Hi, this is my first post.
Some history: I've had a 10g for about 7 years; it had one goldfish in it and he just died about 3 months ago. *rip, stephen!* At that point I decided to turn the tank tropical and bought a heater, and over 2 weeks planted wysteria, corkscrew plant, java fern, and cryptochorne. Currently this tank now has 6 lemon tetras, 2 red phantoms, one dwarf neon blue gourami, and 2 panda cory cats. The nitrites and ammonia are at 0, pH 7.8, fairly hard water. I do a 25% water change weekly.
Anyway, I picked up a 15G 2 weeks ago at a garage sale for 1$. Including river rock, flourescent light fixture, assorted decorations, filter. It still had filter media and water in the bottom and was covered in brown algae. I hosed everything off, cleaned the gravel, and set it up. Added a heater, some of my wysteria and corkscrew from the other tank, new plants (amazon sword, vallisneria, java fern and anubias). Bought new filter media and added sponge from my other tank. I also added 25% old water/debris from my other tank.
So, from my tests I have not had a spike from fish food. No2 and NH3 have stayed at 0. A couple of days ago I decided to put in 3 dwarf neon blue rainbows. So far so good.
My questions:
1- due to the media from the other tank and the plants, will I have 'instantly cycled' or can I still expect to see a spike?
2- I'd like to shuffle my fish around. I'd like to move the 6 lemons over to the 15g, and the 3 rainbows to the 10. I'm interested in adding 2 blue rams to the 15. This would look like:
10g: 2 red phantom tetras, 3 dwarf rainbows, 1 dwarf gourami, 2 panda cories
15g: 6 lemon tetras, 2 blue rams, ??
Any suggestions? (Thanks for reading!)
Some history: I've had a 10g for about 7 years; it had one goldfish in it and he just died about 3 months ago. *rip, stephen!* At that point I decided to turn the tank tropical and bought a heater, and over 2 weeks planted wysteria, corkscrew plant, java fern, and cryptochorne. Currently this tank now has 6 lemon tetras, 2 red phantoms, one dwarf neon blue gourami, and 2 panda cory cats. The nitrites and ammonia are at 0, pH 7.8, fairly hard water. I do a 25% water change weekly.
Anyway, I picked up a 15G 2 weeks ago at a garage sale for 1$. Including river rock, flourescent light fixture, assorted decorations, filter. It still had filter media and water in the bottom and was covered in brown algae. I hosed everything off, cleaned the gravel, and set it up. Added a heater, some of my wysteria and corkscrew from the other tank, new plants (amazon sword, vallisneria, java fern and anubias). Bought new filter media and added sponge from my other tank. I also added 25% old water/debris from my other tank.
So, from my tests I have not had a spike from fish food. No2 and NH3 have stayed at 0. A couple of days ago I decided to put in 3 dwarf neon blue rainbows. So far so good.
My questions:
1- due to the media from the other tank and the plants, will I have 'instantly cycled' or can I still expect to see a spike?
2- I'd like to shuffle my fish around. I'd like to move the 6 lemons over to the 15g, and the 3 rainbows to the 10. I'm interested in adding 2 blue rams to the 15. This would look like:
10g: 2 red phantom tetras, 3 dwarf rainbows, 1 dwarf gourami, 2 panda cories
15g: 6 lemon tetras, 2 blue rams, ??
Any suggestions? (Thanks for reading!)
