Tank
Another fishy post, I'm afraid, but butubutubut !
After one year of saving and eating noodles and waiting and waiting....IT is here. IT : the new house of my scaled fellows.
I can't wait to watch my fishes swim inside it !
The water isn't clear yet, so it doesn't look like anything right now.
I've planted some plants (perched on a stepladder, and nearly falling inside the tank...) : one
gorgeous echinodorus rubin, a bunch of lysimachia aurea, loads of cabomba, a few groups of vallisneria. I'll add anubias later : they have a deep green color, and tough leaves - no goldfish will eat this.The stump of wood is still boiling.
It's quite impressive. I discovered the New Tank Syndrome. You know, the anxious days when you're afraid the tank or the stand might fall down, when you wake up in the middle of night to check on your tank ? *wink*
The only disappointing point (point point pointpoint!) is the filter which is way too noisy. Don't get a rena XP3 if you can avoid it, that's my advice. I'll try to find a way to dampen the noise, and a second filter is needed anyway, for goldfishes are well known for their cleanliness.
It's so hard to wait. Go on, nitrites, come on !
posted by transparency @ 5:31 e.h.
5 Comments:
At 2:09 e.h.,
Skywolf said…
Oh! It's beautiful! That will be a stunning tank. And argh, I know, the patience needed whilst you wait for cycling. *rolls eyes*
But... how are you cycling? Without any fish in there, you'll never have any food for the bacteria. Or, to save putting any fish at risk, you can use the fishless cycling method, where you add bottled ammonia until it's cycled. Perhaps you're already doing this? Also, couldn't you seed your new filter with some material from your old one? Or, unless you have an undergravel filter in your old tank, you could just hang the old filter on the new tank along with the new filter and your fish should be okay to live in there straight away. You'll need the added filtration for a larger tank like that, but the new filter will be cycling with the fish in there whilst the old one looks after them.
Hmm... perhaps I'm preaching to the converted, but there are a few ways to overcome your impatience, especially if you have an already cycled tank that you can borrow some filter material from, at the very least? But you'll still need to feed the bacteria, either by adding a few hardy fish or with some tasty ammonia.
Ooh... but do keep posting pics until it's done. :) Your goldies will be sooo happy in there!
At 3:28 e.h.,
transparency said…
I've never heard of those ammonia bottles. But I threw bits of food in the empty tank to feed the bacteria. Is that okay ?
I could hang the old filter in the new tank. But is there a risk or something for the fish ? Because it's a small filter, and the tank is so big !
It's so tempting ! They will get lost in that tank, my little ones, but I bet they'll be happy indeed. I hope they won't eat the plants in a few hours, though *wink* I hope the echinodorus rubin will grow like your amazing amazon sword !
Thanks, Sky. If you have any bits of advice, i'm all ears.
*dances around*
At 1:00 e.h.,
Skywolf said…
Here's a useful link about fishless cycing:
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=113
Also, if you Google 'fishless cycling', there's quite a lot of good info out there. The ammonia method won't speed things up - it'll still be about a month before things are cycled - but it does mean you won't be putting any fish at risk by using them to cycle the tank. Adding some food to the empty tank will definitely help, but you'll probably need something more than that. It's hard to say whether your small filter will be enough to sustain the fish while the other filter catches up, as I can't really tell from your pictures what sort of size tank and filter you have. The filter will still only be coping with waste from your two fish, though, regardless of how large the tank is. It will just depend on the water turnover of the filter. Obviously, if it's not turning over a very fast rate of water, it won't be cleaning everything quite as thoroughly in a larger tank.
I would definitely recommend that you seed your new filter with some material from your established one, though. This will add at least some of the bacteria the filter needs to start breaking things down, and ought to speed things up a little. It's pretty easy to do this. If you have a sponge medium in your old filter, you could cut a section of it and place this piece in your new filter (you'll probably have to put a similar sized piece of new sponge in your old filter to make up for the piece you remove, but it won't do the old filter any harm as long as you don't clean the old sponge for a week or two whilst the new piece gets nice and full of bacteria).
Or, you could just sort of smear the new filter media with some of the gunk on your old filter. That's all good healthy stuff that will help the new tank mature. You'll still have to watch your water readings carefully, but this usually just gives things a nice kick start.
The absolute main thing is to feed the bacteria. Without some ammonia (caused by the breakdown of food, fish waste, or a neat ammonia compound added to the tank), they'll have nothing to eat and convert to nitrites, and then the de-nitrifying bacteria will have no nitrites to eat to convert to lovely safe nitrate. So keep them fed! :)
Do a bit of reading, though, and find out which method would work best for you. You might decide you just want to buy a few hardy little fish to put in the tank to get it cycled. This method works well, but isn't always very fair on the fishies... Some species are much more capable of coping with nitrite and ammonia levels than others, though.
And ooh, I'd love to see how your rubin grows. I've never had one of those, but they're beauties!
At 1:45 e.h.,
transparency said…
Thanks ! And indeed, Google finds loads of articles about "fishless cycling".
Goldfishes are supposed to be hardy fish, but I won't take any risk. I'll keep them safe in their little tank. So yes to fishless cycling !
The idea of putting a bit of sponge from the old filter in the new one is a good one. I'll do this tonight. And I'll take care to feed the bacteria *wink*
At 2:03 e.h.,
Skywolf said…
Good luck!
Let me know how it goes. :)
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