Upgrading My 60Litre Tank For A 180 Litre Aquarium

[BooBoo83]

Hello was wondering if any one could help.
I am new to fish keeping and wanted some advice on upgrading my tank. I currently have a 60 litre aquarium and will be upgrading to a 180 litre on the weekend.
The fish I currently have are:

2 Small platium angel fish
3 male guppies
3 female
3 male platties
2 female
5 neon tetra's
1 yellow sucker loach

So here are my questions:

1) How would be best to cycle the new tank with fish or without fish?
2) How long do I wait before introducing the fish after its cycled? Do i do it in batches?
3) What other fish could I buy or would be suitable?
4) Would it be better to decorate new tank with real plants?

 

[SchottayB]

I think if you add the media from your old filter to your new filter and add the fish and maybe some of your old water you would be good to go?

Or if your keeping your old filter for the new tank you should be good to go still.

Real plants always look better IMO, and helps the tank in differnt ways so i've heard.

Maybe someone will go in to more detail though

 

[waterdrop]

Hi BB83 and welcome to TFF!

What's the possibility of moving the 60L/16G filter over to the new 180L/48G? Perhaps its an internal and could live temporarily in the new tank.. perhaps its an HOB but there would be some back edge of the new tank where it could hang?

If this were the case then one of the things I think of doing is a combo of new filter seeding along with a move of the old filter. What you'd do is move about 1/3 of the biomedia (that's the sponges and/or ceramic rings etc. that harbor the bacteria) from the old filter to the new one (proportionately removing some of the new media and setting it aside to make room for the mature media) but then you perform a move of the old filter and fish to the new tank. You'd perform the mature media move first, getting the new filter up and running in the new tank with conditioned water and then just for good measure (not really required) move about 1/2 the water from the old tank into the new, leaving the new tank with mostly new water. Then bag up the fish and acclimate them to the new tank and move the old filter over to the new tank where it will help support the current bioload of fish during the month or two of the new filter getting populated fully with bacteria.

Why go to this "combo" trouble? To me, its an added "tweek" to the process that should provide an extra hedge against the possibility of mini-cycles caused by a full mature media move. In the past our usual recommendation would be to just move all the mature media to the new filter and have it continue to support its same fish population. This works fine most of the time but occasionally when you move media it will just seem to shut down because of being disturbed and my idea is that this combo type move would help.. hope that makes sense. I'm open to criticism of this idea if other members want to chime in...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[BooBoo83]

I think if you add the media from your old filter to your new filter and add the fish and maybe some of your old water you would be good to go?

Or if your keeping your old filter for the new tank you should be good to go still.

Real plants always look better IMO, and helps the tank in differnt ways so i've heard.

Maybe someone will go in to more detail though

Thanks for your advice. Dont wont to kill my fish, sounds stupid there like my kids. lol

 

[BooBoo83]

Thank you soo much for your detailed reply. Was wondering if I could ask you another question? One of my angel fish seems to have white spot. Treated the tank last week for it and followed manufacturers instructions. It has improved but not completely gone. What do you suggest, do I retreat the tank again? Water quality is fine think I may have caught it from my old fish supplier. Stop using him as he sold me sick fish.

Hayley

 

[waterdrop]

Thank you soo much for your detailed reply. Was wondering if I could ask you another question? One of my angel fish seems to have white spot. Treated the tank last week for it and followed manufacturers instructions. It has improved but not completely gone. What do you suggest, do I retreat the tank again? Water quality is fine think I may have caught it from my old fish supplier. Stop using him as he sold me sick fish.

Hayley

Here is OM47's good link:

Ich Info

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

The key to treating white spot effectively is to continue treatment for several days after the last sign of the disease is gone. Since the parasite needs to fall off the fish, reproduce and then infect a new fish to continue its life cycle, you need to treat until that free-swimming stage is reached, where the parasite is seeking a new host. That is the only stage where our treatments can actually kill the parasite and it happens a couple of days after the spot disappears from a fish. Until the last spot is gone, there is still a reservoir of parasites to re-infect the fish in your tank and even those in that last spot will take a couple of days after they fall to the tank bottom before they can be effectively eliminated.