Water Changes & Some Other Info

[Skunkfu]

Ok, last thing:
I do have 2 gold fish in small 5 litre orb shaped tank. I will be giving them away as we want tropical fish tank. Someone in another thread mentioned that i could do cycle in my new tank with those 2 fish [with heater off] What would you recommend fish in or fishless cycle?

Many Thanks

If you have gravel substrate in your current tank you could always add this to the new tropical tank as some of the bacteria you need will be growing on it.

If you dont want to put it in view you could always add the gravel to a stocking or net of some sort and place some in your new filter.

Or if your current tank has a filter couldnt u exchange media?

Every little helps

No, no filter in that 5 liter tank and no gravel, just some fancy glas looking stones that get washet every week under tap water. I did take this plastic plant and dropped into my new tank, will it help at all?

Hey guys,
Got my tank delivered yesterday and before i start, wanted to ask some more questions just to be sure, it might sound stupid, but i got to know :]

When doing water changes, do i need to dechlorinate water every time? Cant i just connect hose to my tap and just fill up the tank? :]
Once you add new/fresh water to the tank [with fishes], water temp will drop before heater heats it back to desired temp, i take this short period of colder water wont harm any fish, am i right here? Or should i try to mix hot & cold to get warm water?

Regarding background, i did read up on these forums that black is kinda good/best, what do you think about those called "3D" ones like "tree root" or "granite stone" efects, they quite expensive, but are they worht it? My tank is 180 litre.

I got an aye on this nice piece of mopani wood, its quite big, well very long branches, so it wont fit in any pot or bucked, so any advice on how to soak it to get lil bit of colour out before it goes into my tank?

Many thanks!

all water needs dechlorinating on water changes larger than 10%
you can add water then dechlor providing no fish are in their or bacteria already.
you can do cold water changes, but only if its a 15% WC, any larger and heating with boiling water to around the tank temp will be necessary.
i wouldnt bother with a back ground, a tank will look way better without one IMO.
soak the wood in a plastic storage container, if it still wont fit just give it a rinse and you will have to live with the tannins or you can remove them with GAC

Just a point pn the tannins from the wood.

I have a really nice big piece of circular bogwood and absolutely love the colour of my water. Its kind of a weak tea colour and fits perfectly with my amazonian theme. Whats more. I find it brings out the colours in my neon tetra. Not only that but it has also reduced my ph from 7.5 to 7.1 which is much better for the fish im keeping

I actually done a bit of research on the tannins before i got the wood and the impression i got was the fish seem to appreciate it more and honestly...my tank looks much better now

Dropped whole piece into hot bath and left it for 2 hours and then straight in my tank. So far no tannis :]

 

[mickspark81]

Usuallly i find it takes maybe 24 hours or longer before you start to notice the difference but this would largly depend on the size of the wood, its condition, size of your tank etc

My first piece of bogwood i purchased didnt release any tannins at all

 

[Skunkfu]

like most newbs i messed up a lil bit, started my fish-less cycle and added too much ammonia.... reads 8ppm. Shall i leave it as it is and wait till it drops to 2ppm and keep it that way or i need to do big water change!? please help

I did that Do a water change - you want it to read around 4ppm. 8ppm is too high and your cycle won't move forward. Do a 50% change and see what it reads then.

Bahhh! some plants are caput.... Done 50% water change, lol people were looking through the windows , thinking what the hell i am doing with all those hoses in my garden at 22:30pm...

Test shows erm.... its either 4ppm or 6ppm, so hopefully this ok to continue?

Many Thanks

 

[waterdrop]

Yes 4 to 6ppm will be fine. You just don't want to get to 7 or 8ppm because that concentration encourages a different species of ammonia oxidizing bacteria which is the wrong one. Just aim for 4ppm if there's a matching color for that on your chart. Only at the very end of the cycle (maybe a month or more from not typically) will it be nice to try to darken it a little to 5ppm for the final couple weeks.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Skunkfu]

Little update:

It looks like everything seatled down today...
Ammonia at 4ppm
Water PH 7.6
This is 2nd day of my fishless cycle, so i take it i can continue with these stats?

And big thank you for all your help guys, much appreciated!

 

[OldMan47]

At 7.6 pH and 4 ppm of ammonia, just let things run their course. A test every other day will be often enough this early in the game to easily detect any change that might happen. It will likely be well over a week before you need to add any ammonia again.

 

[Skunkfu]

A test every other day will be often enough this early in the game to easily detect any change that might happen. It will likely be well over a week before you need to add any ammonia again.

That is good to know! thank you very much.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with OM47. Sounds like you're off to a good start. 84F/29C is a good temp.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Skunkfu]

I knew something else will go wrong... I always thought that heater was working ok, well its brand new, so it's got to. I never even knew there was a red light to check if its operation, i just pluged it in, adjusted temp and thats it.
Because of this stupid post strike only yesterday i managed to get my digital thermometer delivered to me [like 6 days late], so i put it in the tank to find that water temp is 22-23C, and the problem is as per this thread:

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=305394

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, certainly seems like the heater should come on when plunged into cold water no matter where the dial is set. The dials of course usually have no relationship with the real temperature until you settle the heater in via thermometer and then perform whatever sort of "lift and twist" type of operation they tell you to to make the dial numbers come into alignment with what your tank thermometer says. The dial is just a rheostat for the setpoint, there's not usually any sort of thermometer function in a heater, unless I'm out of date on this.

~~waterdrop~~