goldscapes
Member
So, as requested, here's the progress of my 155L Goldfish Cube in the form of a journal.
This journey started out as an urgent rescue of 2 Goldfish and a Shubunkin from a 54L tank that could no longer cope. I had zero experience of fish keeping when I bought the fish for my daughters on a whim back in February 2016...
Here's what the tank looked like then:
Fast forward two years, add another goldfish, loose most of the plants, add some algae and turn that sparkling white gravel to a sludgy brown mess and after loosing a fish and some online research I realised our scaly friends needed a new home and fast!
Online auction sites seemed like the obvious first step and within a couple of days I had a 60cm cube tank with filter and lights.
A trip to the local shop later and here's the new tank on day one (background care of my daughters):
Yes, fish in there on day one... I know, I know... but bear in mind I had never even heard of cycling at that point let alone fishless cycling and I thought getting them out of the sludgy mess was better for their short term survival (even now I think this was probably the best option and chance they had).
Despite the advice of the local shop I put way to much sand in there and have been syphoning it out slowly with every water change. I went for a large central island of wood all bound together so I can lift the whole unit out and give the sand a good clean, for anyone that doesn't know goldfish are MESSY and I think my main problem in the old tank was build up of waste in the gravel causing extremely high nitrate levels.
Over the next few weeks, I read a lot of articles on this forum (thanks to everyone here, this really is an invaluable resource) about how to setup a tank and fumbled my way trying my best to keep the critters alive. And I'm glad to say it's now almost 2 months in, the tank has fully cycled and all fish are healthy and as far as I can tell happy in their new home.
Once the tank was stable I added CO2 and a few more (but nowhere near enough) plants.
I repaired a missing cap on the spray bar and moved it to the back wall to improve the flow (which worked wonders).
A big improvement but still nowhere near enough plants so here's the latest shot following these changes:
So, where now? Well, I'm still not comfortable that this tank is stable. I'm getting some algae, the lighting is probably not strong enough to justify the use of C02 and there aren't enough fast growing plants in there. I'll add another post shortly with a summary of the tank regime with respect to fertilisers lighting times etc. for anyone that is interested.
This journey started out as an urgent rescue of 2 Goldfish and a Shubunkin from a 54L tank that could no longer cope. I had zero experience of fish keeping when I bought the fish for my daughters on a whim back in February 2016...
Here's what the tank looked like then:
Fast forward two years, add another goldfish, loose most of the plants, add some algae and turn that sparkling white gravel to a sludgy brown mess and after loosing a fish and some online research I realised our scaly friends needed a new home and fast!
Online auction sites seemed like the obvious first step and within a couple of days I had a 60cm cube tank with filter and lights.
A trip to the local shop later and here's the new tank on day one (background care of my daughters):
Yes, fish in there on day one... I know, I know... but bear in mind I had never even heard of cycling at that point let alone fishless cycling and I thought getting them out of the sludgy mess was better for their short term survival (even now I think this was probably the best option and chance they had).
Despite the advice of the local shop I put way to much sand in there and have been syphoning it out slowly with every water change. I went for a large central island of wood all bound together so I can lift the whole unit out and give the sand a good clean, for anyone that doesn't know goldfish are MESSY and I think my main problem in the old tank was build up of waste in the gravel causing extremely high nitrate levels.
Over the next few weeks, I read a lot of articles on this forum (thanks to everyone here, this really is an invaluable resource) about how to setup a tank and fumbled my way trying my best to keep the critters alive. And I'm glad to say it's now almost 2 months in, the tank has fully cycled and all fish are healthy and as far as I can tell happy in their new home.
Once the tank was stable I added CO2 and a few more (but nowhere near enough) plants.
I repaired a missing cap on the spray bar and moved it to the back wall to improve the flow (which worked wonders).
A big improvement but still nowhere near enough plants so here's the latest shot following these changes:
- CO2 moved to an inline diffuser
- Spray bar fitting adjusted for more surface agitation
- Anubias and Rosafolia to join the Java Fern and Cryptocoryne
- Lighting changed to two LED lights and two 15W T8 tubes (these are the only size that fit under the hood)
So, where now? Well, I'm still not comfortable that this tank is stable. I'm getting some algae, the lighting is probably not strong enough to justify the use of C02 and there aren't enough fast growing plants in there. I'll add another post shortly with a summary of the tank regime with respect to fertilisers lighting times etc. for anyone that is interested.