New Aquarium

[InbetweenDreams]

Yeah I didn't really know. I kind of learned what I did wrong as I was doing it wrong. Like you said you either have to add ammonia or you throw fish food in it...All those products that claim to cycle your tank instantly is very misleading, the bacteria can help get it started say if there's ammonia already present but if you don't have a food source for the bacteria it is a waste....

I am planning on using Fluval Statum for substrate in the 55 gallon... The only problem is it buffers the pH down and some of the things I would like to have in the tank requires higher pH like snails and many species of shrimp (although some shrimp, like cherry shrimp like lower pH)...so while I could add crushed coral to raise the pH I feel like I'm just playing a tug of war. I did consider eco complete but there's a lot of mixed reviews about it. So I still need to hash that out...and I have plenty of time to figure out what all to get.

I do think I will most likely lose one of the neon's, something is definitely wrong but aside from being skinny and not really swimming around or responding to food I don't know what it is. I don't think it is neon tetra disease but it could be and if it dies definitely don't want it to be in the tank with the other fish. I am just wondering at what point something was wrong with the fish because I didn't notice it until I put all the fish into the 55 gallon and it was immediate. I'[m wondering if there was something wrong and didn't notice it since they were all in the small tank or if I've looked over something. Visually still has good color and all and none of the other fish appear to have any problems so I'm a bit lost... Going to post in the one of the groups I'm in and see what people have to say.

So I think the key thing for me is to keep the fish I have alive, I do think it will be easier in a larger tank especially being lower stock... As for the 10 gallon tank ultimately it will be used as a quarantine tank for a while and I would venture to say that the antibiotics will likely mean an ammonia spike. The catch 22 is when you medicate the tank with Maracyn you're not supposed to do water changes. Granted the treatment is only 5 days so hopefully is such a problem were to arise I can move those fish out of the 10 gallon and into the 55 and let the 10 gallon go back through cycling. Not sure, at any rate definitely want to avoid medicating a new tank as it definitely will stall the cycle as it appeared to do with mine.

The water hardness stuff.. Well turns out the Fluorite I used adds a lot of GH, not much KH as for about a month the GH was 120-150 and KH was none and I got into the line of thing I need that pH up to raise the pH...turns out I was probably reading the saltwater color bar and who knows what I was doing. The GH and KH is pretty low out of the tap. I measured about 54 on both with the API test kit (not strips). So perhaps crushed coral is a good idea or perhaps to mix it in with the substrate I want to use.

We do have a well and the pH is around 7-7.2, no nitrates or anything. I need to remeasure the GH/KH though, all the other water was out of the tank and I suppose the presence of fish, substrate, etc all can change that.

Anyway, I guess I better nail down what I'm going use in the 55 gallon, especially being that I want to do plants and possibly CO2.

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This was recommended on one of the Aquarium groups I'm in on facebook...