Starting tank - heres the plan....

[cain8885]

Ok, so i picked up a used 40 gallon acrylic tank with pump heater and gravel and some plastic plants and what not. The stuff had been sitting dry for a few months now. I took the gravel, and rinsed it until the water was basically comin out clean. I wiped out the inside of the tank with a damp cloth towel to get all the crap out of there. I just now added the gravel into the tank, i have about an inch layer going across the bottom. What i was going to do next is add the water, add the dechlorinator i bought, hook up my hob filter pump, add my new charcoal and mechanical filter media and start it up. Then in a day or so add a few danios and let it cycle.

Sound like a good plan?

Also, i been wiping down the inside of the tank, and it looks good when you wipe it down but it fogs up when it dries out. I assume this wont be an issue once the tank is full of water, but what should i use to clean the outside?

thanks
brian

 

[OrionGirl]

What are you cleaning off of the outside? It sounds like you have hard water stains on the inside, and you can use vinegar or oxyclean to deal with this. I'd pull all the gravel out, fill it with hot water, dump in the oxyclean, let soak, scrub the sides, rinse and see how it looks.

You might want to look into fishless cycling, as well. Doesn't require buying fish you don't want to keep, and doesn't expose your fish to toxic levels of ammonia and nitrites. There are several threads in the FW Archives and in FW Newbie that cover the process in detail.

 

[TKOS]

I would also like to add that if you cycle with a couple of danios then the bacteria buildup will only be large enough to deal with a couple of danios. Any new fish will create a new cycle.