Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping => Gallery Showcase => Topic started by: Shipwreck on April 13, 2014, 11:29:09 AM
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Well spent 12 hours saturday scrubbing the tank,60 kg of gravel and 480 litres of water later
This is the outcome,water de chlorinated and heaters up to 23 degrees in temperature so far,only
2 more degrees to go,wife loves it and so do i,even george our parrot doesnt mind it.
In the next couple of days i will pick up 10-15 Zebra Danios to start the fish in cycle.
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It's looking good :D
That many danios in that volume of water shouldn't cause very high levels of ammonia or nitrite. But be careful about the timing of getting new fish. Wait until you are sure you don't have any ammonia or nitrite before getting the next batch.
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I was wondering myself that with the volume of water involved,should i increase
My initial number of fish to 20-25?.
With regards the next batch i will give it at least 6 weeks before increasing numbers
And even then i will do it in stages rather than chucking another 40 fish in.
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The old stocking rule was 1 inch of fish at adult size per US gallon of water, for slim bodied fish that grow no bigger than 3 inches. The corresponding fish-in cycling rule was 1 inch of fish.....per 5 US galls etc.
So if we stick to that as the absolute maximum, that's 1 inch of fish per 19 litres water. Your 480 litres will take a max of 25 inches of fish, or 63.5cm.
Zebra danios grow to 40 to 50mm (from Seriously Fish), call it 5cm to be safe.
63.5cm = 12.7 danios.
Your initial choice of 10 to 15 danios is spot on :D
Each additional batch should be no more than one third of the body mass of the fish already in the tank. Obviously as the amount of fish builds up, the body mass of allowed new fish will get bigger. One reason for saving the bigger fish till later. The other of course being that it gives the smaller fish chance to grow to a size the bigger fish can't eat.
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That's lookin' good!
Can I suggest some taller plants along the back. Smaller fish like to swim alongside the river bank knowing that they've got a safe place to dart in to should a predator hove into view. You're more likely to see them out'n'about when they feel safe.
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I have ordered some more plants colin,so there will be 3 more in there,the background
Is a stone effect,generally happy with the tank,waiting for a new digital thermometer to
Come as the last one was faulty,but suprising how cold the water feels even though both
Heaters are set for 26 degrees,another couple of days and the first fish will go in
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I always think how cold my tank is during water changes, I guess we're all used to much warmer water!
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I don't know why anyone would want to put the tank temp up to 26. Practically all our fish would be perfectly OK at 23, or even lower. Increasing temperature speeds up the metabolism of fish, which potentially shortens their life span and increases stress levels. It's important to not be anthropomorphic "I like to be nice and warm and so my fish will also be happier the warmer they are". So long as fish are kept within their acceptable range, the lower the better. Most fish breed at higher temperatures and so keeping them at these temperatures all of the time can mean that they are in permanent breeding mode, which they should normally be in only for a short period of time. This may be why some males permanently chase and harass females and show aggression among themselves.
Over the years, the "recommended" temperatures for fish seem to have steadily risen, though there seems to be absolutely no real evidence to support this. All of my tanks are kept at about 23 and the 16 species of fish I have so far all seem perfectly happy, showing normal appetite and other natural behaviour. I don't believe most danio species would be comfortable at 26. People seem to be afraid of "chilling" their fish but don't concern themselves enough about the upper temperature limits.
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Todayi went to a lfs which is part of a national chain,i was more or less accused of being
Cruel for doing a fish in cycle,i was informed by this 30 year fish expierince sales bod that
The filter squeeze from an establishedtank is a load of rubbish and is of no use in setting
Up a new fish tank,26 degrees was recommended to menot just a figure i plucked from
Thin air.
The amount of conflicting information given by forums and shop staff can be bewildering
To a new fish keeper,i have tried to absorb information with regards to cycling,fish numbers
Etc,the crux of the matter is he sold me 18 fish as my tank will easily cope with that number (his words not mine)
I did not go the zebra danio route as i was advised not to,i currently have 12 cherry barbs and
6 tetra that the lfs advised me to have they only grow to 3 cm max and have little black patches
Apparently he recommends neon tetra for new aquariums,articles that i have read say the opposite.
So there you go,i am trying to be a good fishkeeper but firk me,it is easy to make mistakes with the
Amount of conflicting info there is out there.
Right water heater temperature turned down,thank you for your input Richard even though it came
Across as a dig rather than advice
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Shipwreck -
You'll find most forums now disapprove of fish-in cycling, instead recommending fishless cycling using ammonia.
Shops normally either recommend fish-in because that's what they've been doing man and boy and don't hold with fishless; or say both fish-in and fishless are old fashioned, just use this bottled bacteria because they want your money or don't think their customers can understand anything else.
Fish in cycling, done properly, is not cruel. What is cruel is putting a lot of fish into an uncycled tank, never testing the water or doing water changes, and just hoping some fish survive. This is the old way of cycling a tank, something you'll still see advised.
Filter squeezing is better than nothing but only helps slightly. This is because the filter bacteria grow in the biofilm and only tiny amounts of biofilm are dislodged during squeezing. If a lot was lost, we'd have to re-cycle our tanks every time we washed the filter media.
Neon tetras used to be hardy little fish. Fish breeding is big business and the conditions the fish are bred in are less than perfect - resulting in fish that don't cope well with a fish-in cycle. It is not unknown for them to treat their breeding tanks with antibiotics on a continual basis to keep illness at bay. When these fish are removed from their antibiotics, they get sick easily.
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Must admit i am well chuffed that i chose cherry barbs they are a lovely fish,they were my choice
As i researched them in the fish profile section and i liked what i saw.
It is lovely seeing them swim around the tank,the other fish he recommended seem to be qite happy
With them and they are swimming round in mixed groups,i will pop back in to see which species of tetra
They are,he said they are often overlooked and numpty that i am i looked at the label on the tank as to
Size etc but didnt pay enough attention to the name.
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I have cherry barbs too, and think they're lovely and characterful. I also have lemon tetras and diamond-head neon tetras, and they're all perfectly happy at 22°C.
Richard isn't digging at you at all.... it's just that we get a bit exasperated at the rubbish the staff in fish shops tell people, and it sometimes comes over in the posts as the written word can be interpreted in many ways.
There's a really good article on tank temperature here (http://www.seriouslyfish.com/whaddaya-mean-too-hot/).
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Cheers colin :cheers:
Interesting article,i am running at 23.2 degrees currently was 25.6 previously,i am running a
300 watt heater and a 150 watt heater,i may try removing the 150 watt and see what the temp
Ends up at,as the article says about the lights,i did notice a rise in temp when switched on,the
Lights that came with the tank are t5 80 watt x2 one is white one is blue,the blue light does give a
Nice colour effect
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very interesting article there colin with plenty to think about.
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I should have said "I don't know why people recommend setting the temperature to 26". Of course, if you have a room temperature of about 20, then the difference in heating a tank by 3 or 6 degrees is quite considerable, which could add up to a fair saving on electricity over a year. So long as the fish are happy, why heat to a higher temperature than necessary? Over the years, books and web sites seem to have slowly increased the "recommended" temperature. It's not only fish shops that give bad information. In my schoolboy aquarist days (long ago!) we used to set the thermostat, which was separate from the heater, to 70oF i.e. 21oC, at which they all seemed perfectly happy and lived long lives in spite of poor filtration compared to today.
I've actually set the thermostat on one of my tanks to 20 - 21. It's in an unheated room and so particularly important not to use too much electricity. I'm putting in zebra danios, white clouds, rosy and golden barbs, all of which should be happier at this temp than warmer. I'm also including Peppered corydoras, which have allegedly been caught in streams with ice on top.
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No worries Richard,i have taken the 150 watt heater out of the tank and i am slowly going to lower the
Temp to around 22 degrees,as it is early days i have 12 cherry barb and the other 6 i went back to the
Shop and reread the label and they are dwarf golden barb/golden dwarf barb,lovely fish but according
To seriouslyfish i should not really have them at this early stage,so this is what i mean with regards to
Conflicting advice and he was happy to point out that he is a 30 year plus fishkeeper
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Running a lower temp is an interesting idea & the article link provided by ColinB makes good reading. I've been running mine at 24C but have often wondered whether such temperatures would really be sustained in nature. I'm going to gradually drop mine a couple of C of the next few days to see whether there is any noticeable effect on the fish. It would be good to hear how others get on with lower temps as well.
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Hmm think I'll turn my heater down too!!
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There is something in that article I am wary about.
Our house is never as warm as the author states. For example, I am currently in the dining room where my big tank is and the temp is 17oC. It is quite warm today and the temp could get lower on other days and more so at night. We won't have the central heating on again until autumn. When it is back on, the radiator thermostat is set quite low. We only use this room for eating meals in, we don't keep it very warm.
The other two tanks are in the kitchen. That room does get warm if the oven is on, otherwise the same applies as for the dining room.
The central heating thermostat is set keep the house at 15oC during the winter. We are believers in wearing a jumper if it is not warm enough. The only room we do keep warm is the lounge (gas fire) but there is no tank in there. My mother has a heater for her bedroom, but again no fish tanks.
The author thinks that ambient room temperature is warm enough for tropical fish - but our house isn't that warm. It is usually quite a bit below the article's minimum of 19o.
But having said all that, I did read the article last time Colin gave the link, and I have turned my heaters down a notch or two, just not off. If there is a heatwave they won't turn on anyway. The only exception is the betta's tank as they do need it warm.
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I think that's the gist of the article, that you set your tank heater thermostat at the lowest you want your tank to get to. So, say if you set your tank thermostat at 19°C, then if your lounge temp fell below that, then the rank heater would kick in. I don't think it's advocating doing away with the heater all together.
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The author does say that only 2 of their 7 tanks have heaters in and they are only switched on early Nov to mid Feb. If I did that most of my fish would freeze in our house! They also make the comment that their coolest room is 19o which is far warmer than ours are except during a heatwave.
We don't like a warm house, only the room where we sit down to relax. Every other room is kept a lot cooler with the central heating thermostat set to 15o - including the rooms where my tanks are. And the heating is off at night even in the depths of winter. There is no way I could do without a tank heater in winter, unlike 5 of 7 of the author's tanks. Even now in mid April, the rooms get cold at night.
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Good lord,my bungalow must be like the tropics,our thermostat is set at 21.5 degrees
Daytime and at night 17.5 degrees,however the night time temperature doesnt normally
Drop below 18.5 degrees so it is rare that the heating kicks in,but as soon as we are up
The thermostat is up to 21.5,however we do tend to be in t shirts even during the winter.
Currently the tank is running between 23 to 23.5 degrees when the tank lights are on,i am
Slowly lowering the tank heater settings a bit at a time,taking out the 150 watt heater doesnt
Seem to have affected the tank temp at all,the 300 watt lone heater seems to be coping on its
Own quite happily even with 500 litres of water to heat.
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I think if anything if we get a decent summer I will have the opposite problem. Even a couple of months ago because my bedroom gets baking in the morning as the sun rises that side. The other day I looked and it was 26c.. horrendous! Luckily no tank there. My lounge kitchen diner is a bit cooler but can still get too hot in the day. My tank has been reading consistently but I'll definitely keep my eye on it especially if I plan on bringing the temp down
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Hello I'm very new to the forum and fish keeping but just thought I would point out that room temperature and water temperature aren't the same. My room is currently 20 c but my tank which is Unheated as I don't have fish yet is sitting at 14-15c .
The man I bought my tank off who by the way is not a professional advised me to keep the tank at 27 which I thought from the little about fish keeping I had read sounded too high, so I'm glad I have read this thread to back me up.
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I am now running between 22 to 22.6 degrees and all seems well,the fish which
Are cherry barb,dwarf golden barb and galaxy rasbora seem quite happy and active
The good thing now is i am only running one 300 watt heater and i have removed the
Other heater which was a 150 watt heater,officially the heater is not capable of heating
All 480 litres yet as i say mornings the tank is 22 degrees and during the day with the
Lights on it gets up to 22.6 degrees
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Cazzy, you mentioned in another thread that you've only just filled the tank. If you used cold water it will take a few days to warm up to the same as the room. You can speed it up by turning the heater on. That will also enable you to see how well it is calibrated as the dials on some heaters are way off. The way to set them is to turn them to a lowish setting and see what the temp that gives using a thermometer. Then turn the heater up a bit at a time till you get the right temp. And make a note of what the dial actually reads.
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Ok thanks sue. I have a heater but the cable is a bit dodgy so I was scared to leave it on overnight, just waiting for my new one to get delivered.
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Ooh don't want to get electrocuted :o I'd definitely wait for the new one!
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I'm going to gradually drop mine a couple of C of the next few days to see whether there is any noticeable effect on the fish.
Just thought I'd update on this - I've been running my tank at 21c for a while now and have seen no adverse affects. All my fish are looking well, feeding well and are very active. One change I have noticed though is that my plants seem healthier!