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Setting up a new tank, my first fish in ... 13 years or so It's been running for over 24hr now, giving it time before I get fish etc (planning on some barbs and danios unless that's an awful idea) But I'm getting this accumulation of bubbles on the surface of the water that is giving me some pause  It's all coming from my one water stone and getting gathered by flow from the filter, it would seem. If I disturb the surface a little bit, just give it a quick swirl, they all disappear, so I have to assume it's like .. a water softness issue maybe? I'm in Pittsburgh and our water isn't exactly the best. Of course, googling "bubbles in aquarium" etc just returns tons of results about not cleaning your gravel etc so not super helpful And for fun here's a photo of the actual tank setup 
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Feb 6, 2023 07:28
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| # ? May 23, 2024 12:20 |
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Sometimes you get bubbles like that from residue left over from manufacturing in brand new filter foams/sponges. I like to try to give everything new a very thorough rinse just in case, after one time I poisoned some guppies and my first batch of peacock gudgeons via cheap and nasty filter sponges. It won't hurt to do a few big water changes on your new tank just to remove anything that might be ending up in your water from your new gear. I've kept rosy barbs and danios together before without much trouble, and the tank looks reasonably sized, but you might want to get a second hang on back filter to make sure you have enough filtration media volume. If you keep your water level higher in the tank, eg level with the bottom plastic lip of the filter, the water from the HOB will travel across the surface instead of pouring down into the tank. I think that's how they're intended to run, but if you like the sound it makes, keeping the water level lower won't hurt either, barbs and danios both enjoy water movement.
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Feb 6, 2023 08:43
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Stoca Zola posted:I've kept rosy barbs and danios together before without much trouble, and the tank looks reasonably sized, but you might want to get a second hang on back filter to make sure you have enough filtration media volume. Filter is rated for a 40-70 gal on my 30 so I'd assume it's good?
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Feb 6, 2023 08:51
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For a hang on back filter I feel like they're talking about how much flow moves through the filter rather than what volume of media is available to support what volume of fish. The number on the box usually is an idealised turn over number and doesn't survive contact with messy reality such as reduced flow over time from build up in the media and on the parts. This is true for all kinds of filter not just hang on back filters, and what makes hang on back filters worse is the cartridge based ones expect you to throw all your media away and put a useless clean cartridge in as replacement. Not sure what brand yours is, or if you're running it filled with extra media but to my mind you can't overfilter! and two means you can do maintenance on one at a time without losing too much beneficial bacteria on the other filter. On second glance it does look like a pretty beefy media chamber on that HOB so for young/small fish it might be fine to start with once you've established the nitrogen cycle in your tank using whichever method appeals. You do want circulation, which a high flow filter does provide, but moving water quickly past a small volume of filter bacteria isn't as good as moving it slowly or moving it through a large volume. And barbs can be fairly chunky fish with good appetites (depending what variety you get), which means to my mind they have capacity to produce more waste per fish than a slim sensible danio. So maybe no, you don't need a whole second filter exactly the same as the first one, but maybe a sponge filter or an internal filter or even a small HOB at the other end of the tank to give you a back up filter and a bit of extra filter media capacity wouldn't hurt. Certainly as the fish get bigger over time a tank that was adequately filtered can slowly and sneakily become underfiltered, so that's just something to keep in mind as your tank matures. Cloudy Tank Mystery: The water is almost crystal clear again already. Nothing else has really changed. No idea what is going on! Edit: rereading this post, I feel like I drank too much coffee today. I'm not trying to say I think you're about to make a horrible mistake! I think your tank is very likely to be fine starting out as long as you don't get too many fish at once. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Feb 6, 2023 |
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Feb 6, 2023 15:40
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Schwack posted:CPD are kind of fun because they don't school tightly like, say, Tetras. Speaking of CPD deformities... I have/had 30 CPD's (24 from AquaticArts and 12 from a LFS), and in the last 6 months I've had to euthanize 7 males with spinal deformities. Thus far, all males with spinal deformities have had to be euthanized at a rate of about 1 per month. As they matured the spinal deformities became more pronounced and they all became ill in other ways. 4 appeared to have dropsy, 2 had lost their eyes (which WTAF) and this last one from Friday appeared to have ich. I currently have 2 males with deformities left. Female CPD's are unaffected and ~6 males that appear very healthy (even found 2 CPD fry in my filter!). Pygmy cories, ember tetras, and the SAE are also unaffected. Tank parameters are consistent: nitrate <20ppm, nitrite 0ppm, 300GH, 120KH, 7.2 PH, and 0 chlorine. I recently added 15 pothos cuttings to try to further reduce nitrates as well. I wasn't particularly concerned and had written it off as the males with deformities were being out-competed for food and were falling ill due to malnourishment until this last one with ich showed up. Luckily no other inhabitants seem impacted, but I went ahead and picked up a 36gal bowfront off Craigslist so I can move the CPDs. Hopefully I'll be able to get it cleaned up & set up this week so I can move them this coming weekend.
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Feb 6, 2023 19:58
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How mature were the CPDs when you got them? Spots and orange fins? Fully colored up?
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Feb 6, 2023 20:05
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Sockser posted:Setting up a new tank, my first fish in ... 13 years or so Update: Skimmed the top of the water a bunch, was lookin good, added like 2 gallons of new water And then it became immediately obvious how much iron is in my tap water It is ... very orange in this tank. Not sure what to do other than filter the gently caress out of my housewater. Good excuse to get a whole-house filter setup, I guess.
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Feb 6, 2023 21:26
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DeadlyMuffin posted:How mature were the CPDs when you got them? Spots and orange fins? Fully colored up? Oh definitely not, they were still very young when I got them. I think it took about 3 months to tell the females apart because they grew faster, and around 4 months for the males to color upwhich was the same time the spinal deformities became apparent. I've had them just over a year now.
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Feb 6, 2023 23:05
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candystarlight posted:Oh definitely not, they were still very young when I got them. I think it took about 3 months to tell the females apart because they grew faster, and around 4 months for the males to color upwhich was the same time the spinal deformities became apparent. I've had them just over a year now. Tiny! I go from eggs to distinguishable male/female in a about 3-4 months
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Feb 6, 2023 23:11
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Sockser posted:Update: That's probably tannin from the driftwood you have and not iron in the tap water. It will clear up over time as you do water changes.
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Feb 6, 2023 23:44
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Wandering Orange posted:That's probably tannin from the driftwood you have and not iron in the tap water. It will clear up over time as you do water changes. I mean, I live in Pittsburgh, and I get red drain stains over time, and some of the outlets in my waterfall showerhead get clogged with rust once in a while, so iron isn't suuuuuper out of the question here, but I'll do some water changes and see how it goes e: okay yeah all the reviews for the driftwood I bought are griping about the excessive tannins so into my poo poo pot and onto the stove they go Sockser fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Feb 7, 2023 |
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Feb 6, 2023 23:54
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Well celestial pearl danios don’t seem like they’ll work for my tank - nobody has them! Trying to think of other fish I could get locally… My local stores are just petco and pet supplies plus,’and they’re not very well maintained. Like…neon tetras seem like a safe bet maybe with a betta?
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Feb 7, 2023 03:04
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nwin posted:Well celestial pearl danios don’t seem like they’ll work for my tank - nobody has them! Harlequin Rasbora are good neon tetra alternatives. Hardy beasts that shoal and don't nip. Petco should have them
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Feb 7, 2023 04:01
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nwin posted:Well celestial pearl danios don’t seem like they’ll work for my tank - nobody has them! Neon tetras are really good looking, but basically little piranhas. Or rather piranhas are big tetras... Big fins can be pretty tempting for them.
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Feb 7, 2023 13:55
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nwin posted:So I went with a fluval edge 15g. I assume you mean a Fluval FLex and not an Edge, because the Edge only comes in a 6g and a 12g, and it suuuuucks to do maintenance on. Looks cool, though.
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Feb 10, 2023 02:54
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Correct, a flex.
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Feb 10, 2023 03:54
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Cycling my tank using dr. Tim’s ammonia and turbo start 700. I dosed ammonia to 2ppm 6 days ago and added the turbo start 5 days ago. Current reading are: Ammonia : 0 Nitrite: .5 ppm Nitrate: 5 ppm I’m using the api freshwater kit but it’s still hard to read the colors, so above are my best guesses. I can’t remember from the last time I cycled, but it seems weird I’d have nitrite and nitrate at the same time. I’m also wondering if I should dose ammonia to 1ppm in order to feed the tank. Suggestions? This is the first time I’ve used a nitrifying bacteria to help cycle the tank. I’ve just used shrimp in the past and it took loving forever. My kids are getting bored looking at an empty tank, hence the reason to kickstart it.
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Feb 11, 2023 14:08
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nwin posted:Cycling my tank using dr. Tim’s ammonia and turbo start 700. Any aquarium clubs near you? You can maybe kickstart with some seeded gravel or sponge filter; I usually keep a spare or two running in my tanks so anyone local can have some freebie bacteria.
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Feb 11, 2023 15:03
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I thought you were supposed to dose ammonia every day if you had no livestock, and you knew it was good to go when you had 0 ammonia the following day.
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Feb 11, 2023 15:58
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VelociBacon posted:I thought you were supposed to dose ammonia every day if you had no livestock, and you knew it was good to go when you had 0 ammonia the following day. poo poo. I think you’re right. I just read it and it said to dose half the initial dose until it reads zero the following day.
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Feb 11, 2023 18:24
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If you really want to jumpstart things fast your best bet is getting a handful of established filter media. You LFS might offer it - and if that's where you buy the fish there's not much risk of bringing in new and exciting fish diseases. Note that you would still stock on the lighter side.
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Feb 11, 2023 19:25
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Warbadger posted:If you really want to jumpstart things fast your best bet is getting a handful of established filter media. You LFS might offer it - and if that's where you buy the fish there's not much risk of bringing in new and exciting fish diseases. Yeah that’s a good idea. My only LFS around here are the chains though so who knows (petco/petsmart/pet supplies plus). PSP have the best looking tanks around here, so we’ll see if everything is zero tomorrow and go from there.
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Feb 11, 2023 21:03
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Just dosed ammonia an hour ago-here’s where I am: Looks like 1-2ppm ammonia but my lovely eyesight can’t tell if that’s 0 or 5ppm nitrate…leaning towards 0 though. Guess I’ll see in the morning of ammonia has gone to 0. If it has, and nitrite is zero as well…that should be a good indication it’s cycled, right?
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Feb 11, 2023 21:37
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nwin posted:Just dosed ammonia an hour ago-here’s where I am: My experience using bottled bacteria is that you'll get ammonia>nitrate initially, but it's not stable the way a cycled tank is. I'd start getting random ammonia and nitrite readings throughout the week and have to re-add more bacteria or do water changes to bring it back in line. It took the same amount of time to actually fully stabilise as the times I've cycled (fish in or fish out) without it. In my opinion, the bottled bacteria didn't do what it advertised, and I wouldn't recommend it for skipping cycling. If you do stock the tank, I strongly recommend stocking it extremely lightly, and being very vigilant about testing every day, and have some Prime on hand so you can make sure any random spikes aren't toxic to whatever stock you add. Treat it as basically fish-in cycling with a slight safety buffer, not an already fully cycled tank.
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Feb 11, 2023 23:11
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Another source for cycled filter media / active bacterial cultures would be local fishkeeping groups on Facebook. If you get people's extra plants, they will be coming from cycled tanks, and have a good coating of biofilm. Plants help with bioload too. Win win
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Feb 12, 2023 01:22
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The only method of cycling that I have found to work consistently is to start off with some daphnia and slowly build bioload from there
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Feb 12, 2023 08:56
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This is whacky…I’ve got a little bit of everything ~20 hours after dosing ammonia.
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Feb 12, 2023 14:16
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You have plants in there right?
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Feb 12, 2023 15:54
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VelociBacon posted:You have plants in there right? No. Just caribsea ecocomplete for a substrate which isn’t supposed to leach anything. Edit: apparently the nitrate test kit will give a false positive if nitrites are in the tank. Going to continue dosing ammonia daily. nwin fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 16:01
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Throwing a plant in there would probably at least inoculate the tank, and ought to improve water quality for the fish once you introduce them Shrimp will also be carrying trace amounts of bacteria on it too, even if he isn't producing noticable bio load
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Feb 13, 2023 08:55
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VelociBacon posted:I thought you were supposed to dose ammonia every day if you had no livestock, and you knew it was good to go when you had 0 ammonia the following day. if you dose ammonia everyday in a brand new tank isn't that going to overload it? i thought you wanted to keep it at a steady 4ppm until it starts going down, then dose it back up to 4 till its cycled. i'm currently cycling a saltwater tank and use this https://spec-tanks.com/ammonia-calculator-aquariums/ which i've used when cycling before, but ive only ever done freshwater till now.
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Feb 13, 2023 15:20
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The Nastier Nate posted:i thought you wanted to keep it at a steady 4ppm until it starts going down, then dose it back up to 4 till its cycled. That's the way I've always cycled my tanks, yeah. I use Fritz ammonium chloride powder without any bottled bacteria/starter solutions (they never seemed to do much for me). I have read that for smaller tanks 4ppm is overkill as the stocking will be lighter, but I like to err on the side of caution. Once the tank can handle 4ppm in 24 hours I repeat the dosing for a few days just to make extra sure everything's ready, then do a large water change to clear out excess nitrates and go from there. Plants are a solid plan, though I generally don't add anything too pricey or delicate during cycling because a number are sensitive to higher concentrations of ammonia. nwin posted:Like…neon tetras seem like a safe bet maybe with a betta? As Warbadger said, neon tetras can be a little excitable when fins are involved and their popularity has led to them being mass-produced and of often questionable genetic quality, with a lot of spinal issues, disease susceptibility, etc. I have a group of Green Neon Tetras that are very well-behaved, though they're a little harder to find and tend to be a little more reserved than their blue cousins. Harlies are great fish, very pretty when they've coloured up. I prefer the slightly smaller Lambchop/Espei variety, but I've had all three lookalikes and like them all. If you go with a (presumably) male betta and a school of smaller fish, keep an eye on his behaviour for the first couple of weeks as he settles in. I have had a number of bettas and while most lived long and happy lives in community tanks, the two I have now are housed alone because they couldn't stop being absolute assholes to their tankmates.
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Feb 14, 2023 22:41
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Planning to get my dad something bigger than 10gal, maybe in the 35-60 range. Thinking more biotope with a focus on one main type/population vs a community or grab bag of species. what are ppl’s thoughts on gouramis? Schooling vs solitary? Dwarf vs non-dwarf? Etc I’ve got zero experience with gouramis The other alternative I’m thinking is African cichlids, similarly zero experience with them though I’ve got some experience with big South American cichlids/Oscars/etc
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Feb 15, 2023 01:36
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Just be aware that if you want to cull the aggression of dwarf gouramis, finding females will be difficult.
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Feb 15, 2023 02:12
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Ok Comboomer posted:Planning to get my dad something bigger than 10gal, maybe in the 35-60 range. Thinking more biotope with a focus on one main type/population vs a community or grab bag of species. Africa is a big place. You have Rift cichlids (most are not great for a small tank, 55 min for most haps and peacocks and mbuna, and overstocking may or may not help with aggression), the river cichlids (higher flow than the rifts and usually smaller), and even in the Rifts there are various different setups. A multi shelldweller tank could be done in a 20-40 gallon and be quite awesome. A brichardi tank (I like tang cichlids, can you tell) would also be great and active, as would a leleupi tank.
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Feb 15, 2023 02:40
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I like gouramis because I enjoy watching them "feel" everything. I had two honeys in a smaller 30g set-up but there was some chasing and dominance arguments that eventually started impacting the smaller one's feeding, so I ended up moving them to my 65g and adding three more. Tensions have been eased and they've coloured up nicely. Meanwhile I had to rehome a pearl gourami who was fantastic to look at but grew to be an absolute psychopath, one day I'll try again because he really was beautiful. I have not kept other varieties though I have not heard great things about the true dwarfs and longevity. A shelldweller tank is definitely on my want list down the road, I think they're great.
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Feb 15, 2023 02:57
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Sparkling gouramis are pretty cool too. I don't think any gouramis school.
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Feb 15, 2023 03:34
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I can't believe I forgot about those! They're greatm yeah -- small, but striking in the right light -- and mine chirped pretty regularly.
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Feb 15, 2023 04:24
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Got my tank stocked over the weekend. Yes, I got Glofish because I am a child and my house looks like a Spencer's Gifts and also I, personally, look like a Spencer's Gifts   The danios seem fine and chummy, minus the runt who likes to hang out by himself The tetras, meanwhile, are pretty territorial. They've all staked out a spot in the tank and don't leave it and chase the others away. And the poor yellow boy has chosen the back corner by the filter as his spot  They did all school up real good when I moved some decor around last night, though, which was pretty cool. The solution is to get more, yeah? I've got 6 of each in a 30 gallon tank
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Feb 15, 2023 17:09
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| # ? May 23, 2024 12:20 |
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Yeah give your tank a week or two to settle then add more. No point rushing, and if you lose any in the next few weeks you'll know how many you need to replace too. You can usually see the results of any illness or damage that happened before the fish came into your care within the first couple of weeks (aside from worms, probably a good practiceq to worm all new fish). I've found school size is more important with tetras than with danios, the danios I've kept seem happy as long as there are other similar fish around.
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Feb 15, 2023 17:33
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