Hello, Looking For Some Advice & Tips

Hello everyone, hope you're all well!

Basically, wanted to start keeping fish for a while now and managed to get all the money etc. to go ahead and do it, so I've got all the stuff that I need (I think!), but am just eager to get all the information I need to go along with the equipment.

So, I set up my tank, a Marina 95. I was advised not to start too small but didn't want to go too big due to finances, so 95l seemed like a good enough middle ground. Have the substrate in, water, water conditioner, heater, filter and some ornaments.

I've read about cycling your tank, and I've decided to do it without using fish, mainly because I'd prefer my tank to be 100% ready before adding fish and I also don't want to expose fish to the high levels of ammonia and nitrites - even if they are hardy.

I've been adding fish food to create ammonia, but so far my readings are always at 0.25ppm and it never changes. So I'm looking for advice on that.

Also, my tank has been cloudy for about a week now, and am wondering why this is the case? I'm not keen on adding any other conditioners to get rid of the cloudiness, as I'm not convinced they will do the job without affecting the cycle - but I'm new to all this and really don't know.

Anyway, thanks for reading and looking forward to interacting with you all.

Thanks Sue!

Do you have any recommendation on which bottle of ammonia to use? I searched the shops a couple weeks ago but could find nothing, all I seen was cleaning stuff that had ammonia in it but they also had loads of other ingredients too. 

 

Do you have any recommendation on which bottle of ammonia to use? I searched the shops a couple weeks ago but could find nothing, all I seen was CLEANING stuff that had ammonia in it but they also had loads of other ingredients too. 

i got mine from amazon it was called kleen off .
The bottle has a warning written on it do not sniff , its best to listen to this warning not like i did and got a big sniff of it   

That's the one I have too. It doesn't say on the bottle but I emailed the company and they told me it contains ammonia, water and nothing else, and that it's 9.5%

Be careful with Kleen Off ammonia - there is a whole range of Kleen Off products, and I have heard of someone trying to cycle with drain cleaner. The moral is to read the label 

Had a look in Homebase today but had no idea what to look for so was picking up pretty much every cleaning bottle and reading the labels with no luck. Was getting some strange looks so I just left and went home  Shall order from amazon.

Thanks for all the suggestions, much appreciated.

No, it has to added in very precise doses.

Here is the method for fishless cycling with ammonia. You'll see that you add enough ammonia to give a reading of 3ppm to start the cycle. When I emailed Jeyes about their KleenOff ammonia they told me it's 9.5%.
You say your tank is 95 litres but you have to use water volume not the tank volume to calculate the amount of ammonia as you'll have decor etc displacing some water. It is generally reckoned that you lose 10 to 15% water volume with decor etc, so if you have lots of decor, filters, heaters taking up space, reckon on 80 litres of actual water; if there's not much in the tank reckon on 85 litres.
So depending on the amount of stuff you have in the tank
80 litres water need 2.5ml ammonia
85 litres water need 2.7ml ammonia

You might find this easier to measure with a syringe. Chemists sell syringes, but ask for a babies medicine syringe or you'll get funny looks if you ask for just a syringe - they'll think you want it for something illegal. A 3ml or even 5ml would be perfect - though if you do have lots of decor a 2.5ml syringe would be best.

The first dose of ammonia should be enough to get a reading of 3ppm. If you have the API tester, it doesn't have a colour for 3ppm so you have to get it between the 2 and 4ppm colours. Add the ammonia and test after half an hour to allow the ammonia to mix in thoroughly to make sure that the bottle of ammonia really is 9.5%.
When you get to step 6 in the method in the link, add another 2.5 or 2.7mls, whichever you used at the start.
In steps 8 and 9, use 0.84 or 0.9ml, depending on how much you started with.
In step 10 you use 2.5/2.7ml again.

With an air pump, the pump goes outside the tank and the thing it's connected to (airstone, treasure chest, deep sea diver etc) goes inside the tank. There should be a drip loop in the airline tubing, that is the tube should dip down between the tank and the pump so that any water that gets on the tubing drips of the dip rather than runs into the air pump as water and electricity don't mix.
Some air pumps are very noisy. Ways to reduce the noise include standing it on a folded towel to absorb some of the noise, or suspend the pump on a piece of string to stop it vibrating against a surface.

And air pumps aren't necessary. The airstone, diver, whatever are only there for decoration. Yes, the bubbles do churn the water up but the filter outflow does a better job of churning the water up provided it is set so the outflow makes ripples on the water surface. Very little oxygen dissolves from the bubbles themselves, they work by churning the water up so more of it gets exposed at the surface. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use one if you like the effect, but that's all they do.

Yes.
Gas exchange occurs where the water meets the air. Oxygen goes in and carbon dioxide comes out (unless you have tons of plants which will use the carbon dioxide). If the water was still - no circulation caused by the filter or an airstone, or some such - the same water would be at the top all the time and carbon dioxide would have to move through the water to get to the top, and oxygen down to the bottom for the bottom dwelling fish. When there is a filter moving the water round, different water is at the surface all the time. What was on top is pushed underneath and the underneath water is pulled to the top. This enables gas exchange to happen much more quickly - oxygen gets in quicker and carbon dioxide gets out quicker. When the filter is positioned so that outflow ripples the surface that is the best for water circulation.
Air stones etc run by an air pump help to as the bubbles churn the water up and mix it up just not quite as effectively as the filter does.

That's good news - on both counts

What you need is something like this Your local fish shops will sell one make or another. If you look at the picture in that link you'll see it consists of long flexible tubing and a rigid plastic cylinder. They join together with the blue connector on top of the rigid cylinder. Most siphon like this have a non-return valve inside the blue bit. Join the two bits together and with the open end of the tubing in the bucket, move the cylinder up and down quickly under water until the water starts to flow. Then push the end of the cylinder right into the gravel and watch till the bits stop flowing. Move the cylinder along to the next bit of gravel until all the bits have gone from there. Keep doing this till either you've done all the gravel or you have taken out enough water. The first time you'll probably have to stop before you do all the gravel or the tank would be empty. Just carry on next time from where you got up to. After a few sessions you'll be able to get it all done in one go.


If you have sand, you hover the tube a cm or two above the sand and make swirling motions with the end of the cylinder to lift the bits into the water. If you suck up sand, just wash it afterwards and put it back in the tank.




Have you got fish now? If there is food on the bottom of the tank, you are feeding too much. Cut down on the amount of food you use.