New Tank Stock Questions

[TheDeepDweller]

I am currently cycling a 110l / 29 US gal juwel rekord 800 (I believe the built in filter is a bioflow 3 / 400).
10 days in ammonia is dropping to zero between readings, nitrite still high. I have planted with a fairly random selection - Lindernia rotundiflora, Lilaeopsis brasiliensis (Both look to be growing vigorously) Pogostemon helferi (Healthy looking, spreading slowly) and 2 x anubias & xmas tree moss on driftwood (roots etc look to be spreading).

I have always wanted Neons and from looking at LFS stock / internet panda corys and ember tetras look like they would also be good so going by the 1" per us gal rule I would like -
10 x Neons - added first
10 x Ember tetra - added later when tests etc remain stable
6 x panda cory
(Unless the corys would be a better bet first - are they a little more robust?)

However other sources would indicate that my filtration would be drastically insufficient, I have a second-hand fluval 305 which I could add on, is it possible to have too much filtration?
Also I assume thoroughly cleaning 2nd hand gear is advisable, will something like baby bottle steriliser be best?

Many thanks,
Dave

 

[anwhyte]

apparently neons do very badly in new tanks, cycled or not, i'd wait 6 months before introducing any of them.

 

[waterdrop]

Definately agree with anwhyte. There is something about new tanks that is quite separate from the cycling issues that bothers neons/cards. We don't know what it is but nonetheless we have good observations we've all passed around that if we wait a full 6 months since the tank was new (including the cycling months, thank heavens) then the risk of losing a lot of neons/cards goes way, way down. Its also common to lose one or two of these per every 10 or so that you bring home just because of the acclimation/transition problems, so many of us advise buying 1 or 2 extra per batch (assuming you could handle the small extra bioload if they live.)

Now please understand that I'm just talking statistics here. We've all heard lots and lots of stories of neons/cards being put in very new tanks and living just fine. Its just that those of us that watch a lot of these cases have also seen lots and lots of reports of the dying, so that's how the 6-month thing has worked out over the years. And of course its common also for this to drive some people just crazy, so they opt for 3 or 4 months as all that they can stand before they go ahead and introduce thier neons.

~~waterdrop~~
edit: forgot to add.. There are -also- many reports that Panda cories are quite sensitive and should be added later, however I recently had a phone conversation with a North American cory expert about this and he swore that as far as he was concerned they were no different than other cories, just as hardy. Now you can take this however you want to.. it may be that he is just so good at raising and breeding them that they all seem second nature to him! I completely don't know about the Embers.

WD

 

[TheDeepDweller]

Thanks for that, having had another look I may swap out the pandas for sterbais, they should still stay pretty small and may be hardier?
The embers I had not heard of till I saw them in the LFS, and they look to keep a nice shoal shape and are really nicely coloured.
Looks like they may be pretty hardy as well, so I will probably try starting off with 10 embers and 6 sterbais and wait till later for the neons.

 

[waterdrop]

 

[LondonguyJ]

My advice will go against the grain here...

I currently have 8 wild green neons in my aquarium and although on this forum it's recommended that you wait at least 6 months I personally disagree. My green neons have grown more confident, playful, and extremely vibrant since I got them and so far show no signs of ill health. To be fair it's early days (creeping up on a month) and WD has way more experience in fish keeping than me. But I do believe that keeping neons can be done successfully as long as your ammonia and nitrite count remains at 0.

J

 

[waterdrop]

My advice will go against the grain here...

I currently have 8 wild green neons in my aquarium and although on this forum it's recommended that you wait at least 6 months I personally disagree. My green neons have grown more confident, playful, and extremely vibrant since I got them and so far show no signs of ill health. To be fair it's early days (creeping up on a month) and WD has way more experience in fish keeping than me. But I do believe that keeping neons can be done successfully as long as your ammonia and nitrite count remains at 0.

J

This actually fits in quite well with the experience OM and I have seen here in the last couple years I believe. The reports seem to swing back and forth from people having no problems to people experiencing surprising deaths despite feeling their water is double-zero. I believe the six month advice coming from me is mostly a repeat from a lot of more experienced TFF members here long before me that I simply found and in some cases discussed with them. Unfortunately I also have to admit that this is not one (my notes from different members) that I've tracked in any sort of helpful way but I do remember it involving some real interactions not just speculation about what some of the experienced ones thought.

In my own case I've had lots of neons and cardinals over the years, first in my earlier time in the hobby and now with my "re-beginner" life here at TFF. My losses have usually been limited not to introducing them to new tanks under 6 months old but to losing one or two from a batch I purchased, despite pretty careful acclimation and pristine double-zero water. In some cases it was my observation that these were often the smallest specimens of the batch. Since its hard for anyone to pick shoaling tetras on an individual basis with a net, one usually gets a few tiny ones that on some occasions have a struggle (you never know though, sometimes they are the hardy ones!) So my own actual experiences have been of that sort, not the thing of losing them in the young tanks. Quite a few cases we've watched here though have seemed to be of that sort.

Over the years I know we've speculated multiple times whether this might not just be down to the cases of people who didn't have real double-zero water having their cases cause other people to think you need to wait longer. My memory is worse than OM's but I even think he and I have speculated about this. But I've usually come back to the conviction that we did traverse this info and felt the problem with these species is something about new tanks that's totally different from ammonia and nitrite. In fact a couple of times its felt like it was ripe for some new discovery of some other substance or parameter we don't currently monitor, but alas, nothing has ever been forthcoming. I've always wondered if there are any tetra forums or tetra breeder sites that might have some clue. (With cardinals and neons there is also the wildcard that in some of the reported problem cases people might not have realized that they like water which is soft and acid and that they appreciate tannins, that sort of amazonian water, so some people may have tried to acclimate them to very hard water etc. and that's yet another variable that might be in the statistics but we don't know how much.)

Anyway, since there are plenty of people like your self (and me too for that matter) who have introduced them earlier than 6 months and had them be fine, I often try to just give people the info and then say that if they want to take the risk and its not going to cause them any financial distress (I always try to remember to think of fact that some beginners have barely scraped together the money for a set of fish and its a double distress for them of both losing the fish and being set back to have to save again etc.) then to go for it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[LondonguyJ]

I've just read your response on the "cycle of sorts" thread and figured I'd reply here as both touch upon the same theme. To begin with (and as I mentioned in the first post in my cycle log) I had been reading up on the various methods and recommendations on different aspects of the hobby. But as a "newbie" (which I still consider myself to be)sourcing information from various places can be quite daunting. Obviously you lean towards the advice of those who have more experience but at the time in getting info from various places you quickly realize that the advice differs according to who's giving it.

Coincidentally On another forum the general rule is that neons are ok but the stocking of thread fin rainbows should be put off for at least 3-6 months?

So I went after the science behind it all. I mean, we're all aware that any level of A&N will affect your fish and neons being delicate should show signs of distress first. But in everything I researched I couldn't find anything to support the six month rule? Double zeros today shouldn't differ from double zeros 6 months or 4 years from now. And like yourself, came to the conclusion that perhaps in some cases the parameters weren't truly double zeros. Mini cycles that were classed as "I lost my most delicate fish but don't know why."

Over the years I know we've speculated multiple times whether this might not just be down to the cases of people who didn't have real double-zero water having their cases cause other people to think you need to wait longer.

My friend asked me why I had got rid of the greens neons and replaced them with blues

Very poor camera phone pic but here's two of my green neons.

J

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, the ones that can look clear with just a streak of blue-green neon, very nice! I've not seen many of them. WD

 

[TheDeepDweller]

Many thanks for your help, the green neons look great!
Water pH / hardness should be fine, the results I have for the tap water after treatment are pH around 7 and hardness of 4 or less.
I am still not entirely convinced by the built in filter, the amount of media in it looks pretty small and the ammonia levels still don't seem to be dropping all the way to zero within 24 hrs after 3 weeks of cycling.
Is it possible to have too much filtration? I'm not sure that the plants would enjoy the output of a big filter. Would it be worth my while looking for eg a Fluval 105 to add to double my filtration capacity?

 

[OldMan47]

You cannot have too much filtration but you can have too much flow. One thing we often forget when specifying a filter is that the water needs to stay ner the filter media long enough for the reactions to take place. It is called contact time and can be quite important if you have much more flow in a given sized filter than you should.