Greetings Fish Fans!
The name is Bernard but everyone calls me 'B'. I've never had an aquarium before but I've always wanted one. Well, by a lucky stroke, I was gifted 2 tanks in a single weekend. One 36 bowfront and a 56 bowfront. Baptism by fire. Let's do this!
I set the 36 up first. Before I found you wonderfully informative and spirited lot. Used 3 hunks of mopani from Petco so the tannins and bacterial bloom (feeding 2 happy snails) followed as I've seen is fairly typical. We (wife and I) wanted to keep it naturalistic; almost a biotope. Not sure if we succeeded but rookies do what rookies do. Finnex 24/7 that cuts off at 11PM until 7AM, random HOB stuffed with biomedia and sponges. I put a purigen in there having read about it on this forum to combat the tannins. I've got a powerhead, 02 pump, and fingers crossed. Photo attached if you're into that sort of thing. Pardon the prefilter, it's ugly but the tannins are worse, imo.
56 was last weekend. 2 weeks since setting up the first. Fluval 406, Finnex 24/7 with the same schedule, and my C02 tank is filled while amazon sends me the rest of the parts today. I'm pumped. Pun intended. We planted a bunch of this and that. I'll have to comprise a list from receipts if it's important. EcoComplete for substrate. Photo is also attached if you care to take a look. I like this tank and the wife and I took a long time arranging these rocks. Not quite an iwagumi not quite naturalistic but I like the flow of the tank.
So, I was hoping if you could see any 'noob' errors thus far you'd let me know. My facebook friends are great but the knowledge saturation here far exceeds my social media.
And a question if I may:
Coming from the bonsai world, I like to think that I'm a patient enough man if my expectations are reasonable. I'm doing a fishless
cycle. After about a week, both tanks are processing ammonia over night. I dose the tank with ammonia at night up to 3-4 ppm and the next day my nitrites are through the roof... and have been for some time now. I've not seen any nitrates thus far. Using stability to add beneficial bacteria and seeded my second with sponge from the first.
So then, are the bacteria that process nitrites more sluggish than the nitrifying bacteria? If I just need to wait it out, no problem. Just curious the time table. I've heard these things cycling in days!
One more, my tap water is coming out of my faucet at about 81! Not bad now but in the future I fear it'll shock my fish. I can't haul buckets with my bum neck so I'm kind of stuck using a python. Love it, btw.
So yeah. Howdy. I've been lurking so many posts so thank you for sharing what you already have.
Cheers,
B
The name is Bernard but everyone calls me 'B'. I've never had an aquarium before but I've always wanted one. Well, by a lucky stroke, I was gifted 2 tanks in a single weekend. One 36 bowfront and a 56 bowfront. Baptism by fire. Let's do this!
I set the 36 up first. Before I found you wonderfully informative and spirited lot. Used 3 hunks of mopani from Petco so the tannins and bacterial bloom (feeding 2 happy snails) followed as I've seen is fairly typical. We (wife and I) wanted to keep it naturalistic; almost a biotope. Not sure if we succeeded but rookies do what rookies do. Finnex 24/7 that cuts off at 11PM until 7AM, random HOB stuffed with biomedia and sponges. I put a purigen in there having read about it on this forum to combat the tannins. I've got a powerhead, 02 pump, and fingers crossed. Photo attached if you're into that sort of thing. Pardon the prefilter, it's ugly but the tannins are worse, imo.
56 was last weekend. 2 weeks since setting up the first. Fluval 406, Finnex 24/7 with the same schedule, and my C02 tank is filled while amazon sends me the rest of the parts today. I'm pumped. Pun intended. We planted a bunch of this and that. I'll have to comprise a list from receipts if it's important. EcoComplete for substrate. Photo is also attached if you care to take a look. I like this tank and the wife and I took a long time arranging these rocks. Not quite an iwagumi not quite naturalistic but I like the flow of the tank.
So, I was hoping if you could see any 'noob' errors thus far you'd let me know. My facebook friends are great but the knowledge saturation here far exceeds my social media.
And a question if I may:
Coming from the bonsai world, I like to think that I'm a patient enough man if my expectations are reasonable. I'm doing a fishless
cycle. After about a week, both tanks are processing ammonia over night. I dose the tank with ammonia at night up to 3-4 ppm and the next day my nitrites are through the roof... and have been for some time now. I've not seen any nitrates thus far. Using stability to add beneficial bacteria and seeded my second with sponge from the first.
So then, are the bacteria that process nitrites more sluggish than the nitrifying bacteria? If I just need to wait it out, no problem. Just curious the time table. I've heard these things cycling in days!
One more, my tap water is coming out of my faucet at about 81! Not bad now but in the future I fear it'll shock my fish. I can't haul buckets with my bum neck so I'm kind of stuck using a python. Love it, btw.
So yeah. Howdy. I've been lurking so many posts so thank you for sharing what you already have.
Cheers,
B