Upgrading to 20g - Substrate question

R

RiverKid

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Jun 9, 2006
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Upgrading to 20g - Substrate question / Cycling question

Greetings,

Currently I have 2 5g tanks with Danio's, Tetra's and Common Algae Eater. I recently purchased a new 20g tank to combine all 10 fish into and am thinking of going with sand for my substrate. However, I have not been able to find information whether or not my algae eater would be compatible with sand or not.


I have the sand narrowed down to pool filter sand and (malaysian black?) I believe was the other and want to make sure my fish would be compatible for this substrate.

4 Zebra Danio's, 2 Long-Fin Blue Danio's, 2 Red Tetra's (maybe they are neon) and 2 Algae eater's (although I may keep pass one of the Algae Eater along to my neighbor's community 100+ gallon tank.


Any information would be appreciated.


Thank you,
Chris
 
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Your fish will be fine with either sand. Are the Algae Eater's common pleco's? If so they will outgrow a 20 gallon, fairly fast. A bristlenose pleco would be a good algae eater for a 20 gallon tank. They stay smaller and are crazy algae eaters! Other than that I think you should be ok. I would say you only need 1 algae eater/pleco for a 20 gallon tank.
 
Yeh, it's a common Pleco. I know he'll grow fairly fast. I've had this particular one for about 4 months now and he's around 3.5". Thinking of going to snails later on perhaps. Haven't decided yet.


thank you for the info though. :thm:
 
Now for my cycling process. Of the fish I have, the danio's and tetra's, which would be consider the more hardy? I want to ensure I put the right fish into the tank first for cycling.


Although with my 5g's I rarely ever cycled, but having an bio-wheel and gravel already established helped in that I suppose. Never had a problem with any of the fish, I just want to make sure I do the larger tank correctly.
 
Seeing as how you have two 5g already-cycled tanks at your hands, I'd do a seeded media cycle rather than a fishy cycle. 1, it's fairly quick (I recently did my 44g in 3 days); 2, fishy cycling is pretty hard on the fish with them living in that ammonia. Refer to the following article for help (save your substrate and filters!!!) Good luck.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64301
 
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