Tank Up And 1 Week In

[Cossie1111]

at the start of the week i set up the tank with a little bit of mature filter media i got, i bought some of this stuff from Seachem called "stability" which is meant to stabalise the tank after one week of continuous use. anyway i put all the stuff in the tank driftwood etc, left it for a couple days.

the stability says the a fish can be added at anytime as long as dosage is maintained for one week so i put my fighter in there, he went pretty well, he was active and eating, but a day later i noticed his tail fin was fraying. so i did a few water changes and added some rock salt and now its starting to heal over.

and that's what happened the last 7 days.

if all goes well this weekend i might buy my first 4 harlequins and put them in

 

[Baccus]

Hate to be the bringer of bad news but even with using a llittle bit of mature media and Seachem stability your tank will not be cycled and ready for an influx of fish and the waste they will produce. I am not 100%sure but I am pretty sure that the harlequins wont like any salt traces left over from your treating of the fighter.

There are pinned threads that will explain the need for properly cycling a tank and how to go about it, please read them.

All that aside congrats on a new tank and welcome to the Forum

 

[Rummynose]

You will definitely need a liquid test kit, that will tell you what is going on in your tank in terms of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. The build up of ammonia is very toxic to fish, it hurts their gills, and larger amounts cause organ failure. You have to do lots of water changes to keep the levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate at safe levels. A good reading would be 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 5 - 15 nitrate.

Even low level readings of ammonia stress the fish and this can lower their immunesystem. Things they would normally be able to fight off, now make them sick, they get bacterial or fungal infections and are more prone to ich! So, keeping on top of your readings and water changes saves you money on medicines, and time treating your tank.

 

[the_lock_man]

I disagree with Baccus to a certain extent. At the moment, you don't know whether your tank is ready or not. It might well be that the mature media you have used holds enough bacteria to process the waste ammonia from your fighter, and it might not. You need to test the water for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate with a liquid-based test kit (the strips are not accurate enough for someone in your position).

If that test shows 0ppm for ammonia and 0ppm for nitrite and a level above 0ppm for nitrate, then I would say it would be ok to introduce 2 harlequins. But not 4. You then need to test your water daily for those 3 chemicals and see how your bacteria are coping. If you are showing anything other than 0ppm for ammonia and/or nitrite, then you need to do a water change, the size of which depends on the amount of the toxins your tests are revealing.

If your initial test shows anything other than 0ppm for ammonia and nitrite, your filter is not ready for more fish. You need to be testing daily, and changing water, as per my previous paragraph, until such time as you can go for a week with tests showing 0ppm ammonia and nitrite.

Basically when you reach that Holy Grail of Fishkeeping (0ppm ammo and nitrite) you can add a couple more fish, until you reach the capacity of the tank.

I hope this helps.