Advice Needed For Setting Up A Tank?
I have not set up an aquarium for YEARS…I am considering setting up my bigger 2 tanks. I have a 40gal & 30gal. I do have a 5 gal mini tank set up with a geriatric beta fish in it.
How do I properly cycle these tanks. Cycling is something I have never done in the past persay…My idea of cycling was fill it up with water and let er run for a week or two. Pick up a few el cheapo feeders and see what happens xD. Oh, I did always check nitrates and ph and adjusted accordingly. After a couple months add the fish I really want as I can afford them. (a fewor so at a time) And just go with the flow. Some died and some lived haha
So, this is a family project and I want to do it correctly. I have the tanks and will have to purchase everything for them again tho. While the above may have worked for me in the past it was done via lots of trial and error etc. My tap water is VERY high in sodium and extremely soft and the color of coke…so I cannot use it. Is RO water OK to use for tropical fish? My other obstacle is the fact that I have a 2hr drive to anywhere selling fish. Hence why I have not set tanks up in so long…is this going to be a problem for them in a little plastic bag? Also, I am unfamiliar with many of the new things that have come out…back when I had an aquarium setup my 2 chems that I used where Stress Coat and Start Right…are these still appropriate or have better things come along?
So for the a 30 or 40gal setup. What would you recommend along the lines of things needed? Chemicals, test kits, bottom medium (gravel, sand etc) While I always felt the hang off the back filters did a better job vs the undergravel filter…I have had probs keeping small fish such as neons with them as they created too much suction…any advice or preference here from experiences fish keepers on these matters? Thanks in advance!
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Fish keeping is such a neat and rewarding hobby, proper research is needed if you don’t want to waste a lot of money.
There are some fish that live well in soft water, but if it is extremely soft then you might have a problem. RO is reverse osmosis, right? I’m not really familiar with this, but does RO water still have minerals in it? Distilled water is bad for fish because it doesn’t have the proper minerals in it, but some people with extreme water conditions mix their water half RO or distilled and half tap, or adjusted amounted as needed. I can’t really help you out with this, I can point you to a great aquarium forum that you can create a free account on to get more detailed and experienced answers, I put the link at the bottom.
The fish store being so far away won’t be a huge problem. Ask the people at the pet store to use the biggest bag size they have and to put as much air in as possible. You can also ask for a drop of Prime in the bag, but they may not give it to you. If it is a particularly hot or cold day, you may want to bring a cooler or Styrofoam container (or cup) to help insulate the heat. Also, there are very efficient ways to ship live fish all over the country, even the world. You can order your fish online at a site like Aquabid.com or LiveAquaria.com. That would save you a 4 hour drive to and from the petstore.
The most important chemical is water conditioner. Start Right sounds like a bacteria colony starter type chemical, and those do absolutely nothing. In order to get a nice bacteria colony started you need to do a fish less cycle. You can get a water conditioner that promotes stress coats, like Tetra AquaSafe Plus.
You would need:
water conditioner
a freshwater liquid master test kit (Get API’s)
gravel or sand
filter
heater (if you are keeping tropical fish)
gravel siphon
fake plants
new, fish only bucket
algae scrubber
net
As for the filter, a filter that hangs off the back of the tank (HOB filter) is better than an under gravel filter. All healthy fish should be able to stay out of the suction of the filter, and a healthy fish could pull it’s self off of a filter intake. Only sick or dying fish get stuck to filters. Neons are pretty iffy fish, either you get a good batch or a bad batch, and they all die or none die.
Get a HOB that has a GPH (gallons per hour) rating that is 10 times the gallons in your tank. For example, a 30 gallon tank would need a 300gph filter or more, a 40 gallon needs a 400gph filter or more.
I really recommend making an account here: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/
start right is a bacterial supplement probably. I don’t use them. stress coat is a water conditioner and it’s ok, they make another product, Ammolock, which isn’t any good.
as far as cycling, that’s what you were doing when you let the tank run for a couple months before getting more fish. So you were doing exactly what most people seem to not be able to do. You just didn’t know why that was correct.
Ro is great, especially if your tap water is bad, but some fish probably would love your soft/coke water, but not the salt content.
so, set the tanks up, add a few fish and wait 6 weeks for the tank to stabilize, that’s it. .
when you buy fish tell them it’s a few hour drive and make sure they use the larger bags they have and make sure you stand the bags up in a box or something so that the fish don’t get stuck in the corners if the bags lose a little pressure. use the AC or heat in the car depending on weather, don’t just toss them in the back to overheat or freeze.
undergravel filters work great, but it’s a lot easier to use the newer hang on back filters if you get a good one. There’s two good ones and a whole lot of crappy ones.
marineland makes the Emperor and the Penguin, AquaClear is the other good brand. Most of the rest are crap and don’t have decent biologic filtration.
overcleaning the filter and overfeeding are the two most common mistakes people make.
good luck.
The first step is the cycle, and is pretty straightforward. It just requires a lot of patience before adding the fish.
First you want to add an ammonia source, from fish food or a piece of raw shrimp, or even pure ammonia from a bottle. Gradually a bacteria will start to form in the filter media that will consume the ammonia and give off nitrites as waste. Nitrites are still toxic to fish, and need to be consumed by the secondary bacteria to be transformed into nitrates. Nitrates are much less harmful than ammonia and nitrites, and in a well-planted tank the plants will consume much of the nitrates as fertilizer. 25% weekly water changes are needed to remove the rest. As the tank cycles, you will first see the spike in ammonia, then it will decrease as the nitrites build, then finally nitrates will start to show up and soon the first 2 readings should be down to 0ppm. Then do a large water change to remove nitrates, study the tank for another week or so to make sure it’s stable, and start stocking with fish a couple at a time.http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.ht…
Necessary items for a tropical tank are filter, heater, vacuum hose, water change bucket, decorations. For a goldfish tank, you need twice the filtration to handle all the waste they produce. 2 fancies would fit in your 30g and 3 in the 40. For tropical fish, 3 schools of 6 tetras, cories, otos, or a similarly sized fish and a couple of larger loner fish would fit, and for the 40 you could get 4 schools. Or, get larger schools of 1 or 2 different fish, plus a centerpiece like a gourami or fancy pleco. Study all your fish you are thinking of getting and ask questions if you’re unsure, make sure all of your fish can live together peacefully and comfortably in the tank you have.
Check out sites like aquabid, where you can buy fish straight from the breeder from people with experience transporting live fish over long distances. You will be able to have your fish delivered to you with a live arrival guarantee, rather than stressing about their health during the long drive from the store.
I don’t have any knowledge in the area of RO… maybe making a question of that specific topic would attract people of more experience.