Several Newbie Questions

[ziggyboy]

Hi all! I'm new here and new to fishkeeping in general. I live in Sydney, Australia and recently got myself a 20L tank to house some tropical fish. For the past 4 days I've been attempting to do fishless cycling by feeding the tank fish food. Don't know how effective this is but I can't find any pure ammonia anywhere. I've got a few questions. Hope you don't mind.

My tests are in mg/L not ppm and readings go from 0 to 2 mg/L. How do I convert this to ppm?

In day 1 I had 0.25 mg/L ammonia, then 0 in day 3, added some more food and came up with 0.25 mg/L today. My nitrite has been constantly at 0.1 mg/L with 0 nitrates. Am I putting too little ammonia? Btw, a friend let me borrow a spare filter from an established tank and bought myself some driftwood and plants (also from an established tank) from a pet store. Would this help in culturing the bacteria?

Thanks in advance.

 

[rdd1952]

First, welcome to the forum.

Second, mg/L and ppm are the same or at least close enough that everyone considers them the same. You do need up the amount of flakes you're adding. Generally, during a fishless cycle, you want to raise the ammonia up to about 4 ppm. Since you have a filter for seed (yes, that will speed the process), there may be enough bacteria on it that it has prevented the level from getting that high. I would double or even triple the amount of flakes you've been putting in and see how high the ammonia gets. Have you tested for nitrites yet?

Keep in mind that a 20L tank is pretty small so you will be very limited on what you can put in it without being overstocked. The general rule of thumb is 1" of adult fish per gallon of water so you would be at about 5 or 6 inches of fish. Also, research the fish you want and make sure the tank size is suitable for them. Fish like danios need lots of swimming room so even though they are small community fish, they need at least a 20 gallon tank.

 

[ziggyboy]

First, welcome to the forum.

Second, mg/L and ppm are the same or at least close enough that everyone considers them the same. You do need up the amount of flakes you're adding. Generally, during a fishless cycle, you want to raise the ammonia up to about 4 ppm. Since you have a filter for seed (yes, that will speed the process), there may be enough bacteria on it that it has prevented the level from getting that high. I would double or even triple the amount of flakes you've been putting in and see how high the ammonia gets. Have you tested for nitrites yet?

Keep in mind that a 20L tank is pretty small so you will be very limited on what you can put in it without being overstocked. The general rule of thumb is 1" of adult fish per gallon of water so you would be at about 5 or 6 inches of fish. Also, research the fish you want and make sure the tank size is suitable for them. Fish like danios need lots of swimming room so even though they are small community fish, they need at least a 20 gallon tank.

I have tested for nitrites and I constantly get 0.1 mg/L. Anyway, I'm not in a rush so I'll just add more fish food and wait this out.

This is my first tank so I wanted to start small (and cheap ). I plan to put 6 small fish and a shrimp, or would that be too much? 5 fish+shrimp maybe? I have also been searching for the keywords 'tropical fish compatibility' and '20L aquarium fish suggestions' without much luck. I just get a list of fish that can live well together but not what I can fit in a 20L tank. A few of the fish I'm interested in are schooling fish but I'd want 2-3 different types. Would that be possible? What small fish would you suggest for small tanks that do not require to be in a school?

Thanks!

 

[rdd1952]

This pinned topic has some good information about fish for small tanks (actually written for 10 gallon but still the same fish apply). Just make sure you stay with fish that won't grow to more than an inch or 2. There really aren't many small non-schooling (or non-shoaling) fish. The main reason they shoal is for safety. They would soon realize there wasn't a threat in the tank and be fine. Just get 3 to 5 depending on their adult size. The shrimp really don't add much to the bio-load so you could probably get 3 to 5 fish and still get 2 or 3 shrimp too. Shrimp are mainly scavengers and will clean up any food that ends up on the bottom of the tank.

 

[dwarfgourami]

This pinned topic has some good information about fish for small tanks (actually written for 10 gallon but still the same fish apply). Just make sure you stay with fish that won't grow to more than an inch or 2. There really aren't many small non-schooling (or non-shoaling) fish. The main reason they shoal is for safety. They would soon realize there wasn't a threat in the tank and be fine. Just get 3 to 5 depending on their adult size. The shrimp really don't add much to the bio-load so you could probably get 3 to 5 fish and still get 2 or 3 shrimp too. Shrimp are mainly scavengers and will clean up any food that ends up on the bottom of the tank.

Not quite the same fish apply. Most 2 inch fish are not suitable for a 5 gallon tank. Also, I would say shelldwellers are out of the question in a tank this small, and you may not want more than one honey gourami. Though schooling fish school mainly for safety, they are actually conditioned to live in groups, often according to a strict hierarchy, so I would not attempt keeping 2 or 3 of any schooling species, you may end up with aggression problems, or at least you won't see much natural interacting.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

mmmm with a tank that size i'd say your really limited to 2 species tops and that's absolute max and you'd need to be bang on with yuor maintenance and never miss a water change etc.

you could go for a shoal of microrasbora then a trio of pygmy cories or something along those lines.

and i think the idea that shrimp don't add to your bio load is absolute nonsense tbh. amano shrimp are little poop machines, I'd count them as more of a drain on your filter than a similar sized fish tbh.

 

[PufferFishRule]

try adding feeder fish...cruel yes but thats all they are really good for......other than that there are many chemicals that hep with cycling

 

[rdd1952]

try adding feeder fish...cruel yes but thats all they are really good for......other than that there are many chemicals that hep with cycling

I would say feeder fish are a definite no no. A lot of them are in poor health and would grow way too big (feeder comets) for a 5 gallon tank. And it isn't all they're good for. If you buy feeder fish, treat any problems they have and properly care for them, they can easily live a full life. They're just easy to breed and therefore cheap enough to be sold as feeders.

As for the chemicals to aid cycling, most all of those are a pure waste of maoney. There are a couple, Bio-Spira and I think Bactinettes (UK I believe) that seem to work but products like Cycle, Stress Zyme, etc are useless.

 

[ziggyboy]

As previously mentioned I'm using fish food to produce ammonia. In the first couple of days my ammonia buildup was too slow so I increased my dose a little such that a good portion of my gravel is covered with it. 2 days on with the fish food and you could see the food decaying. A noticeable clear whitish film seemed to have grown over the decaying food. What is this and should I be cleaning this up?

I have checked my ammonia and it has spiked to 2 mg/L (that's as far as my tester kit's range will go). My nitrite has also happily gone up to 0.5 mg/L, possibly thanks to the spare filter from my friend's established tank. However my nitrate is still stagnant at 10 mg/L.