Tropical fish tank

Originally Posted by svste

2. Cleaning the filter, I (my dad when I was living in the states) have found that washing all the sponges in tap water at the same time destroys the bacteria colony and you can loose your fish,

Sorry, but thats rubbish.

As said above, what about the other 250 litres of bacteria ridden water in the tank..?

my tank 76ltr took 6 weeks to cycle without fish in it.
I got ammonia from a hardware shop and had to add 1ml every few days (used a syringe) after testing it. if you want the first batch of fish to die and don't mind then you can use them to cycel the tank it is deemed crule though.

a 25% water change is recomended every week (I'm too lazy and do a 50% change every 4 weeks) personaly i'm fed up with the tank and the cleaning so hoping to get rid soon.


I used this site http://www.fishkeeping.co.uk/ for all my info when i first started. they will be able to tell you how many fish you can get.

on another note 48ltr is deemed too small for almost any fish (not my words the word of users from that site) my tank is border line. i have 4 neons and 1 platty(did have 3 then 5 then 7) platties breed like rabits so make sure you dont over do it on the plants if you choose them as the fry love it. Platties are easy to keep for a beginer so they say.


good luck with it all. I do a 50% filter media change every 4 weeks.

That makes me feel bad for getting a 48ltr tank now... Although its bigger than most peoples! Its not a rectangle tank, its a square so its pretty spacious i think.

But now you say that, I may just save a little and get a larger tank at some point.

Off to get a couple of new fish today to add to my two catfish loaches!

Originally Posted by speedplay

Sorry, but thats rubbish.

As said above, what about the other 250 litres of bacteria ridden water in the tank..?

all the books and reccomendations I got before getting a tank said the same as ste, ie they said NEVER EVER EVER WASH OUT YOUR FILTER SPONGES ETC.
At first I paid attention then I got a blockage in the filter so decided to wash it all out and risk it. Needless to say I lost no fish speedplay is right, the bacteria within the water/plants/gravel actually in the tank cover a much greater surface area than is in the filter anyway, it makes no odds.
Better than that my tank has always remained much cleaner than any of the friends who initially advised me, but bare in mind I dont do it very often it'll be lucky if it gets a rince every 2 months. Water change does happen around every month.

Thanks guys

Tank came this morning and is all set up now apart from a few plants that i want to put in.

Didn't realise it is so complicated to keep some fish lol

I am off to do some research on what fish can be kept with each other

It isn't difficult, newts. Many fish thrive on neglect. My tank is currently decommissioned as it took up too much space but the fish were perfectly happy and as long as you change some of the water occasionally (and I always cleaned out the filter in tap water) then all will be well.

Another tip - DON'T overfeed them - you only need a pinch of food. They only have tiny tummies and too much food clogs the filter and makes a right mess in the tank.

[BoltonSte]

Originally Posted by speedplay

Sorry, but thats rubbish.

As said above, what about the other 250 litres of bacteria ridden water in the tank..?

It’s not really that unlikely,

For first off I didn’t say it happened in my large tank, it was in the smaller one I used to have. Although it could happen in a well/overstocked large tank as well. But the effects are mitigated somewhat as you increase tank size due to the effect of dilution.

• Washing sponges in tap water can destroy the bacteria colony (depends how long/well you wash them)
• There is infinitely more bacteria on the sponge than in the tank, as sponge has a huge surface area (far more than what is available in the tank) and the filter design is that the bulk of the colony on the sponge comes into contact with the water. In the tank, there will be areas where the water exchange is poor so the bacteria in these areas won’t be doing much for the overall water quality.
• A well stocked tank has fish that continue to produce waste, they don’t sit there and think ‘Oh, there’s not as many bugs about we’d best recycle’
• So you take out the main source of water purification, continue adding waste to the water, and it’s pretty easy to overwhelm the system before it has chance to recover.

The tank was cleaned as normal, the only difference being, I was living in the states and my Dad decided that the sponges needed a really good wash, which he did in tap water. The tank pretty much got wiped out in a week, when he phoned me to tell me, the water quality was shot to hell.

So from personal experience, I think the advice still stands, especially for someone just coming into the hobby, it’s not like it’s any hardship, it’s also hard to over wash a sponge if you’re doing it by squeezing it in a bucket of water.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one, opinions are like a***holes after all.

Anyway, this is more about Newts, so have fun matey and be prepared to spend a lot of money.

dont let anyone spray deodrants or hair spray in the same room, the filters cant always take it out , poisoned 3 of my tanks years ago...............

Originally Posted by Captain Nemo

dont let anyone spray deodrants or hair spray in the same room, the filters cant always take it out , poisoned 3 of my tanks years ago...............

Another one is the risk to a tank if in the kitchen.

Grease in the air can contaminate the tank (as well as some coatings on certain types of pans according to some books).

I've been keeping fish for about 15 years now and have mainly specialised in large cichlids.
These can be quite dirty fish due to amount of waste they can produce.

Take things slowly, take all advice how you want to take it, but most of all, enjoy your aquarium.

Originally Posted by svste

• Washing sponges in tap water can destroy the bacteria colony (depends how long/well you wash them)
• Boiling hot water, rinced really well till clean.
  
• There is infinitely more bacteria on the sponge than in the tank, as sponge has a huge surface area (far more than what is available in the tank) and the filter design is that the bulk of the colony on the sponge comes into contact with the water. In the tank, there will be areas where the water exchange is poor so the bacteria in these areas won’t be doing much for the overall water quality.
• Debatable, all depends on tank setup.I use 2 different types of gravel and silica sand in one of my tanks, 4ft wide and 2ft deep and the substrate is 2 inches deep on the bottom, I think you'll find thats much bigger than any sponge in a filter
  
• A well stocked tank has fish that continue to produce waste, they don’t sit there and think ‘Oh, there’s not as many bugs about we’d best recycle’
• Have you ever had a "well stocked" malawi setup? You should see the cack they can produce!
• So you take out the main source of water purification, continue adding waste to the water, and it’s pretty easy to overwhelm the system before it has chance to recover.
• Don't put too much faith tropical fish books, were not still using under gravel filters. Modern filters are much better than the old rubbish and as already mention by someone else, theres plenty of bacteria in the tank.
  

We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one, opinions are like a***holes after all.

I guess so

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