What Set Up? Noob Help Needed 5ft Tank

[jperformance]

hey all,
hope i dont confuse to many(including myself here), had a 60*12*18'' tank a while ago , just got it reset back up again got a friend to give me 18L of his tank water( water is perfect) to help the cycle.

its currently got a gravel base , fluval* U4 filter and the temp is at 27/8 degrees(running a week)

going to let it cycle another week with a few plants in it and get a water sample done. Any ideas on what sort of fish would be suitable, would like a community tank. As before i got a few oscars and it was like a war zone in it.

any help hints etc is much appricieated

 

[gaz gun man]

hello mate, welcome to the forum

unfortunately the mature water you got from your friend wont do anything to help the cycle along, you need some mature filter media

Ask him if you can swap some of your new media with some of his mature media - roughly about 20% so your friend dosent have a cycle too, then start fishless cycling with ammonia.

Have a look at this thread which will talk you through fishless cycling;
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=113861

 

[Bobtastic]

^^^ Agreed!

Check out the links in my signature I found them extremely helpful for getting my head around what is needed when setting up a tank.

 

[jperformance]

hello mate, welcome to the forum

unfortunately the mature water you got from your friend wont do anything to help the cycle along, you need some mature filter media

Ask him if you can swap some of your new media with some of his mature media - roughly about 20% so your friend dosent have a cycle too, then start fishless cycling with ammonia.

Have a look at this thread which will talk you through fishless cycling;
[URL="http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=113861"]http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=113861[/URL]

hey thanks plenty of info here glad i joined.
should have mentioned we done this also , he has had tropical tanks for years so trusted his info over some random at pets at home.
''
just get a few small fish and build your tank up you can start straight away

''

helpful workers at the local pets at home haha

is this :
http/www.choiceful.com/disprod.php?pId=25
or the homebase brand really ok? think the wife uses this to clean the back!''

Can i also ask, are there any ''good'' online stores to buy stock from, i am in belfast so dont know if they ship over water?

 

[gaz gun man]

I dont know about the Jeyes one, but the Homebase one is fine, thats what I used to cycle my tank

 

[Bobtastic]

U just have to make sure that u dont get bubbles when you shake it up (past that you would expect to get with shaking water) and that there are no colourants and/or added smelly stuff. Not that you can tell that on the internet, but just check b4 you pour it into the tank.

 

[jperformance]

got the homebase stuff, no bubbles or anything . will get this in tonight to start it off properly.

the local aquatics ship said they are happy to test the water when i need it done, but would you suggest i get a api kit also ?

Just need to think what type of fish... new tank so i'm open to alot of suggestions

thanks again for the help and links

 

[Bobtastic]

You are probably best getting yourself a liquid based test kit, as you're gonna be testing the tank daily to start with and then towards the end you'll be testing every 12 hours.

Platies and Danios are quite hardy fish, and would be good to start off with.

 

[JenCliBee]

Just to let you know m8 the U4 filter wont be sufficient after a period of time to filter a 5 foot tank , maybe look into an external canister filter which will be much more adequate at filtering the tank fully

jen