# Another fish newbie post



## grannykins (Oct 9, 2006)

WE have been thinking about tropical fish for a while, so a couple of days ago went out and bought a tank to fit the space we have. (Not a brilliant one apparently - an 80 litre hexagonal, so higher than it is long).
Then we looked around at fish, made a list of the ones we liked the look of and started to research them to see which ones would be suitable. Whilst doing this, I came across the info on aquarium cycling -luckily, as none of the shops we had been in had mentioned this. It was just 'oh run the set up for a week or two and then add the fish'. So now we need to go and buy some ammonia and a water testing kit.
A couple of questions:-
Firstly, can we use some of the gunk out of our axolotls filter to help start the new one along?
Secondly, apparently when the new tank is ready it will look quite grotty. Prior to the 90% water change can we clean all the algae off? Not sure I want a grotty looking tank of fish we cant see. Does the tank settle down and look clean again?

(Once we have looked at all the fish info, I plan to come back and ask for suggestions on numbers and combinations etc of the fish we would like.)


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## jessemon (May 31, 2012)

Hiya. I'm new to the forum but I've been keeping fish for years. 

The way I cycle new tanks is to put some old water from another tanks water change into the new tank, and I also soak all the new tanks filter and equipment in old tank water too. Then I cut off a small piece of matured sponge from one of my other cycled filters (in your case your axie tank), and perhaps steal a few of the ceramic rings. I'll often nick a handful of old substrate/a live plant or tank decoration from other tanks, as those things hold on to a amount of good bacteria that can be transferred to a new filter. Then I add JBL Filter Start to the new tanks filter, followed by a course of JBL Denitrol. Both of those products contain good bacteria that will latch onto the new filter media. Once I've done all that, I leave the tank running (filter/heater on etc) for 12 hours, test the water, and then add one fish. I then test the water twice a day, continuing with the course of Denitrol as instructed. If I haven't had a spike in two weeks I slowly introduce another fish. I test once a day for another week. If I haven't had a spike, I add another fish. After 6 weeks of daily testing, if I've had no spikes at all, the tank is cycled and I *carefully* I do what I want with it. As a general rule, for larger tanks I still add fish slowly so as not to mix different water up from different lfs's and increase any risk of contamination.

Anyway, that's how I do it. It's much much easier to cycle a new tank if you already have a well cycled mature tank in the house. I've used the above method for literally years and never had a spike whilst cycling, as I do it slowly and test very regularly. I'd never put a fish under any stress which is why I test in the morning and evening, ready to whip it out if anything spikes, but I've not once had that happen. You can do the same sort of thing but without putting a fish in, by feeding the bacteria some old fish food (it'll rot down in the tank and slowly produce ammonia). This method takes a little longer from what I've heard, and you may need to keep adding more food to keep the ammonia levels up to increase the bacteria colony. I've even read some people use neat ammonia from a bottle to feed the bacteria whilst cycling. You're right about the tank getting very grotty if you go with the fishless cycling, but you can clean the algae off once it's cycled, do that before the water change so that when you're sucking up the water, you're sucking up the bits of algae you've cleaned off that'll be floating around.

HTH!

Jess.


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## grannykins (Oct 9, 2006)

Thank you : victory:


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## Frostpaw (May 10, 2010)

if your fish shop hasnt told you about the filters cycle... please be aware they may not tell you about what fish can live together and what cant. They may just sell you anything for the money.

If you like, give us a list of your 'potential fish' and we can tell you what will:
- Grow too big
- simply need a bigger tank to live in
- will potentially eat whatever else you put in there!

This will save alot of money and heart ache in the long run.

Sadly its probably the second biggest mistake new fish keepers make, putting in incompatible species. Let us know and we will help  !


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## LiamRatSnake (Jul 3, 2007)

Not all tanks go through a massive algal bloom. Most of mine haven't if they're fully stocked with plants from the get-go and out of direct sunlight. Just small amounts on the glass which a magnet will deal with and an attractive amount on the ornaments which gives a nice natural look in my opinion.
With an 80l tank if you're going with tropicals I'd stick with smaller fish like tetras and livebearers.


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## grannykins (Oct 9, 2006)

Frostpaw said:


> if your fish shop hasnt told you about the filters cycle... please be aware they may not tell you about what fish can live together and what cant. They may just sell you anything for the money.
> 
> If you like, give us a list of your 'potential fish' and we can tell you what will:
> - Grow too big
> ...


Thank you : victory: this is what we are planning to do. Have a huge list of fish we like, and have already crossed out several as growing too large or being aggressive/predatory. After we have researched all of them, we are going to pick out the ones we really like and come on here with a list for some help with choosing.



LiamRatSnake said:


> Not all tanks go through a massive algal bloom. Most of mine haven't if they're fully stocked with plants from the get-go and out of direct sunlight. Just small amounts on the glass which a magnet will deal with and an attractive amount on the ornaments which gives a nice natural look in my opinion.
> With an 80l tank if you're going with tropicals I'd stick with smaller fish like tetras and livebearers.


Thanks, will stock up with live plants and keep fingers crossed. I dont mind so much on the ornaments either, its just the glass really.


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## LiamRatSnake (Jul 3, 2007)

grannykins said:


> Thank you : victory: this is what we are planning to do. Have a huge list of fish we like, and have already crossed out several as growing too large or being aggressive/predatory. After we have researched all of them, we are going to pick out the ones we really like and come on here with a list for some help with choosing.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks, will stock up with live plants and keep fingers crossed. I dont mind so much on the ornaments either, its just the glass really.


It's only the horrid hair algae which is a real problem. Normal algae on the glass is easily removed. Just make sure to do it regularly so that you don't remove loads at once and putting a strain on your filter.


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