Raven Posted March 4, 2010 Report Share Posted March 4, 2010 Took my little mini road trip out to Mornville to darkangels house to pick up the tank today. Got everything plus a bunch of plants that i can't pronounce, 'cept the java moss, its really the only one i knew. Came home, stopping at Paradise Pets to spend $5 credit from six years ago, and spent just over a hour setting it up. Now the water's nice a clean and the 3 tiger bards haven't died yet. All is good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkangel Posted March 4, 2010 Report Share Posted March 4, 2010 The other plants you have include, Staurogyne sp., Sagittaria subulata, Eleocharis sp. japan, Najas guadalupensis, and Nymphaea lotus v. "green". The few pieces of E.sp. japan will have to be planted with tweezers a couple hundred times until it takes hold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raven Posted March 4, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2010 Isnt that the one you said could just float and would grow? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyBlue Posted March 4, 2010 Report Share Posted March 4, 2010 :thumbs: This is GREAT ..... I wish you great luck .... and thank you 4 letting me know that DarkAngel is sooooo close 2 me ....I am thrilled because I enjoy her/his posts ..... I hope all your fishy dreams come true Took my little mini road trip out to Mornville to darkangels house to pick up the tank today. Got everything plus a bunch of plants that i can't pronounce, 'cept the java moss, its really the only one i knew. Came home, stopping at Paradise Pets to spend $5 credit from six years ago, and spent just over a hour setting it up. Now the water's nice a clean and the 3 tiger bards haven't died yet. All is good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkangel Posted March 4, 2010 Report Share Posted March 4, 2010 Isnt that the one you said could just float and would grow? The naja will grow as it floats The micro hair grass (only about 1 inch tall,very fine roots and leaves) is the few that were stuck in the roots of the sagittaria (long narrow leaves kinda looks like a small sword plant). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ted Posted March 5, 2010 Report Share Posted March 5, 2010 Being close to Toms place is a good thing ! Ted Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raven Posted March 5, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2010 OK i think i mostly everything in the gravel, so far what i put in there wasn't come out yet, and no leaves have died off yet. I wish i had the for sight to buy more then just water condition, lol. But at the time it was the only thing i could remember that i needed! Tiger barbs are still alive. Just wondering how often i should be feeding them during the cycle, the got the tiniest of pinch yesterday morning, when should they get another pinch? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkangel Posted March 5, 2010 Report Share Posted March 5, 2010 Anytime I have cycled a tank using fish, I would feed once a day just what they will eat in 1 to 2 minutes and do a 25% water change every second to third day depending on what the tests were reading. If I would have known you were going to set the tank up and put fish in rite away, I would have given you a bit of swamp water (filter sponge squeezed into a bag)to pour into your filter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raven Posted March 6, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2010 And i was going to ask you for some too but i forgot, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raven Posted March 9, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2010 Did the tanks first water change today, seems like an iffy issue to these water changes. One source i ready said to do 10-20% changes every 2 days, another every week. so i kind of did it in the middle. On Friday i will go and get the water tested at a pet store and buy 3-4 more tiger barbs, there's one little one i have right now that the largest one is harassing so meanly! Hopefully more fish will dissipate things. Also the 3rd one looks odd, it has the black stripping but no orange, thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raven Posted March 11, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 is there no imput here? not cool, we all should be debating stuff like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vallisneria Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 Since your tank is new and cycling you should be doing water changes every few days or as needed by testing the water. If the ammonia and nitrites are high, you might need to do water changes more frequently(ie daily). In an established tank the water change schedule depends on the tank. Whats the stocking level, is there plants, type of fish, size of tank etc. In my tanks I have some tanks I do 2x/week, some I do weekly and some I do every 2 weeks. The amount also varies, some I do 10-20% and some I do 50% or more. There is no set amount but the usual recommendation is 20% once a week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raven Posted March 14, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2010 ok then. i borrowed a test strip to try out but i don't know what colours are what.i know there was 5 colours and the middle orange one was PH. the first 2 colours where nice and pale, and last 2 quite dark. and i just added another 4 little bards so the one little guy wouldn't be picked on so much. so i guess doing a water change today will help things Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BettaFishMommy Posted March 14, 2010 Report Share Posted March 14, 2010 test strips are junk, they are not accurate. get the API liquid test kit. test daily for ammonia and nitrites for now, and if you see any readings at all (anything over 0.25) then do a water change. cycling with fish can result in ammonia poisoning and possibly death for the fish if you don't monitor and do the appropriate water changes. i personally would be doing daily water changes of at least 40 to 50% with a fish-in cycle, especially if you have no test kit available to use quite yet. don't clean your filter for a while, let the gunk build up a little bit. same with your gravel, don't vac it until the cycle is complete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aguabonita Posted March 15, 2010 Report Share Posted March 15, 2010 (edited) Since you received a whack of plants to start out, I thought there may be a pretty significant amount of nitrifying bacteria on the plants. I found the following article which also suggests this. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/40005724/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 Would be nice to have a quality test kit to see how things are going. Don't add any more fish, feed small amounts, change the water daily, don't rinse the filter media for a month or so. Too bad about the swamp water, it would have been ideal... may be worth the piece of mind to go back and get some or bum some closer to home. The plants may carry enough bacteria... interesting I've never started a tank with just plants as bacterial seed; should work... again, it would be nice to know what's going on with the test kit if you went this way. If I had a few tanks kicking around this would be a good experiment. Edited March 15, 2010 by Aguabonita Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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