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New Fish

I don't know anyone local to me that has any filter media, l am getting a bit confused as when l bought my old small tank l was told to set it up, wait two weeks and then put fish in, that is exactly what l did, l did not know about fish forums, fishless cycles etc. Also looking back what was l cycling just an empty tank? So l then went out and bought some fish and put them in, did water changes, and slowly added to the numbers luckily no fished died.

Tank number two l have a bit more info but not that much l fill up the tank, l get filter all set up and add nutrofin cycle following the instructions, l have squeezed out my filter into the new tank, but its only a small filter, l have also added fish food to try and kick start things.

I just dont know what else l should do, am l on the right track l dont want to harm my fish.
 
i would put the nutafin cycle in the bin. basically , the fish produce waste, bacteria feed on the waste and reproduce inside your filter. using fish food will work, as it decomposes it will be food for bacteria. how big is your other filter? how many fish are in the other tank?
 
My existing tank is a small 25L nano tank its a superfish sponge filter max liquid flow is 50- 200L/H ( l am going by what is written on the side of the filter, inside the filter is little balls of carbon l assume.

The new tank is a superfish pro 400 and does 1000L/H
 
ok, you could take half of the stuff from the filter that is cycled (your old tank) and put it in the new filter, then use the new filter media to replace the amount you took out of the old filter... if you have half in each filter it should be ok- i have done it many times.
 
if your filter has sponges, you can cut them in half or to any shape you need, if they have balls or ceramics just take half out and put into other filter. the bacteria will regrow soon enough- just make sure both filters are full up with media/ sponges etc. so that bacteria have something to grow on. embers are one of my favourites, do you have plants in the tanks?
 
easerthegeezer said:
hey lisa, i believe the bubbles dont add oxygen per say, it is the bubbles causing surface agitation that increases o2.
:thumbup:

Iain, do you not think that as the bubbles rise through the water column, that any of the O2 is absorbed into the water ? In the same way that CO2 is ? :?
 
Antipofish said:
easerthegeezer said:
hey lisa, i believe the bubbles dont add oxygen per say, it is the bubbles causing surface agitation that increases o2.
:thumbup:

Iain, do you not think that as the bubbles rise through the water column, that any of the O2 is absorbed into the water ? In the same way that CO2 is ? :?
they usually travel so fast that any absorbsion is minimal.
 
Right ok, would I still wait for putting in any fish, and how many would l put in to start with?

If l just wait and carry on with the fish food, how long would it be before l am able to put fish in are we talking a few days or weeks? l am in no rush, l just not sure l am doing right thing, and want what's best for the fish at the end of it.

The filter has not had an ammonia spike yet it just went on to the nitrate so l thought it had done whatever as the cycle lotion said it was ok to put fish in from the start but l didn't l have left it a while?
 
if you have all 8 fish in one tank, taking half of them out means you can also take half the filter media too. remember, the bacteria need food, without fish in the tank the bacteria die, and the filter uncycles and you have to start again from zero.
 
Yes l love planted tanks and both have a fair amount of plants about 19 in the 25L tank and l would say about 35/40 in the other tank, thats one reason why l thought l might not see much ammonia in my tanks as l know plants like ammonia
 
Yes they are lovely little fish, the minnows do go for them a bit, but they have a right go back to and they are a fraction of the size, under the blue led lights all you see is little gold darts flying about the tank they are lovely
 
Hi all,
they usually travel so fast that any absorbsion is minimal.
Yes, this is true. The bubbles need to be incredibly tiny and have a very long residence time in the water column before they directly add much oxygen, details here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_bubble_diffusers>. The main reasons for this are that air is only ~ 21% O2, and it isn't very soluble in water.

This whole subject area is covered fairly fully in: "Aeration and dissolved oxygen in the aquarium" - <http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=829>.
remember, the bacteria need food, without fish in the tank the bacteria die, and the filter uncycles and you have to start again from zero.
This is widely quoted on many web sites, but it isn't entirely true, particularly for planted tanks which are never cycled in the same way that an un-planted tank would be. Have a look at this article on PFK: "Think you know filter bacteria? Dream on…"
<http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=4780>

There is further discussion of this in these posts on UKAPS:
<http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=20856> and links <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=10572>, <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=18200&hilit=fishless+cycling+Darrel&start=10> & <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17590&p=180865>.

cheers Darrel
 
Good read on PFK - back in the day, when my aquarium was in my bedroom, I used to turn the filter off at night due to the noise. Until I read the above, I always thought that in hindsight I was killing off much of the filter bacteria each night - I never had any issues with fish health (or algae for that matter), so it seems that little was happening beyond, perhaps, a mild waste build up overnight which was quashed when the filter went back on each morning.
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,
they usually travel so fast that any absorbsion is minimal.
Yes, this is true. The bubbles need to be incredibly tiny and have a very long residence time in the water column before they directly add much oxygen

So an air curtain with fine bubbles, or better still, a wooden air stone as used in the older style marine protein skimmers (to produce fine O2 bubbles so that skimming works using the downdraught method) would therefore enable O2 to be at least partly dissolve in the water column then yes ? If the bubbles are fine, and they remain in the water the same amount of time as the CO2 when that is on during the day, surely there would be absorption ? I'm not talking one of those grotty blue airstones that pushes out bubbles the size of your fist :) I mean something decent that makes bubbles small enough that can be blown around the tank the same way the CO2 is :thumbup:
 
i turn my filters off for feeding, sometimes i go off and do something and the filtres are off a few hours, this is ok, but i would not risk more than a day or so like this. my house move at the weekend resulted in filter outage for just over 24 hours with no issues. but leaving a filter in a tank for a week or so with no fish etc- i would not do it.
 
The PFK article suggests the filter can be off for weeks/months without much hassle...
 
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