New Fish Owner, Help Me Please!

[MHunt]

I guess you mean an internal power filter when you say wall pump, they usually contain some kind of filter sponges which act as colonies for the nitrifying bacteria. To clone a cycled filter, you place one or part of one of the mature sponges out of the cycled filter in your filter. Now the problem for you is the filter is the gravel and the plates beneath it, so apart from burying the donated sponges in the gravel for a while, there's nowhere in the filter to put them. What has been suggested in this thread and what i have done in one of my Aqua One 320's is to forget the under gravel filter, and use an internal power filter. I am using a Fluval 2+ in my planted nano which is doing really well, it may seem a bit big and yes it does take up quite a bit of space out of the tank, but you can adjust the flow to a suitable level for the size of the tank, and given the amount of space for filter media, you should be able to maintain pretty good water conditions.

Now for fish to stock it with, i would suggest small fish that grow to not much more than 1" Small livebearers like guppies or endlers if you can get them. Small tetras such as neons or glowlights would go well. For the bottom of the tank small cory's would do well, also Otoclinous are great little algae eaters, that make a nice alternative to plecs which are only suitable for larger tanks. You could stock one or two fish that grow larger, but only to about 2" or 3" max Maybe a pair of platy's or rams. Remember that initially you should not stock to more than 1" per gallon, I know officially it is a 7 gal tank, but i approximate it to 10 gal especially if you use a more efficient filter than the one that is supplied. In my planted nano i currently have 4 harlequin Rasboras, 4 panda cory's a male endler and 2 algae eating shrimp.

Sorry you've had to learn the hard way, but you'll be a better fishkeeper for it in the long run.

 

[alexbryan]

Right, I've cleaned out the tank and put in some filter media from my mother-in-law's tank. My filter plate actually had a compartment under where the water goes up the pipe, so I put a cutting of filter in there that was well used and seemed to have alot of bacteria on it. My question is, how long will this bacteria last without any fish in the tank? Will it last a few days? Also, now I've cloned the filter, how long should I wait until I add the fish?

 

[scooterchick]

Right, I've cleaned out the tank and put in some filter media from my mother-in-law's tank. My filter plate actually had a compartment under where the water goes up the pipe, so I put a cutting of filter in there that was well used and seemed to have alot of bacteria on it. My question is, how long will this bacteria last without any fish in the tank? Will it last a few days? Also, now I've cloned the filter, how long should I wait until I add the fish?

Hi,

Using a cloned filter you can add fish straight away. Not sure how long it would last without fish, I've never tried it! Just remember to dechlorinate the water. Good luck and welcome to the forum.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

bacteria will start to die off after 12 hrs with no food, so get some fish in asap, or if not then drop in some fish food to keep it going

 

[Gill]

The staff at your LFS (local fish shop) are salesmen, they can't afford to turn away custom due to tanks being uncycled and will happily boost any sale even if it means jepordising your fishs health.
I'd return the molly and if you haven't been completely put off consider a new tank at some time of a more suitable size (nice surprise prezzie for the Gf actually!?) move all the fish in with a nice molly for your gf, job done, e-bay the small tank.
Anyhow...

Could not agree more. I left a really good job at Dobbies Aquatic Section simply because I refused to sell fish on the same day as buying the tank. Or selling and 5 gallon starter kit with 10 1inch goldfish.
And got repremanded for suggesting other fish for a cold water setup other than goldfish.

I had a customer who had driven especialy to see dobbies and had promised her daugther a Goldfish. As it was near closing time. I bagged 1 small pearlscale for her in the bags for Koi. that way the water could just be put straight into the tank and scooped some media from the sumps into a small bag for her. she was so pleased. but someone grassed me up for helping her in that way.
All the advise you have been given is correct and i only wish more staff were not pressurised into making the sale instead of the fishes welfare.

 

[Suicidal_AZN]

u should put common guppys in your tank!!!
they will fit perfectly
feed them well and they will shine in your new tank!!!

 

[alexbryan]

Thanks everyone for your help!
I've totally cleaned out the tank and cloaned the filter and the improvement in the fish is amazing; they're so much more lively. I left the tank about 9 - 10 hours without any fish in it, waiting for the temperature to come down to an acceptable level. Is there any possibility that the cloning didn't work or is it pretty much a sure thing?

 

[-germ-]

You'll have to wait for someone else but just to point out for any potentially cycling wise posters;
Its an undergravel, the aquaones (correct me if i'm wrong alex) come with no media inside so i assume the gravel only will be doing the job, would that take longer than with a normal filter? Or does it depend on the gravel and its bacteria holding capacity (you know what i mean, i hope)....

Anyhow, have you had a look for a new filter, or going to stick with the undergravel?

 

[MHunt]

Ah, so you cleaned the tank, let it settle with the cloned media then put the fish back? Well if the fish are healthy, that's ok. I know the bit you're talking about in your filter, just under the powerhead. Just be careful it doesn't clog, otherwise you'll have to clean the tank out again. Make sure you do good gravel vacs with your water changes.

The only way to tell if the cycle is working is to test the water every other day for the next week. Keep a log, and if the ammonia and nitrite spike, then the tank is cycling again. You may still have a small cycle, but with the mature media in the tank you may not even notice it on the water tests.What you're hoping for is consistently zero ammonia and nitrite, and a slowly rising nitrate.

What fish have you still got?

 

[alexbryan]

What fish have you still got?

I've still got 2 Honey Gouramis and 2 Neon Tetra. I took the remaining Black Molly back and unfortunatly all the others died, even when taken out the tank they died later that day so I guess ammonia posioning still affects the fish once they are out of the ammonia. The tetra have always been energetic, even just before dying, but the Gouramis had become very sedate and just hid at the bottom of top corners of the tank. Now they are swimming around again like they did when I first got them. The Gouramis are the only species that didn't die from the posioning, will they be OK now? Will the ammonia posoining ware off? One last thing. In the leaflet I got from the place I bought the fish, it advised to only feed the fish once every other day for the first ten days. I thought this was quite mean, but assuming the cloning has worked, will I be able to feed them normally now?

 

[alexbryan]

I just noticed something, the Gouramis are still going up for air at the top of the tank. I think that's a symptom of Ammonia posioning, but do fish do that normally? They're aren't at the top all the time, and I wouldn't call their actions "gasping".

 

[-germ-]

No thats completely normal for a gourami, if they aren't gasping they are just using their labyrinth organ, an organ that only gouramis and other anabantoids have that is used to collect oxygen directly from air.
Also gouramis are known to sieve, ie; swim at the top of the tank and suck surface water into their mouths, they do this in order to filter out any tasty little tit-bits from the waters surface.
The ammonia poisoning could have damaged them permenantly, possibly resulting in stress and a reduction in lifespan, depends how badly they have been affected.....