Newbie needs advice

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Gamblet

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Jan 31, 2003
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Hey everyone.

I recently bought a 3' 108 litre tank and set it up on a stand in my room (I'm 16). In it is an internal power filter, gravel, a few plants, a nice big rock with some tunnels, and 5 zebra danios. Everything except the fish and plants is second hand, and I made sure to clean/rinse the stuff out with hot water. I also have some flake food and fine crystals that neutralise chlorine and chloramine in tap water.

Tge tap water's pH is 7.3, but I expect it to go up in my tank after a few days (that's what happened to my brother's, it shot up to 7.8 somehow). As yet I haven't detected any ammonia.

I know I made a mistake in putting the fish in so soon (after about a day), but I wanted to get the cycling started. I was going to do it fishless, but the nitrite test kit cost way too much...

Any advice as to how to keep the fish healthy while the tank cycles? What water changes should I do? Any other items I need to purchase?
 
I would go ahead and buy the testing equipment, you'll still need it with a fishy-cycle. The supplies cost a little, but they last for a very long time, since it only takes a few drops at a time to test.

There's an article sticky-noted to the top of this forum that deals with cycling with fish... maybe that will be of some help to you.

Zebras are a good choice for cycling with this method, they're very hardy and not too expensive to replace if you lose one (heaven forbid, of course...). Allow anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months for your cycle to be fully complete, and add fish slowly, only one or two small fish or one bigger one per week after the cycle is complete to avoid a secondary, mini-cycle. I'm not sure how litres convert to gallons, so I'm not sure how many fish are okay to add... a 3 foot long tank sounds a bit like the 30-40-gallon range, but i could be wrong.

Kudos on not stuffing the tank completely full of fish, by the way. Not everyone has your patience....

Good luck, and welcome to AC!
 
Thanks for the welcome :)

I knew if I put too many in at the start it would produce too much ammonia too quickly. I'm just really annoyed with myself for not waiting a week before putting the fish in. I really wanted to do fishless cycling, but the nitrite kit was AU$23 - outrageous!

But if I'd known that I have to get it anyway, I could've done th cycling fishless. Poor danios...

BTW, I'm really worried about the pH in my tank now. I tested it this morning and it had jumped to 8! Will my fish get through it? My Dad siggested putting acid in some water and then adding it to the tank, but I read that it would change the gH, and that fish especially hate sudden changes. Is there ANYTHING I could do to lower the pH safely and make things easier for the danios? It feels really bad to know that I'm stressing them out so much... :(

And is there anything else I need to purchase? I saw some gravel cleaners at the LFS, but are they really necessary?

Should I be doing any water changes yet?
 
You'll find mixed reviews about gravel vacs, I say yes to them myself.

As for lowering your ph, peat and driftwood will both do this. However, if you have high-ph water, it's a good idea to work with what you have, rather than alter the water to fit the fish. Go for fish that prefer a higher-ph setup, such as cichlids or brackish, even saltwater, if you want to spend a little more money down the road.

The ph of my tapwater is 7.8, so I've kept mostly cichlids. I know where you're coming from.... If your ph keeps climbing, though, there might be something else going on there.
 
A couple of things--don't feel so guilty about cycling with fish. I know that's not a popular view with many folks, but if you do substantial water changes (say, 20%-25%) every day the tank is cycling, the fish should pull through okay. Lots of folks do it all the time without losing their fish. Also, fishless cycling doesn't take a week--it takes a month, more or less. So does cycling with fish. So a week wouldn't have made any difference in cycling your tank.

Regarding the jump in pH: when water comes out of the tap, it's often got dissolved carbon dioxide in it. This lowers the pH quite a bit. When the water sits for a day or more, the carbon dioxide dissipates out of the water and the true pH of the water results. In your case, it looks like that's 8.0. A bit high, yes, but (after your tank finishes cycling with danios) lots of varieties of African dwarf cichlids do well in that pH range. The best way to find out if it's the water's natural pH is to run some tapwater and let it sit for a day; then do a pH test on it. If it comes out 8, that's just your water's natural range. If it comes out a lot less than that, then the gravel (or something else in your tank) is probably driving the pH up, and more investigating would be necessary.

HTH.

-- Pat
 
OK, I'll try to do 20% changes every day, but that might be a little hard since I'm just starting year 11, the first year of exams at school... :( I'll do my best.

I found a site about cichlids, and after a bit of reading decided they'd be perfect for me. I'll transform my aquarium into a cichlid tank in a few months, when the cycle's finished and I've saved up more money (fortunately I've got a part time job, so money isn't that much of a problem anymore).

Is it OK to vacuum the gravel with just a hose and the syphoning method? Proper gravel vacs cost AU$20, so if I can use a hose that would be the way to go.

I went to a lfs and bought some Cycle, so that might speed up the process a little. One site I've read said it's a good idea to use a product like it. Hopefully it'll reduce the stress of my danios (who seem to be doing OK, BTW. Eating ravenously :) )

Thanks for your help so far, I'm very lucky to have found this forum ;)
 
It's okay to just use a hose for cleaning your gravel, but it's a lot less effective than a gravel vac is. It'll be okay for the time being, but as money allows, I would highly recommend getting one.

As for the Cycle, IMO, it is a waste of money. A great theory, yes, but it really doesn't do much other than burn through your wallet. The cycling process will take more or less the same amount of time whether you use it or not...:(

You're doing fine.... we'll look forward to an update!
 
Dang. Oh well, it only cost about 7 aussie bucks, so I didn't burn my wallet too badly :o I'll try to get my hands on a proper gravel vac before next weekend (then it will be a week since I put the fish in), otherwise the hose will have to do. A few hours ago I did a 20% water change. It took a while to replace the water in the tank (I put water conditioner in several bucketloads of water and siphoned them in), but if it's for the good of the fish then it's worth it :D

The danios have grown a little in just a week unless my eyes are deceiving me, and they look happy. I feed them at 7 in the morning (when I wake up) and 7 in the evening. Is this a good amount? I'm sure I'm not overfeeding, but I might not be giving them enough.

As I have a very high pH, and as a newbie I don't want to be tinkering with it, I've thought about getting some small cichlids once the tank has cycled. Would convicts handle a 108L tank with a pH of 8? If so, how many could I keep? Any other high pH fish you could recommend?
 
A pair of cons would be great in that setup. They'll breed like crazy (so don't turn your back!....).... Like I said, I'm not quite sure how litres convert to gallons, so I couldn't tell you what else to put in there....maybe some dwarf african cichlids? They're colorful and don't mind the ph a bit...

Unfortunately, I'm not to good at picking out fish to KEEP in a tank of small proportion, since all of my tanks are "grow-out" tanks, and I buy fish with the intention of selling them when they outgrow my 10g and my 55g, respectively. Once I have the space and the $, I'll be getting a really big (300+ gallons) tank so I can keep a few from beginning to end.... I'm a fan of "tankbusters", so you don't wanna ask me what I'd put in, because my honest answer would be something like "baby barracuda"....:D (I know, I set a terrible example...)

As for overfeeding/underfeeding.... the most common problem with fish (and houseplants) is that newcomers tend to "baby" them to death, overfeeding is a very common problem. I don't think you're overfeeding, but feeding them less would be okay too. I only feed mine every other day. Fish that eat less poo less, as they say.... As long as the fish are eating everything you put in there within a couple of minutes and there's not a bunch of extra food lying on the gravel, you're probably okay. Twice a day is not unheard of, but it's not a necessity for most freshwater fish, who, in their wild environment would probably only eat a "good meal" every 3 or 4 days, and in the meantime just pick at plants and such....
 
Cool, that's good to know I can have convicts. They look perfect from what I've seen on the net so far. I think my tank holds about 28 US gallons, so it's a fair size. Could you recommend any African dwarf cichlids that the convicts wouldn't eat (I read that convicts are very aggressive)? Perhaps I could put the dwarves in first so the convicts wouldn't think it was an intrusion, and stay peaceful...

Before that though, I'd have to think of what to do with my danios. Somehow I don't think they's be suitable for a cichlid tank... :p

My brother and I tried out the hose as a gravel vac, with a plastic tube attachment on the end to see what was happening. Well, my substrate (is that what you call it? Might be something totally different) is almost half gravel and half sand, so the hose sucked up all the sand bits! Would a proper gravel vac do this? I don't want to spend $15 or $20 if it's not gonna work...

Wow, 300 gallons! :eek: That would be so cool.... a bit of a pain to do partial water changes though! What fish do you keep in the smaller tanks? Someday I want to get an oscar (and keep him), but I'd have to get a much bigger tank. Maybe when I move out and get more space :)

Thanks for the info on feeding, I'll cut down their meals to once a day.
 
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