Stocking The Tank, Cycling The Tank....

[ZeCapitane]

I'm starting off with some Zebra Danios, I was thinking 2 to 3 for now. I know they'll probably need more than that, but I'm entirely new to this fish-tank thing, so I'd start off small. If I should get more than that, I will.

I was going to get some guppies, but I've heard the Danios will terrorize those, so I won't get those.

Angelfish might work good? I know those would also eat the guppies, which is why I'm not getting them.

Tetra, yes, I'll get those most likely. I'm going for a pretty common community tank. Any more suggestions? I was going to get African Dwarf Frogs, but I've heard those are rather slow and that the other fish would eat their food. As adorable as I think they are, I wouldn't get them if they just starved to death on my. My aunt also thinks I need a bottomfeeder, so I'm not 100% sure on this. Input would be nice.

I've got a 20 gallon tank, by the way. I was also wondering about the cycling process, I heard you can borrow the media...I have a friend who has a fish tank with about 9 tetra, 2 angelfish, and they might have gotten something else. I wouldn't ask to borrow their media, seeing as their fish tank is still running and it seems like it would be quite an inconvenience. Would it be possible for me to borrow some of their water, or even their gravel, to speed up the cycling process? I still need to dechlorinate the water, I've got enough dechlorinator for one tank full and that's it.

Another reason I want to perhaps quicken the cycling process is I'm getting the Danios on Tuesday. My uncle's bringing them here for a birthday present, that I'm not supposed to know about, so I can't stop him. I'm willing to devote as much time as possible to cycling the tank and keeping the little guys alive, and I know I definitely will not be purchasing any more fish until the tank is completely and properly cycled.

Sorry it was so long, and I hope I worded the questions understandably. Come to think of it I gave more information than asking questions, but I hope it'll help you answer?

One more question, for storing dechlorinated water. My uncle's also bringing some dechlorinating stuff, and I was wondering if I could just store the water in a milk jug or something similar, and dechlorinate it when I put it in there? And add it as I change, then when I run out of the water I'll just add more and dechlorinate that? I don't have space to put a bucket, since I live in a cramped place and my cat would drink it out in the open.

 

[mancin]

I've got a 20 gallon tank, by the way. I was also wondering about the cycling process, I heard you can borrow the media...I have a friend who has a fish tank with about 9 tetra, 2 angelfish, and they might have gotten something else. I wouldn't ask to borrow their media, seeing as their fish tank is still running and it seems like it would be quite an inconvenience. Would it be possible for me to borrow some of their water, or even their gravel, to speed up the cycling process? I still need to dechlorinate the water, I've got enough dechlorinator for one tank full and that's it.

The water won't do much good IMO. The cycling process is meant to cycle the filter media, not the water. If they have an under gravel filter, borrowing some gravel may help establish beneficial bacteria, but if they don't have an under gravel filter I don't know if it will do much good. I'm sure some more experienced fish keepers can shed some more light on that.

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

First, lets talk about cycling. "Cycling" a tank is actually cycling the filter. It is the process of building a colony of nitrifying bacteria to handle the ammonia and subsequent nitrite from fish waste. You don't actually borrow filter media, you just get it. The bacteria can double in about 24 hours so if your friend can give you half (since you want to start with only a few fish, you really only need a small amount, not really half) his bacteria, his bacteria colony would be back to full strength in about a day. Adding that media to your tank would all but make your tank cycled. It's called cloning a tank. If you don't get media from him, there isn't any way you can have the tank cycled by Tuesday. It takes a minimum of 2 weeks to cycle a tank without fish, using ammonia.

If you end up cycling with fish, you just have to do water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels down. Do you have a test kit? You will need a liquid one (stay away from strips as they are terribly inaccurate and more expensive in the long run) that can test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate & pH. I see you are in Canada. If you can't find one at a fish store locally, try bigalsonline.com. I have bought from them before and their prices are good. Back to cycling, your goal during a fishless cycle will be to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels below.25 ppm. That will probably require daily water changes until they are both back to zero. Don't add any new fish until that is the case. Then don't add more than you already have. If you get 2 to start, don't add more than 2 more. Then start testing and doing water changes again until you're back to 0 ammonia and nitrite.

As far as the water is concerned, there is no need to store it. Just add dechlorinator each time you do a water change. It works instantly and the chlorine is gone.

At 20 gallons, your tank really isn't large enough for angels. Sure, they will be fine for a while but they grow to 6" in length but, more importantly, can get 12" or more in height counting their fins. The angels might also get harassed and stressed by the very active danios. Tetras, rasboras, corys (bottom feeders), some barbs (stay away from tiger barbs) etc. are all great community fish. For slightly larger fish, look into some dwarf gouramis.

 

[ZeCapitane]

Thanks for the info! Yeah, angels are pretty, but if the tanks to small, I won't get them.

So, if I want to do a fishless 'cycle' (or rather, clone the tank as you said, and it would be preferrable. I don't like the idea of cycling with the fish in it.) by tuesday, how exactly would I do that? Sorry if it says on the forums, I looked around briefly and couldn't find it. I'm assuming my understanding of this whole thing was completely inaccurate. Would I just take some of the bacteria? And if she happens to have an under-gravel filter, can I still do that?
Sorry, I'm very, very new to this.

Hello and welcome to the forum.

First, lets talk about cycling. "Cycling" a tank is actually cycling the filter. It is the process of building a colony of nitrifying bacteria to handle the ammonia and subsequent nitrite from fish waste. You don't actually borrow filter media, you just get it. The bacteria can double in about 24 hours so if your friend can give you half (since you want to start with only a few fish, you really only need a small amount, not really half) his bacteria, his bacteria colony would be back to full strength in about a day. Adding that media to your tank would all but make your tank cycled. It's called cloning a tank. If you don't get media from him, there isn't any way you can have the tank cycled by Tuesday. It takes a minimum of 2 weeks to cycle a tank without fish, using ammonia.

If you end up cycling with fish, you just have to do water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels down. Do you have a test kit? You will need a liquid one (stay away from strips as they are terribly inaccurate and more expensive in the long run) that can test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate & pH. I see you are in Canada. If you can't find one at a fish store locally, try bigalsonline.com. I have bought from them before and their prices are good. Back to cycling, your goal during a fishless cycle will be to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels below.25 ppm. That will probably require daily water changes until they are both back to zero. Don't add any new fish until that is the case. Then don't add more than you already have. If you get 2 to start, don't add more than 2 more. Then start testing and doing water changes again until you're back to 0 ammonia and nitrite.

As far as the water is concerned, there is no need to store it. Just add dechlorinator each time you do a water change. It works instantly and the chlorine is gone.

At 20 gallons, your tank really isn't large enough for angels. Sure, they will be fine for a while but they grow to 6" in length but, more importantly, can get 12" or more in height counting their fins. The angels might also get harassed and stressed by the very active danios. Tetras, rasboras, corys (bottom feeders), some barbs (stay away from tiger barbs) etc. are all great community fish. For slightly larger fish, look into some dwarf gouramis.

 

[rdd1952]

Undergravel filters are pretty much obsolete now. Very few people still use them. Unless her tank is very old, she most likely has a hang-on-back, internal or external filter. If so, she can simply open it up and give you some of the media in it. Even if she just uses sponges, she can cut one for you. By adding it to your filter, you should be fine for the 2 or 3 danios you get to start. For cycling info, try the 2 links below:

Fishless Cycliing

Fish-In Cycling

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there Zcap and welcome to TFF!

You are in good hands with RDD. He's one of the mods, very experienced, and really helped me with lots of tips and encouragement when I got on the forum a year ago. I'll just chime in, probably repeating some of what he said since that's often what we do here.

For either fishless cycling or fish-in cycling (if uncle can't be convinced to keep them a while longer!) the addition of "mature media" to your new filter from your friend's mature filter will be the most positive thing you can do for yourself in this situation. If at all possible, you might try to interact with your "donation" friend and anticipate what type of media it will be. The usual practice is to help the other person as much as possible, so if it would be a sponge from her filter and her filter takes a particular "shaped" sponge from the manufacturer then perhaps you could buy a replacement sponge beforehand and then when the two of you make the exchange you could help her cut a chunk (you always want to keep it below 1/3 of her sponge (or overall "biomedia" as we call it, which would be sponges, bioballs or ceramics) and put it out in, say, a plastic kitchen container that would have some of her tank water in which to submerge it, to help keep the bacteria alive. Then you would again use the scissors to cut a similar shaped piece of the new sponge that you bought her to firmly re-fill the space in her filter.

If she can donate ceramics or bioballs, that is even easier and again you could buy some repacements beforehand. Ceramics usually come as rings that look like pasta tubes or pepples that look like aquarium gravel. Both are made of white/tan ceramic material that's like the inside of a clay pottery oven. The surface is rough and allows the bacteria to attach and form colonies of cells in a structure called a "biofilm." Bioballs are ball-shaped plastic things also with lots of surface area.

White fluffy floss or "polyfloss" is also often used in filters, to trap fine particles. Its possible to use this for a mature media donation but usually less desirable in that it breaks down easily and so can be a mess to transport if it is very mature. The biofilms have some structure to them, so the end result has less chance of being successful for you on your end.

In either case, fish-in or fishless, mature media is pretty much the only reasonably reliable thing going that has a chance of speeding up the cycling process. The bacterial cells themselves have a fixed life cycle of growth and cell division that can't be speeded up, but having more cells to start with and providing the right environment can help some. Without mature media the process takes anywhere from 3 weeks to 2 months and the time it takes a particular person varies a lot.

As RDD says, one of the first things you'll need will be a liquid-reagent (bottles) based water test kit. Many of us use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit and like it. There is another one often recommended called the Nutrafin Mini-Master Test Kit. Post up the results for your tap water once you get a kit.

If you get the danios and are forced to do a fish-in cycle, you'll want to explore the long clear hose products like those made by "Python" to help with the many water changes, or consider your various options for making your own system for this activity.

Good luck and let us all know how it goes...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes as above, take one third of your friends total filter media, be sure to keep it wet in fishtank water and get it into your filter within 24 hrs. if the fish are coming on tuesday then do this on monday.

it's polite to buy replacement filter media for your friend.

the waste produced by 3 danio's will be minimal so you really don't need very much media to support them so even if your friend has a small filter then one third of the media should definately help.

when the fish are in you should then start testing the water every day for ammonia and nitrite, both should read 0. if you get any other reading then you are in a fish-in cycle and should do a water change to reduce it to below 0.25ppm preferably 0ppm. repeat this every day until the readings hold steady at 0.

it depends how much media you get (along with an element of luck) weather you'll need to do water changes or not in the first few days and how long it'd need to go on for. but with just a few danio's it shouldn't be more than a few days.

after this point you can just spend a lot of time researching cycling and fish keeping and getting all the basics covered before you add more stock.

 

[ZeCapitane]

Thankyou so much you guys I'll probably change the water daily, just to be safe. I don't want the little guys going through too much. I'll look in to buying a replacement filter and I'll talk to her today!

 

[onebto]

Hello ZeCapitane welcome to the forum I am reasonable new to the forum and the hobby but I do know your in good hands with rdd1952 , waterdrop and miss wiggle I have learnt so much from there posts my recommendation is to heed all there advice