Plants

[Linda B xxx]

I have plastic plants in my tank,

still no fishes as my filter is being inpregnated with bacteria from hubbys mates well established tank.

having just read a post from another member about cycling with fish, someone answered with an explanition regarding the water cycle saying that real plants use the nitrate and convert it into oxygen.

If i dont have real plants in my tank, what happens to the nitrate? will this harm my fish when i get them? is it nessacery to have real plants in my tank?

sorry for all the questions, i'm slighty concerned i'm going to end up harming my fish..

 

[dgwebster]

its not absolutely necessary: regular water changes take care of the nitrate levels.

Its just in a planted tank, nitrate acts as a source of food and so nitrate would still build up just not as fast and regular water changes are still needed. I much prefer them though as it then has a constantly changing environment as the plants grow etc but there is other costs to add such as CO2 and plant food for a really good tank.

 

[Linda B xxx]

Thank you,

i feel better about it now

 

[Torrean]

still no fishes as my filter is being inpregnated with bacteria from hubbys mates well established tank

Are you adding ammonia to your tank? If not then any bacteria you add to your tank will die because it has no food source. If you are adding bacteria from an established tank then you can go ahead and add fish. A fishless cycle is still the way to go but if you add enough bacteria and monitor your water chemistry then it's not absolutly necessary.

 

[Linda B xxx]

I havent got the filter back yet, but i plan on getting some danios once i get the filter back.

i am wondering how many i should add to begin with, i have read many posts which say they should be in groups of 5 or more, my tank is a jewel rekord 96, how many can i add to start with, can i add 5, or can i add more than 5 to start with?

 

[Torrean]

ah the filter is in his tank...duh. how many gallons is your tank? Danios like to be in atleast 30 gallons of water because they are very active fish. You could probably keep them in 20 without any problems though. 5 is the recommended number. The inch of fish per gallon rule applies to danios because they are so small so I would use that to decide how many fish you can keep.

 

[Linda B xxx]

Thanks,

my tank is 96 gallons.

 

[dgwebster]

The Juwel Rekord 96 is actually 25 UK Gallons. And I'd personally go with the "multiply length by width/10" approach to get inch for fish if you are keeping something like zebra or leopard danios, but you can easily start with 5 no problems. Most stores will do a deal at 6 (e.g. buy 5 get one free) so 6 may be your magic number.

I started with the 6 zebra danios myself.

 

[Linda B xxx]

Thanks for that,

i cant wait until i get my new babies

 

[dgwebster]

one addition of my experience - i got fish whilst a little blind and expected nice swimming fish - like my neons, gouramis etc

when i got the danios though, it was life in the fast lane of a motorway 24/7 - have still become very attacched to them, but not as much as my frogs n betta which show a much bigger personality.