20 Gallon, Newly Setup

[FishesRWishes]

Hello fish people! I recently had a thread entitled 'Overwhelmed' where I got loads of great advice. Now I actually have a tank underway, so I time to share!

It has three guppies - we brought home 4 from the store, but one had a big hole type thing on his side, and the other three fish were relentlessly biting him. Not to mention, that fish could barely swim. So, he sadly didn't make it into the tank.

My mom was insistent on getting plants... I wanted nothing to do with live plants, but we'll see how it goes! If you see any plants you know in the pictures below, please give me some info on them - I have no idea what they need, but the fish store guy said they were suitable for sand and "easy to grow" so my mom went with that. The lighting in my tank is pretty low so I assume I'm going to have to buy a new light... (Thanks mom... :wall

Anyway, the photos! The quality isn't great, but oh well.

 

[Rbishop]

Nice looking! Fishey cycle...? Got a liquid test kit yet?

 

[FishesRWishes]

Yes, I decided to do the fishy cycle. (I know, I know...) I added Tetra Safe Start as well - which seems to be working as the ammonia level went down from yesterday, from .25 to inbetween 0 and .25) I do have a liquid test kit, and I've been testing like crazy, as I'm very sick and have nothing better to do than to stare at the aquarium.

I'm going to do a 25 % water change either tonight, or perhaps tomorrow morning depending on the ammonia/nitrite levels.

I have the benefit of have a scientist who works with fish in the family, so she's been helping me out.

 

[Rbishop]

Check your tap water also just to see what you are starting with...and just the ammonia testing is about all you need to do for the first week or so...

 

[mfgann]

I just recently started a new tank with plants and so far I've been very impressed with how easy they can be, and all the good stuff that they do for the tank. With enough plants they will also consume ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, so your cycle may not be as rough as if you had no plants (no pics at work, so I cant see what you have). As you guessed lighting is the biggest issue. The old-school rule of thumb is 2 Watts of florescent light per gallon. If it takes standard lightbulbs you can get the spiral compact florescent lights everyone is going to (just try and get the 'daylight' kind, 5000K to 10000K color is what plants use to grow). If not, you may need to upgrade your hood to something with better light. Just let us know what you have in there.

If you need more plants, I would recommend vals and wisteria as good fast growing plants to soak up ammonia and nitrites.

 

[FallenAngel]

I don't think that plants do soak up the ammonia or nitrites, but they do benefit from small traces of nitrate.

The plant on the right of the tank looks like Cabomba/Ambulia.

 

[mfgann]

I don't think that plants do soak up the ammonia or nitrites, but they do benefit from small traces of nitrate.

The plant on the right of the tank looks like Cabomba/Ambulia.

Do a little googling and you will see that they do consume ammonia and nitrate. I may have been mistaken on the nitrite. In my heavily planted 10G I saw very little ammonia in startup, high nitrites for a while, and nitrates have never been above 10ppm (currently about 5ppm). In my main tank (30g) I regularly see nitrates above 30-40ppm. I've begun to add more plants to it, after seeing the benefits firsthand. My goal is to see if I can get the 10G to the point I don't need water changes, as several others have gotten to.

Yes. Plants work that well.

 

[FallenAngel]

All of my tanks are planted, 3 heavily. I noticed ammonia during all of the cycles.

 

[mfgann]

All of my tanks are planted, 3 heavily. I noticed ammonia during all of the cycles.

As did I, but my ammonia level never got very high. I'd read a lot about it in planted forums, and tried it. It seemed to work well. I had a couple of cherry shrimp die in the nitrite spike, but otherwise things went well.

Just my limited experience, and it can't hurt to have a few plants.

 

[cwinzinger]

hey not to be a pain but you really should put some female guppies in the tank male guppies will start fighting because there are no females