My First Tank - suggestions

andulrich4all

Hey el Mattador

I just went and took this picture right now. Didn't come out great, hard to take photos of tanks lol. But yeah here it is. These Plants have been in my tank for about 2 weeks now. The one in the front left was store bought, everything else is natural from the springs. I have been adding Iron once a week and it has been helping out significantly.
My legs for my light should be here tomorrow or Tuesday and I will be taking the lid off of the top of the tank and mounting. Can't wait!!

Let me know what you think!

el Mattador

That looks nice, I like the log or rock, whatever that is. The plants are really nice! You should put a picture on here when you get the legs, I'd like to see how that looks - but I know some kinds of fish like to jump, if the top is raised, what keeps them from jumping out? I bought some aquatic plant fertilizer when I was setting this up and haven't used any yet - seems like a waste since there's not really any plants yet. I saw they had a bunch of plants for sale at petsmart and might go take a closer look at them this week. What do you use for CO2?

andulrich4all

Thanks a lot man, nice to hear, put a lot of work into it. Its a log I found on the bottom of the springs. It was loaded with hair algae and I actually scrubbed and pressure washed it, then let it sit in the sun for a week to make sure it was all gone. Nothing keeps the fish from jumping out, kind of just hoping I don't have this problem haha. I don't think any of this fish in my tank would jump out though, none of them really even hang out near the top. Yeah definitely look into the plants, it really made the hobby a lot more fun to me and is very interesting, I can't wait until they grow in better and give my tank a nice full natural feel. I do not use anything for CO2.

iamntbatman

You don't *need* a CO2 source unless you've got high lighting and plants that need it. Many people use Flourish Excel as a carbon substitute instead of CO2 on smaller tanks.

andulrich4all

The legs came in today!

Here it is before,


And after,

Tyyrlym

Very nice. I'd put a top on it just to be on the safe side. Either a glass top or a piece of egg crate.

el Mattador

Update:
I've been testing the water over the past week and doing some water changes. I'm just wondering what point of the process I'm at now, and where to go from here. The PH has remained about 7.8-8.0 during this whole process. Is PH something that I need to keep testing, or should it remain stable?

Tue 11/25
Ammonia - 1.0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
After this test I changed 3 gallons (10%)

Wed 11/26
Ammonia - 1.0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
After this test I changed 6 gallons (20%)

Thu 11/27
Ammonia - 1.0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
No water change this time

Sun 11/30
Ammonia - 1.0
Nitrite - 0.25
Nitrate - 0
After this test I changed 6.5 gallons (22%)

Today 12/2
Ammonia - 0.5
Nitrite - 1.0
Nitrate - 0.5

I'm wondering how much water I should change tonight, and how much longer this cycle process will take at this point. Any help would be appreciated.

el Mattador

I changed 6 gallons tonight, I'll check the levels again tomorrow.

jeaninel

Looks like your cycle is progressing nicely. Try to change enough water so that after the water change your ammonia/nitrite are under 0.5. So you will probably have to test before and after each water change until you get a feel for how much to change out. I would probably do about 30% water change (10 gallons) and then go from there.

el Mattador

I tested the water today and had the following levels:
Today 12/3
Ammonia - 0.5
Nitrite - 1.0
Nitrate - 5.0

right after I did a 8.5 gallon water change and then tested a few minutes later and had the same levels - I would have thought the new water would have diluted it some, but maybe I didn't wait long enough to test.