My Freshwater Fish Adventure

[murankar]

At some point I will migrate the posts from the other thread.

No pics today just a little verbiage.

My tank had been going now since January 23, 2020. Over the weekend I got the tank set up the way I like it. The hard scapes are placed inland the substrate is set. I got my airation and lighting set. Finally I got fish introduced to the tank along with a cycle booster.

Today's tank deed was to check the levels to see if anything had happened in 2 days. I was foing to check on Tuesday but I decided to use monday as my check days.

So 24 hours after filling the tank I took a case line of the levels.
Results were:

PH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 10 ppm
KH: 6 drops (I'll have to check out what ppm that is)

Today all that changed was the Kh dropped to 5 drops and the Nitrate dropped to 5 ppm. If this is going to be the trend then I will add another school of fish this weekend. Followed by a school of coradoras the following payday. (I believe that's what they are called. It's a bottom feeding catfish).

I would like to try a school of blemies but I think they a slight bit aggressive. I can't remember. Anyhow I want something that about 2 inches full grown, colorful, schooling and will get along with tetras and mollies.

 

[Fly-n-Low]

Very cool. I would love to see pics! I have a bow front that I have to have a custom top made for. I have to pick up some thin luan to make a template, then to the glass store.

I have my pump, heater, and drift wood already, but need gravel as I am shifting to a light gray.

So I am way behind you!

What are you using for lights? I bought a Fluvol LED that is bluetoothed with my tablet. Cool stuff with dynamic weather, etc!!!

 

[murankar]

I have pics in my "look who's back theead." Tonight or tomorrow I will be reposting those posts to this thread.

 

[murankar]

So just to have the pics in this thread. This a chronological order of how I put the tank together. It's been a piece at a time. Slowly building the tank as it cycles. I will hiw ever mention thatiif you want the details of the what's happened through this process go and have a read on this thread
Guess Whose Back

From here on out I will be updating the rest in this thread. I still dont knownwhat fish to put in this tank. I want something compatible with my tetras and Mollies. I will be doing a planted tank so the bio load will be handled through the plants and filtration.

 

[murankar]

Yesterday I got most of the wood cut for the stand. The current TV stand works but I dont trust its ability to hold that weight over the long term. The material on the current stand is that cheap press board. When that stuff gets wet it starts to loose its integrity. Here is the new stand as it was yesterday.



I could be building this with just 2x4s but decided to use 4x4s for the legs instead. All this lumber is reclaim from work. None if it is straight. All the 2x4s are wrapped. So to help fight that my joinery is to be key. I have decided to use dowels and glue to get the basic frame together. The bottom is still TBD. My thought is to do the exact same thing on the bottom. I plan on skinning this with oak plywood finished in teak oil and lacquer.

My end state is to replicate the tv stand to some degree. One side will be fish supplies while the other side will be movies and games. In the middle will be the devices for said games and movies. I would love to mount everything so the kids can't just make a mess of it like they do now. That's where we stand as of today.

I hope that the kids are back to school next week so I can actually work on this thing. This weekend is shot because I have my kids and well that's a story for another time.

 

[murankar]

I just testing the tank water today. The samples are developing now. So far it's looking like the ammonia and nitrites are starting to climb. As of right now my ammonia is looking to be around 1 ppm and nitrites are around .5 ppm. I wont know for sure for another couple minutes. The test chems take about 5 minutes to develop.

It appears the cycling is starting.

 

[murankar]

Yep the numbers are good.

Ammonia 1 ppm
Nitrite is .5 ppm
Nitrate is 10 ppm.

So when should I do my water change, today or tomorrow?

 

[Fly-n-Low]

I love the 4x4 and 2x4 combo. Can't get anymore robust than that for the dollar or effort!

 

[Fly-n-Low]

My baby.... Green Terror I raised her from a fry. She was 10-11" when she suddenly passed. I had a male I raised in another tank. I was planning on breeding them. I had successfully bred Fire Mouths.

 

[murankar]

That's a nice looking fish. It Shame you lost her. There will a day when another will enter your tank.

I would love to have a few bigger fish but for now it's the little guys for me. I really would love to replicate a fresh water version of a reef tank. A colorful community tank with a few schooling fish.

 

[Tony]

I am unfamiliar with freshwater, however I don't see it much different from saltwater. For saltwater, you wait until the ammonia goes up, then comes back down to 0. It is incredibly hard on the fish. But, that is what I do to my saltwater tanks. Nitrates will go up a LOT after the ammonia and nitrites go down. Just a part of the nitrification process.

 

[Fly-n-Low]

That's a nice looking fish. It Shame you lost her. There will a day when another will enter your tank.

I would love to have a few bigger fish but for now it's the little guys for me. I really would love to replicate a fresh water version of a reef tank. A colorful community tank with a few schooling fish.

She was cool for sure. I had her for well over a year. Next was Oscars that have come and gone. They were huge and quite entertaining. They would charge at you when you were close to the tank, and bite you if you stuck your finger in. And they made such quick work on the ruby reds! I loved feeding them (South American Cichlids) bait fish. Nature at its best!

BTW after one of my Oscars broke the heater (can't believe it didn't fry him!!!) I invested in a titanium model.. LOL!!!

 

[murankar]

I forgot to update sundays test results.

PH: 7.8
Ammonia 1.0
Nitrite 2.0
Nitrate 5

I didn't test for Kh this go around.

Just in case I missed it, I did use API's quick start in my tank. It is used to jump start the bacterria. Basically your dumping live bacteria into your tank. It does not add ammonia to the tank, just bacterria.

 

[murankar]

My numbers for today are in.

Ph 7.8
Ammonia .5
Nitrite 1
Nitrate 10

I think my ammonia will be about zero by monday. Looking like the cycle is about to end. We shall see.

I think I may have had a couple bad reads. some of the readings looked like they were flukes or something. Anyhow almost time for some more fish.

 

[murankar]

Today is promising

Ph 7.4
Ammonia .25
Nitrite .0
Nitrate .0

Cycle is almost done. Time for some fish. Gradually that is.

 

[D.O.G.]

So what kind of fish do you plan on putting in there...gradually URI?

 

[Tony]

Something is wrong with your tests. Nitrite will drop, but the only way to get rid of Nitrate is with water changes. I mean there are ways, but they are incredibly complicated and I doubt you have them lol. Check that Nitrate again.

 

[murankar]

Last night after the chem test I decided to add a few fish. I also changed our the carbon filter for a sponge filter. I don't really need the carbon filter being that we are making a planted tank.

We ended up with a total of a dozen tetras. 6 glow tetras and 6 red something or others. Fire kiss, I dont remember. Next time I go to the pet store I will get pics of them.


Since it was late last night I didn't get a chance to get pics of the new fish. Right now they are going through the adjustment of being in a new tank. Once they are settled in I will get a short video or something.

I noticed last night the original tetras that we started with got really active last night. Like more then they have since we had them. I hope that a sign of being done with the cycle. Now I need to monitor the tank for a few more days to see how it adjusts to the addition of 12 fish.

 

[murankar]

These are the red tetras. We got 6 of them




I think these were called the neon tetra. Got 6 of these guys also.



All the tetras in the tank have a 2 to 3 inch potential. So I am hoping they fill out the tank nicely. All the tetras seem to be enjoying each others company. The original tetras git very lively last night after adding the 2 schools.

Excited to see this tank develop.

 

[murankar]

Today was a maintenance day on 2 tanks. I did a reading on the 38 gallon and my PH was climbing towards the 8.0 range. All my other values were right where they needed to be. My nitrates were around 5. So I was spot on with my cycling. The 12 extra fish did not effect anything at all after I added them. My bacteria level is handling 18 fish right now. Good deal.

While contemplating my Ph problem I had 2 options do a water change or use chemicals. I decided to pull out about 12 gallons of water and replaced it with a fresh 12 gallons of dechlorinated water. Those fish will be happy for about another month or I can do a 5 gallon weekly change. Dont know how I want to do it yet.

Now for the 10 gallon. I dont really care for it as well as I should. I do have some algae growth but the water is clear and doesn't stink. I have not done any real tracking of the readings on this tank. I know at a minimum I had to suck out the gravel, So I did. I removed about 4 to 5 gallons of water just from cleaning the gravel. It needed it eventhough I have a planted tank. I went and added back clean proper water and waited about 20 minutes. I took a full set of readings. The Ph was off the chart high, even after a 50% change. I had no choice but to use a chemical to balance out the ph. Did a 10 gallon dose and mixed it up a bit. Waited about 10 minutes and bam, 7.4. Awesome for now. I will need to make another 50% change this week again. The chemical is a band aid at best. I still have to keep at the water changes. what I dont want to do is a back to back water change. It can mess up the balance in the tank. With everything chugging along I dont want to disrupt it. So this weekend I will do another 50% and see if it is still under control. I will need to run a full set of tests twice monthly to stay on top of it.


Yesterday I upgraded 2 beta tanks to 5.5 gallon from a 2 gallon fish bowl. I ha e 3 more to go. That's a chore in and of its self. yesterday we started 2 tanks and one of them was cloudy this morning. This will clear up in a few weeks. I had an algae bloom over night. New tanks are unstable until the bacteria developed. So I dosed a 5 gallon dose of quick start in both tanks.

That's it for today's installment of as the tank turns.