Noob Questions, Can Find Answers In Pinned Threads

[Onderdole]

Hi,

Noob here.

And I got to admit at the outset that I've done everything wrong. I had the fish before I even had the tank.

I got a Clearseal 88ltr and a JBL i60 filter and have been carefully following the "cycling with fish" guide pinned in this forum, Daily water changes of 20%, maximum ammonia reeding ive seen ( with API dropper test kit) is 1.0ppm, water change gets it down delow 0.25ppm but never to yellow. Nitrite is startign to rise now (7 days in), saw it for the first time last night on a test strip, the 20% water test seemed to reduce it back down to where I couldnt make it out on strip test.

PH is consistantly 7 ( strip test)
GH is 120-180 (strip test)
KH is 80- 120 (strip test)
My water supply has about 20ppm Nitrites it seems ( 2nd colour on test strip)
Temp is steady in and about 10-13 degs

In the tank we got:

35 Minnows - ranging from 1 cm to 2 cm
2 Dace - one about 6cm the other about 9cm
1 Rudd - 6cm
1 Gudgeon - 7cm

All the fish were in the tank from day 1. (another mistake I now realise)

All plastic plants, standard gravel substrate, some sandstone rocks.

Fortunately I also have a stable (through accident not design) 40ltr goldfish tank with 3 comets ( 7cm each ) so I have been able to use some gravel and ornaments and plastic plants from that in the new tank and gave the goldfish filter media a wash in the declorinated water of the new tank.

First question is in regard to Tetra Aqua Safe. Our water company ( Anglia Water - Milton Keynes) says they use Chloramine extensively, The bottle of Aquasafe I got does not say on the label that it treats Chloramine, however I have seen Aquasafe bottles in out LFS that do specifically mention Chloramine. Has the AquaSafe product its self changed or just the labelling.

Next Question: In doing the regular water changes required for the with fish cycling I seem to have overused the AquaSafe a bit. The bottle recommends 5ml per 10ltr of water, I've probably used 25% more then this over the last few changes will this be a problem for the fish.

Next Question : The JBL i60 comes with several attachments , a spray bar, a fitting that sucks oxygen into the pump outflow, and another wide angled sprayer. To much choice for me, which is best to use or does it matter? With our goldfish I simply used some PVC hose connected to the outflow of the filter to make the output from the filter spill into the tank as far from the filter as possible to maximise filtration and as well as go oxygenate. What's the best system from the choices available to me.

Next Question : When feeding, the minnows seem to scour the surface clean before much of the food falls down to the largest fish who seem reluctant to come to the surface with the minnows to feed. What feed to use to get it down to them for them alone.

Last Question : We were considering the idea of swapping the minnows and goldfish over and have only minnows in the smaller tank and the goldfish and the river fish in the 88ltr tank. How will the Comets get on with the peaceful , Dace , Rudd and Gudgeon.

All advice appreciated

 

[Onderdole]

need to clarify a bit on the following questions

Next Question : When feeding, the minnows seem to scour the surface clean before much of the food falls down to the largest fish who seem reluctant to come to the surface with the minnows to feed. What feed to use to get it down to them for them alone.

The larger fish are feedign whn they can get some, and they dont seem otherwise lethargic.

Last Question : We were considering the idea of swapping the minnows and goldfish over and have only minnows in the smaller tank and the goldfish and the river fish in the 88ltr tank. How will the Comets get on with the peaceful , Dace , Rudd and Gudgeon.

The plan to swap em over is after the larger tank has cycled not during


All advice appreciated

 

[minxfishy]

Having a good read of the beginner pinned topics is a good place to start, look for the beginners resource centre. Im not going into the size of the tanks or fish right now, I shall leave that to others, however they are cold water fish and I believe all will outgrow these tanks quickly, aside from the WCMM.

Whilst cycling, you know you need to keep the ammonia and nitrIte to below 0.25ppm, with several water changes daily, which you are doing, well done. NitrIte will show for longer than the ammonia did, usually twice as long, so be prepared for that and it usually spikes higher than ammonia. I would strongly suggest you get a liquid based test kit, API master test kit is the better one around, as the test strips are notoriously inaccurate.

Unless you use about 100x the amount of the dechlorinator then dont worry, it wont effect the fish or the bacteria just costs you more money to use it and a tip here, use pond dechlorinator, its half the price and last 10x as long as aquarium dechlor

To my knowledge aqua safe does deal with chloramines as well as chlorine, they must have just changed the labelling. So you should be fine on that.

To get food to the lower fish in the tank, try some sinking pellet food, not sure which for coldwater fish, but look around there is stuff out there for bottom feeding fish.

Yep put the WCMM in the small tank, the goldfish require much larger tanks, I think its 30g per goldfish, then 20g each additional GF, plus with the others you will soon need a pond or much much larger tank (although as I said previously, Im no cold water fish expert, I know nothing about them).

As for the filter, its down to preference I think, I dont know your filter, but providing the output is creating some water movement at the surface to oxygenate the water, then whatever way you want to use it is fine.

Welcome to TFF btw

Hope some of that helped you.

 

[Onderdole]

Having a good read of the beginner pinned topics is a good place to start, look for the beginners resource centre. Im not going into the size of the tanks or fish right now, I shall leave that to others, however they are cold water fish and I believe all will outgrow these tanks quickly, aside from the WCMM.

Whilst cycling, you know you need to keep the ammonia and nitrIte to below 0.25ppm, with several water changes daily, which you are doing, well done. NitrIte will show for longer than the ammonia did, usually twice as long, so be prepared for that and it usually spikes higher than ammonia. I would strongly suggest you get a liquid based test kit, API master test kit is the better one around, as the test strips are notoriously inaccurate.

Unless you use about 100x the amount of the dechlorinator then dont worry, it wont effect the fish or the bacteria just costs you more money to use it and a tip here, use pond dechlorinator, its half the price and last 10x as long as aquarium dechlor

To my knowledge aqua safe does deal with chloramines as well as chlorine, they must have just changed the labelling. So you should be fine on that.

To get food to the lower fish in the tank, try some sinking pellet food, not sure which for coldwater fish, but look around there is stuff out there for bottom feeding fish.

Yep put the WCMM in the small tank, the goldfish require much larger tanks, I think its 30g per goldfish, then 20g each additional GF, plus with the others you will soon need a pond or much much larger tank (although as I said previously, Im no cold water fish expert, I know nothing about them).

As for the filter, its down to preference I think, I dont know your filter, but providing the output is creating some water movement at the surface to oxygenate the water, then whatever way you want to use it is fine.

Welcome to TFF btw

Hope some of that helped you.

thanks for that info minxfishy.

I've figured that WCMM is Wild Cought and I guess Minnow is in there two. Out of curiosity what's the other M stand for?

Re tank size, I had gone with the 1 cm of fish per 2lt of water rule of thumb. As fish grew it was our intention to release the wild caught fish ( in the same location as we got them), keeping to about 44cm of fish in tank, eventually having just the 3 comets .

3 comets in 88 ltr, wouldn't’ that be ok? Would they get to 15cm each?

Will defo get liquid testing kit instead of strips, and will search out pond de chlorinator, can you give a pointer on brands ?

Thanks once again

 

[minxfishy]

Ah figured the minnows were White Cloud Mountain Minnows

I honestly dont know about cold water fish, there is a Cold water section of the forum, maybe best to ask in there for advice on tank sizes.