Am i doing it right?

"Marco Schwarz" wrote in message
...
Hi..

Cyling a tank with a few hardy fish and live plants, no
more than about 5" of fish in a 100 litre (25 USg = about
25" of fish) is usually safe.

Hmm.., what are hardy fish?



Fish that are resilient and can go through the stress of something like a
major cycle, without getting sick or dying?



Sean

i think you are doing great considering, what you should have done with
those second lot of fish is say "no thanks"
and waited for at least a month before adding new fish.

I would try and take back the gouramis, and the shark for def, as these will
cause you problems long term, and will out grow your tank, they may also
intimidate the other smaller fish and cause you more problems.

Keep up the water changes, add some nutrafin cycle, keep feeding down to
minimum fish dont hurt if not fed for a day or two, also with no live plants
you are gonna have big algae problems so you to plants heavily and quick.

Hope that helps, di
"Christopher Lewis" wrote in message
...
My girlfriend bought me a 100 litre tank for my birthday a few weeks ago.
I
filled it with gravel a few fake plants and water and left the filter and
heater running for a few days.

I then went to my local fish shop and bought some small fish recommended
by
them to cycle the tank.

All OK so far right.

Then.... My mother boyfriend turns up at my house after 2 days of the
fish
being in the tank with a bag with about another 15 fish in it. They are
gourami's, 2 or three different kinds of mollies, a few red eyed tetra's
(i
think thats what they are called), some tiger barbs, some sharks someting
or
others (cant remember and i doubt they are real sharks).

So now i am doing a 20% water change every 2 days in an attempt to keep
the
ammonia and nitrite levels down. Yesterday ammoina was somewhere between
1
and 1.5 ppm so i did a 40% water change.

Nitrite is about 1.0 ppm at the moment. they have all been in there 2
weeks
now and *seem* OK so far.

Is there anything else i should be doing?

Thanks Guys

Chris

p.s. I'm sure i'm going to enjoy this once i dont have to do water changes
every 2 days!!

"Sean" wrote in message
...

"Marco Schwarz" wrote in message
...
Hi..

Cyling a tank with a few hardy fish and live plants, no
more than about 5" of fish in a 100 litre (25 USg = about
25" of fish) is usually safe.

Hmm.., what are hardy fish?



Fish that are resilient and can go through the stress of something like
a major cycle, without getting sick or dying?

Sometimes, it's hard to know when Marco is being facetious or serious
;~).

Other than a few fish which are known to be particularly fragile (mostly
under under transport conditions, which is why we notice), the hardiness
of a fish has more to do with its size, how long it's been in the tank,
whether the water parameters are acceptable, and its metabolism (imo).
Only the last point is species dependant, so there is a lot of urban myth
to picking a particular type of fish because it's 'hardy'. They are
mostly all equally 'hardy' if the environment is correct (or wouldn't
their evolution have had a a very short history?).

Returning back to 'acceptable water parameters' fish can be selected (or
avoided) according to the particular abuse you're anticipating. For a
heat wave, I wouldn't have White Cloud minnows, Dojos or Kuhliis, and if
the water was going to get very cold, then Goldfish, Koi and Sunfish come
to mind. My well water gets very hard mid-summer, making Discus, Altums
or Rams quite miserable, but bringing out nice colours in African mbuna
and Monos.

If you want hardy fish, choose them according to your water parameters,
and once they are acclimated, have grown a bit, and if their water
conditions are within their acceptable range, they are *ALL* hardy ).
--
www.NetMax.tk stirring the pot again ;~)




Sean

In message , Christopher Lewis
writes
My girlfriend bought me a 100 litre tank for my birthday a few weeks ago. I
filled it with gravel a few fake plants and water and left the filter and
heater running for a few days.

I then went to my local fish shop and bought some small fish recommended by
them to cycle the tank.


Sorry at that point you lost my patience. I think we should take a leaf
out of the current trend for "instant offence" and protest outside your
house :-)

Never use live fish to cycle a tank, they are as you say LIVE creatures.

Feed an empty tank. I know it sounds daft, but a small pinch of food
every morning for about 5-6 weeks will very effectively get the bugs
going in the tank.

Personally I'd like to see a license to keep fish introduced, with basic
training considered mandatory.

--
Edward Cowling London UK

In message ,
SpiceySpice writes
i think you are doing great considering, what you should have done with
those second lot of fish is say "no thanks"
and waited for at least a month before adding new fish.


A big "I agree totally" to that. Tell the well meaning in laws it's your
tank and don't let them interfere.

--
Edward Cowling London UK

"Edward Cowling London UK" wrote in message
...
In message , Christopher Lewis
writes
My girlfriend bought me a 100 litre tank for my birthday a few weeks ago.
I
filled it with gravel a few fake plants and water and left the filter and
heater running for a few days.

I then went to my local fish shop and bought some small fish recommended
by
them to cycle the tank.


Sorry at that point you lost my patience. I think we should take a leaf
out of the current trend for "instant offence" and protest outside your
house :-)

Never use live fish to cycle a tank, they are as you say LIVE creatures.

Feed an empty tank. I know it sounds daft, but a small pinch of food every
morning for about 5-6 weeks will very effectively get the bugs going in
the tank.

Personally I'd like to see a license to keep fish introduced, with basic
training considered mandatory.



I don't know about training and a license, that seems a tad expensive and
would lead to government overhead and all that jazz. What I think the fish
shops should have to implement is a basic testing system for each major
class/type of fish. Just basic questions to determine if the person would
be suitable to keep fish. Questions like: What temp should tropical fish be
kept at generally? What is a cycle? How many times do you feed these fish
and with what type of food? I think that would be a great solution and it
would embarrass a lot of ignorant buyers into not making the purchase until
they knew more.



Sean

"Sean" wrote in message
...

"Edward Cowling London UK" wrote in
message ...
In message , Christopher
Lewis writes
My girlfriend bought me a 100 litre tank for my birthday a few weeks
ago. I
filled it with gravel a few fake plants and water and left the filter
and
heater running for a few days.

I then went to my local fish shop and bought some small fish
recommended by
them to cycle the tank.


Sorry at that point you lost my patience. I think we should take a
leaf out of the current trend for "instant offence" and protest
outside your house :-)

Never use live fish to cycle a tank, they are as you say LIVE
creatures.

Feed an empty tank. I know it sounds daft, but a small pinch of food
every morning for about 5-6 weeks will very effectively get the bugs
going in the tank.

Personally I'd like to see a license to keep fish introduced, with
basic training considered mandatory.



I don't know about training and a license, that seems a tad expensive
and would lead to government overhead and all that jazz. What I think
the fish shops should have to implement is a basic testing system for
each major class/type of fish. Just basic questions to determine if
the person would be suitable to keep fish. Questions like: What temp
should tropical fish be kept at generally? What is a cycle? How many
times do you feed these fish and with what type of food? I think that
would be a great solution and it would embarrass a lot of ignorant
buyers into not making the purchase until they knew more.



Sean


I'm 100% with Sean on this one. We did this at the store. The trick was
to ask all the questions conversationally. With a new customer, you can
make lots of extra time ("have you seen bla bla - just came in", then
catching the fish, showing compatible plants etc etc). All the while,
expressing enthusiasm in the fish they are buying "So what type of fish
do you have now?, size of tank etc etc".

I've done many *non-sales*, where the customer decided against buying any
fish (I discovered they had Ich, or were overstocked etc). Sometimes I'd
have to go around putting bagged fish back into the tanks, but more often
than not, it left us with a new loyal customer who was interested in
doing the right thing, and they found a place they could get information.
They still spent money (probably a little guilty for 'wasting' our time),
but it was on new food, plants, meds etc, so the store didn't lose
anything.

We don't need to give the government more things to legislate (imo).
Common sense, good fish husbandry and good business practice are all
still compatible.
--
www.NetMax.tk

"Edward Cowling London UK" wrote in message
...
Personally I'd like to see a license to keep fish introduced, with basic
training considered mandatory.
===============
I would love to see *that* as well as a Lic. to keep any pet. Next
mandatory classes on parenting for all those who want to have a family. One
spoiled disobedient child in the LFS last week must have caused the death of
many fish from banging things from the shelves on the tank fronts. The poor
fish were panicking. His parents were oblivious...... :-(
--

Koi-Lo.... frugal ponding since 1995...
Aquariums since 1952
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

Koi-Lo wrote:

"Edward Cowling London UK" wrote in
message ...

Personally I'd like to see a license to keep fish introduced, with
basic training considered mandatory.

===============
I would love to see *that* as well as a Lic. to keep any pet. Next
mandatory classes on parenting for all those who want to have a family.
One spoiled disobedient child in the LFS last week must have caused the
death of many fish from banging things from the shelves on the tank
fronts. The poor fish were panicking. His parents were
oblivious...... :-(

I went to the LFS today. As we approached we saw a man and a young boy
of around 10 years I would guess. They were clutching lots of leaflets.
The father was chatting to the boy quite enthusiastically about the need
for them to get the tank set up before getting any fish...this is the
norm for this place....

They also have very big signs up about children only being welcome if
supervised by an adult - must have taken my daughter in there too many
times - lol - but she does at least know not to touch the glass of the
tanks or be loud around the fish because of scaring them.

I'm with NetMax on this one. I don't see how licencing fishkeepers would
work....we don't licence owners of other pets just the places that sell
them...education is the key - not only of those working in LFSs but of
the customers themselves....

Gill

Hi..

Well, two different replies to an innocent question.

Sean's definition show hardy fish have stress while cycling
a tank. This is why I generally recommend a fish-less
start.
--
cu
Marco