What Should I Do Now?

N0body Of The Goat · Aug 13, 2011

If I've read thelast post right at this unearthly hour before work, you have put your filter media in the saline solution overnight. I'm not sure you are going to have much of an alive bacterial colony left when you reintroduce the pleco, which suggests you are going to be "fish in cycling" with a big plec and probably needing to do 50% or bigger water changes daily.

I've read that bacterial colonies can adjust from fresh to marine or vice versa with ~20% daily water change adjustments towards the planned direction, but suddenly placing your filter media in high brakish or marine conditions could well kill off the bacteria through osmosis very quickly.

thisguyek · Aug 13, 2011

thats basically what i'm going for.... with the rate that I was previously loosing fish and my tests always coming out normal led me to believe that it had to be something more...

Ill admit that i may have rushed things a bit when i first set it up. I wanted to start fresh and take the necessary time to do it right this time around.

I will keep a log on this thread and keep you guys posted on my progress!

thisguyek · Aug 13, 2011

well phase one is complete.

filled it once with a hot salt bath and let it cool over night. filled it up again with hot water, no salt this morning. Just finished draining it and filling it up with cooler water... 78ish. I moved my pleco back in to his new home. poor guy was quite pale.... I hope i havent cause it too much stress. I have the first round of decor in. I'm currently soaking a nice piece of driftwood at the moment.

I did add the recommended doses of stress coat+ and stress zyme.

I would like your opinions on these (and other) products for starting/helping the cycle process. I've heard a few good things about start right from tetra i believe... saying that it helps with new tank syndrome and that fish can be added right away. Am I better off doing good old fashioned water changes or do these products really help?

Pictures soon to come!