Cycle complete! Stocking questions :)

[elysekuf]

So after much frustration, our 36 gallon bowfront is cycled! 3-4ppm ammonia -> 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites in 26 hours! Hoorah!

Now, we're in the middle of performing a nearly complete water change (nitrates are >100), and turning the temperature back to 78*, and going to pick up some fish tomorrow evening!

Our finalized plan for the tank (so long as no one sees any big issues, of course! ) is as follows:
- 15 Cardinal Tetras
- 7 False Julii Corys
- 1 Bristlenose Pleco
- 1 Angelfish

And we'll be getting them in that order (but of course waiting to get the bristlenose until algae appears). I have a few questions nwo that we're out of the cycling phase and into the fishkeeping:

1) For tomorrow, is our bio-capacity high enough to obtain the entire school of 15 tetras? If not, how many do you recommend?

2) Can you walk me through everything that fish should NOT look like on purchase once more, just to make sure that I have a checklist to go through so I don't get overwhelmed with the excitement of having fish tomorrow only to find that we managed to pick unhealthy fish!

3) On a related note, we will be picking up these tetras from the fish store nearby that I mentioned in my previous thread. The proprieter was rather condescending about our choice to fishless cycle and told me it was a waste of time and that patience was better (meanwhile it took us 6-7 weeks to cycle a fishless tank, I'm pretty sure that was patience!). I'm now worried that he won't allow us to leave with the school of tetra that our tank should support. How do I deal with a persnickity LFS shopkeep?

4) The reason why we're returning to this store, though (aside from the fact that it's the closest one that's not a petco or petsmart), is because when I had my husband call the other day to ask when their most recent shipment of Cardinals came in, he was asked whether he meant upstairs or downstairs. Apparently they quarantine all their fish before selling them -- husband didn't ask how long and they didn't say. If they quarantine their fish for a 2-4 weeks, how long should I quarantine future purchases from them? Do I need to quarantine less? Regardless, we're picking up a ten gallon for quarantine / hospital purposes this week anyway, but I'm just curious if the fact that the LFS does this impacts quarantine time on our end at all.

5) This relates to plants. Currently we have two anubias, a handful of java ferns, some java moss and one amazon sword that's more fully grown and 3 or so that we recently cut off another bigger plant. We don't have much light (less than 1wpg...yikes!) at the moment, but we are looking at purchasing this fixture: 30in 2Bulbs fixtures Has anyone had any experience with this company? Are they reliable fixtures? Also, with this amount of light, will we need to add CO2?

We'll also be picking up some root tabs in the next couple of weeks (currently we have a layer of CaribSea FloraMax underneath a layer of mid-sized, very smooth gravel), and I've been dosing with Flourish Excel as per half the directions (less since there's been extra nitrate for them to eat up during the cycle, will bump up to full dosing once we get our fish in).


In terms of once we return with the fish, we've decided to do the drip method since cardinals are so sensistive to pH differences. Our tap water is 7.0-7.2, and I believe the LFS said their tanks are around 6.8-7.0, so hopefully it won't really be that big a deal, but still, I'd rather be safe than sorry!

But that makes me think of another question:
What are the feeding habits for tetra? We have a bottle of Tetra Color -- is that quality enough...should their diets be varied? And finally how much and how often? I know not to feed them once we get them home and to leave the lights off overnight to help acclimate them.

Anyway, I think that's everything -- I apologize for the novel, we're just super excited!!

 

[tyspot1000]

I wouldnt say The bio-capacity is high enough, but I wouldnt add that many tetras at a time, possibly 6 the first time, 6 the next time, and 3 more the last. Also, see if you can find any tank-bred Cardinal tetra, they are more hardy than the wild caught ones.

Make sure none of them looks sickly at all, make sure they are active and moving around, and put your hand over the tank with the fish and see there reaction time (Acting like food is coming)

Im not sure how you are going to get away with the shop keeper, maybe you could possibly lie and say they are going in another tank? Ive never had this occur, so wait for more input. (Side note, I also think that the cardinal tetra need an established aquarium before put in, especially the wild ones)

I would still quarantine like normal, for 2 weeks at least. Its always good to and I dont think any tank should go without it.

How much light will that fixture give off?

I have neon tetra, similar to cardinal, and I feed them once a day with also a bottle of tetra color, but switch every week with omega one super color flakes, and I also give bloodworms on friday as a treat.

 

[elysekuf]

Alright I just wanted to check! On the other thread someone had mentioned that at this point it would be safe to add the full school of 12 (when we were talking about and had a 29 gallon instead of a 36), but I wanted to double check. I'll ask about wild vs. tank bred at the store.

I think I'm probably just overly nervous about the LFS guy. He was really very rude and condescending when I went in to have my test results checked because I wasn't sure of my test kits viability. I told him straight out that I expected the nitrates to be super high since we were fishless cycling, sure enough, they were, and I was laughed at and then chastised and lectured for doing a fishless cycle. Rather irritating. I think that we'll probably go with a sample of water in our pocket, but only produce it if he insists that he see water parameters before purchasing.

I know that cardinals do best in an established aquarium -- if they have the false julii's in stock (which they haven't the last two times we've been), should I get that school first? If not, what all can we do to increase the likliehood of our success? I'll probably be continuing to test every day out of paranoia and will perform water changes if results necessitate them, and in any case, even under normal, healthy conditions, I was thinking about getting in the habit of doing 10% water changes twice a week anyway (increasing the amount of the separate changes with the increase of bioload over time). Would that be beneficial as well?

Lastly on the pure fish front, currently we're running an AquaClear 110 and 30. At what point of having the first round of fish in there would it be safe to remove the 30 to cycle and run our quarantine tank with for the next batches of fish?

As for the fixture, 48w of T5-HO light, which according to the excel spreadsheet that is linked on one of the pinned threads in the planted forum, yields roughly 16 lumens per sq in.

Thanks so much for all your help!

 

[tyspot1000]

Is this guy a worker that so happens to work there? If so, I would give a complaint to the boss who rudely acted upon. If it so happens to be the owner of the establish meant, personally, I think he is being rude and mind his own buisness, like asking if the tanks cycled etc is alright, but asking for a water sample, I think thats too much. If he keeps being so rude and what not, I personally would find a new establishment to go to.

You could go with the julis first, but if not, like I said, check and see if they have any tank-bred cardinals, generally, they are more hardy than the wild caught ones.

Yes, I would use the AC30 on the qt this time, but once you are done quarantining, you could use a DIY sponge filter for qt. Just keep it on the main tank til time to use then transfer over.

 

[elysekuf]

I'm pretty positive he owns the establishment, which is unfortunate for sure. Equally unfortunate is the dearth of LFS in the Seattle area.

And I'll look for the false julii's first, and if they're not there, hope the cardinals are tank bred.

Do you have any favorite DIY sponge filter designs? I'm not opposed to that idea at all

 

[tyspot1000]

I dont have originals, but here in a bit, ill give you a link (I'm on my phone )

 

[elysekuf]

Alright. So, we went to the fish store, the stocking was poor in quantity and quality. So we bit the bullet and drove forty minutes east to a store we've been to before and bought our fish there. After all of our bad experiences at the store near us, we're over it and just going to commit to driving out forty minutes when we need things. I feel much better about it overall.

We came home with 7 cardinals. Floated the bag for fifteen minutes, then poured them into a bucket and dripped water from the tank for an hour. Just introduced them to the tank, all the lights are off and I'll check on them tomorrow

 

[tyspot1000]

Congrats on the new fish! keep us updated! Any pics?

Heres a few links to some DIY Sponge filters:
A 5 Minute DIY Sponge Filter, by Sam Davies
My DIY Sponge filter
Homemade Sponge Filters @ petfish.net

 

[elysekuf]

Just tested their parameters roughly 12 hours after introduction, and ammonia and nitrites are at 0, nitrates at 10.

They're active little buggers and quite difficult to get pictures of with my phone. I'll have to break out the big camera after classes tonight It's fun to watch them though! Most school except for one of the smaller ones, and it's pretty clear who the leader of the pack is.

Thanks for the link to the three sponge filters...we'll look into them!

 

[elysekuf]

Sadly, I came home to a single dead fish. S/he was caught on the filter intake. I quickly performed a water test, and all the results were good: ammonia/nitrites at 0, nitrates between 10 and 15.

I then went ahead and turned off the filter so it would release the fish and then netted it out and put it in a bag with water from the tank. The store has a ten day policy for fish deaths if you bring in the body and some water to test. So we'll probably do that.

I don't know what did it though. Stress perhaps. The other six look excellent -- they already are exhibiting more color than they were at the store last night, are schooling marvelously and are quite active. Maybe this one was just weaker. It is one of the two smaller ones that we got and one of those two was off on his own a lot last night when the other six started schooling. So he just might not have been as strong to begin with. I'm hoping it's nothing horrible that could translate into more deaths. I didn't see anything unusual on the fish itself, so that's pretty good, too.

Is there anything else I should be worried about?

The other thing was that the shopkeep last night said that they get in a mix of tank and wild cardinals, so there's no telling which ones I got. Also, there's about a .2-.4 difference in pH between the LFS and our tank, and we drip acclimated for an hour, so that should have been alright too.

In other news, I'll be breaking out my camera in a minute or two to take some pictures of the remaining tetras

 

[tyspot1000]

Sorry for your loss, Like you said, perhaps he was weak or ill at that time Because no healthy fish would of been able to get caught on the filter intake.

Eventhough You have tested for ammonia, It is always good to do a PWC after any fish death, you never know.

Cant wait for pics!

 

[elysekuf]

Will do -- how much should I do?

Also, I'm having a heck of a hard time photographing these suckers! Going through the glass of the aquarium, plus how fast they move (and it's not bright enough in here) is proving to make for some difficult photos -- and I'm a professional photographer! I'm sure part of it is my anal retentiveness, too.

But! In all my obsessing over the fish trying to get photos that meet my (probably too high) standards, I did notice that one of the fish's undersides is concave right in front of the fin on its belly. Should I be worried about this?

I hadn't fed them at all yet, but when I saw that, just to see if he would eat, I put in 2 of my flakes, and he munched one of them right down (didn't do the full feeding because hubs wants to watch them, too).

We don't have our QT tank (might be picking it up tonight) yet, but we do have a filter and heater ready to go as soon as we have our hands on it. Assuming we can successfully net the sucker (which I tried doing a minute ago. the cardinals all jumped in formation fast and therefore not only was discriminating which fish I was after suddenly very, very difficult, but so was getting the net anywhere near them in the first place!), should we pull him out and QT separately?

 

[tyspot1000]

25% should do, At least it will get any unwanted ammonia/nitrite out (if theres any) just in case.

Im not sure why One of the cardinals has a concave belly, possibly a disformity? Some one might have some info on this, so wait for more input.

Since they were the first ones to be put in the aquarium, I wouldnt see in QTing them, But next time you get fish, Do most defiantly.

 

[andreahp]

Regarding a DIY sponge filter, I found a really nice video on youtube. I typed "making a sponge filter" into google, clicked on the 1st video shown and found another one by a girl who made a filter for her brother's beta tank - she used a large sponge (I got a big utility one at Home Depot), a plastic hair curler (bought a package at a dollar store), a small air stone (you can buy a 3 pack at Petsmart) to fit inside the curler and airline tubing. I plan to make one to run in my main tank for a few weeks and then will use it in a QT tank. Good luck with whatever new fish you get in the future!