Need advice on what fish to put together

Ruskull

I also wanted to add that getting donor media from a fish keeping friend or local fish store will speed up your cycle significantly. It doesn't take much to cycle a 5 gallon tank either.

Byron

First, let's clarify the pH reading. As Ruskull mentioned, it cannot be 0.5, so did you mean 5? This is important for a couple of reasons, one being that if the pH is on the acidic side (below 7), then the "ammonia" is actually the less-harmful ammonium and not as significant. But if the pH is basic (above 7), then yes, do a 50% water change daily; if you use a conditioner that detoxifies ammonia (Prime, Ultimate, a few others) the water change can be alternate days since these products are effective for 24-48 hours.

Bluydgrl

That's what I use also
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Bluydgrl

I work at the LFS but just got into this hobby about a month ago.Still learning
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Ruskull

What Byron said is correct, I was just keeping as simple as possible. A 5 gallon tank is very small & a small bit of donor media from your fish store should jumpstart your cycle quickly. Using prime or similar will detoxify the ammonia long enough for you to stretch out your water changes.

This info will be even more important when you fire up that 36 gallon. I cycled mine using media from a well established 20 gallon that I was running. I still had a hectic water change schedule though because it's harder when you're going up in tank size. You can't simply take all the filter floss out of the other tank or that tank will no longer be cycled. It's recommeded that you take no more than 1/3 of the donor tank's media.

Bluydgrl

What is Donor Media?We have never heard of it
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Ruskull

It's on the filter insert. Y'know, those cartidge things that look like they're made of felt wrapped around a plastic frame of some sort. Anyway, a used one of these will have a brownish stuff on it that contains much if not all of the beneficial bacteria that's supporting the tank's cycle.

Most of these hang on back style filters have 2 slots for these cartridges. What you do is take the older of the cartridges and cut it off the plastic part, cut that felt in half and put half back into the original tank it came from. Now take the other half & put it in a bag of the tank water it came out of. Bring it home & put it behind the clean new cartridge in your tank's filter. The bacteria will migrate to your filter's cartridge and cycle your tank in time, usually much faster than without the donor media.

If you have a sponge filter it's a bit more complicated I'm afraid but still possible. Fish stores usually have a big system with flat filter floss. In that case take the oldest one you can find that's still in use & cut some strips of felt to load into your filter.

Byron

This is one way to seed the bacteria, but personally I would never use this from a fish store. There could be any number of pathogens especially if there is any type of central filtration water system as is common in fish stores today. There are a lot of protozoans occurring in fish presently, and these can often be dormant in the fish but easily spread to other fish weeks later. No new tank is worth the risk, when there are much safer methods available. After all, if one believes in quarantining new fish, then this is no different as it is for the very same reason.

Live plants is the safest, and most effective, and plants will certainly be welcomed by most of the earlier-mentioned fish. Then there are bacteria supplements; Seachem's Stability, Tetra's SafeStart, and Dr.Tim's One and Only are all live bacteria that will seed the tank.

Byron.

Bluydgrl

Actually it was the Phosphate i though was the PH....duh....I will check it again tomorrow.
Going to Fish World in Minneapolis tomorrow(can't wait)Just to look at what i can buy when my tank is ready:)
I'm going to get my tank tomorrow...I have the Nutrifin Tap water Conditioner,Nutrifin Cycle and Safe Start to start my new Aquarium.Is this all i need?How long do i need to run it before i add new fish?

Bluydgrl

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