Olympic Peninsula, WA ~ New member

Hello all, I am an old fish keeper, however, it has been about 30 years or more since I had an aquarium setup. At that time, it was not what the hobby has become. I feel so lost and have so much new technology to learn. :jaw-dropping:

I bought :goldfish: for eating the mosquito larvae in my horse tanks this summer, and kept two in the house as there were grandkids here. I grew attached to the personality, and, bought them a 10 gallon aquarium. That grew to a used 30 gallon off Craigslist, that when I got it home, ended up being a 20 gallon. Now, I have a brand new 80 gallon tank waiting for my husband to finish the stand for. He is doing a beautiful job... big leaf maple boards, very heavy duty casters, with two drawers and the normal doors. I can't wait to get water in it and the fish are getting anxious to have their housewarming party.

I have some questions about canister filters... :huh: and I will post those later. I have two XP3's, and one is not building good bacteria. More later, I promise. I'm sure it is more complicated than I can fathom fully.

We live across Puget Sound, north west of Seattle.

You already know we have horses. There are also Parson Jack Russell's :dog:, of which several are retired show dogs.

I look forward to getting some help, and, if I can be of help, I will put my foot in the door. Hopefully, I will keep it out of my mouth. :laugh:

My best, Gold Fin

Hi Rocker92,

I have two smaller tanks at this time. One is a 20, the other is a 10. They both have Rena Filstar xp3's on them. The 20 is cycling just fine. If I do anything different, it might have a mini cycle where the ammonia climbs just a tad, but it is back down 24 hours later.

The 10 is more recently set up, and has two common (as in feeder) goldfish in it. I have been doing water changes like crazy. I only had a very brief description of how to cycle the filter, but, I was doing a decent job. One time I did an almost complete water change. I didn't touch the filter's water, and left maybe 2 gallon in the tank. I added about 2 gallon of water from the 20 gallon, and filled it the rest of the way with well water. It has continued to spike on me on successive days, but not near so badly. I changed water every couple of days. It was taking so long to start cycling that I was beginning to think I was doing something wrong. I spent time last night reading about cycling a tank, and, I feel so much more comfortable now. At least when I move fish into the big tank, I will have my filters ready to move and they should take right over.

Today, when I tested the water in the 10 gallon, the nitrites were almost at ZERO, where they have been as high as .5. I feel like it is almost there. The ammonia was up to .5 but I am leaving it alone today, and going to check it in another five or so hours to see what it is doing on its own.

And I really feel stupid. I cleaned the 20 gallon's filter yesterday afternoon, and I could have put a sponge filter out of it into the 10. DUH! Anyway, I feel like it is finally coming around and starting to cycle like it should. <deep sigh>

I am checking the water every day, and sometimes twice a day, depending on how it is testing on the first testing of the day. It will be nice to be able to back off on that.

Thanks for asking...
Gold Fin