New tank help urgently needed

bluefitz

Hey all new to the forums, have been lurking for a few weeks now. I set up my Jewel Rekord 800 on saturday evening and everything looks good until today where I have noticed the water has gone cloudy. I am hoping to put fish into the tank this weekend so what steps if any do I need to take alleviate this problem?

Thanks in advance all!

staticfiend

My tank is only a couple months old and its the cloudiness is finally clearing up. I have a 55 gal. But the people at the fish store say cloudy is ok. I thought it would of cleared up a while ago. Just check your tanks parameters every couple of days so nothing creeps up on you. And water changes will also help the cloudiness as well.

bluefitz

so this is completely normal then and if all of the parameters are ok I can proceed with adding fish at the weekend?

Thanks all in advance for the help

1077

You would be well served to google search " starting a new aquarium" You can probably search through the different posts here in section dealing with setting up new aquariums not sure how to direct you to it . You will also need a test kit for testing the water during this process. The liquid test kits are much more accurate(important) than those that use test strips. I would NOT add fish until You read up on cycling a new aquarium or you shall surely have problems possibly dead fish as well.

iamntbatman

If you set up the tank only on Saturday, I highly doubt it will be fish-ready in a week. How are you cycling the tank? Cloudiness is usually an indication of a bacterial bloom brought about by elevated ammonia levels, but if you have no ammonia source in the tank the cloudiness must be something else. Here are two good links:

http://www.fishforum.com/freshwater-...ium-cycle-252/
http://www.fishforum.com/member-subm...-methods-3067/

In case those articles didn't make it clear enough, cycling your tank is very, very important. If you don't cycle it before you add the fish, it will start to go through a cycle after the fish are in the tank and therefore expose your fish to ammonia and nitrite levels that could kill them. If you aren't already, I strongly advise using one of the fishless cycling methods described in that second article. In order to monitor the progress of the cycle, you'll need to know your levels for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. The best way to keep track of these is by using a good liquid test kit like the API Freshwater Master Test Kit. It's more accurate than the paper strips and ends up being much less expensive as it offers a lot more tests before it needs to be replaced.

qpc68

Fishless cycling may be the politically correct way of cycling a tank, but it takes longer and the results are not always gauranteed. If you're looking for the quickest way to cycle a tank, get a couple hardy fish. It will still take a few weeks, but significantly less than fishless. Just stay up on your testing and water changes and the fish should be fine.

Jman26

If you are going to have a community tank, I suggest a small school of Zebra Danios to cycle it.

koanders

i agree i think that if you get some hardy fish and feed them little it is a good way to go. that is what i did with my aquarium 6 months ago. i have been slowly adding fish and i have not lost one yet

iamntbatman

I disagree. It's not really a matter of political correctness; using fish to cycle a tank exposes fish to harmful ammonia and nitrite levels, fishless cycling does not. Plus, if you use something like zebra danios to cycle a tank, you either have to keep the danios and sacrifice room in the tank you might want for other fish, or you have to return them to the store. As for returning zebra danios: have fun catching them! They're the fastest fish I've seen.

Also, cycling with fish only builds up enough beneficial bacteria to process the the amount of waste being produced by those fish. Add more fish, and the bacteria have to multiply to account for the increased bioload. If you cycle fishless, you can build up a big enough bacteria colony to handle more fish more quickly.

aunt kymmie

+1 on the danios. The three I cycled with are still in my tank. I'll never be able to catch them and not sure what I'd do with them if I did. They school with barbs that are four times their size. Luckily for me the tank is large enough it didn't limit my stocking options.

The next tank I set up I'll do fishless. Just makes more sense.