it's mature media.

Just take some of the media ( just under half say ) from the original mature filter to add to the new one. Then you can do a fishless cycle with bottled pure ammonia as described in the stickied topics in the new to the hobby section. If you do that, your cycle should hopefully happen a lot faster than normal, as you would have some bacteria laden sponges in the filter to kickstart it.

Adding water from the first tank won't help your cycle . 99% of the bacteria you need are in your filter, not your water. But adding water from the original tank will help the fish acclimate to the new one , and the fresh water you top it up with won't be such a shock.

Get some large breeding nets for your livebearers and keep them in the tank they are in now. Once the adults have given birth, tip them back into the main tank area and keep the fry in the nets until your new tank and filter have cycled properly.