Setting up my first aquarium, need advice

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Rolltide1980

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
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Jul 30, 2014
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Ok so I'm relatively new to this, I've had a couple small fish tanks in the past, but they were given to me already stocked so I never really had to do the while setup from scratch. A few months ago I had a customer give me a 75 gallon tank (he told me it was 90 gallon but the dimensions say otherwise). It came with the whole lid and lighting setup, guess it's called a hood (?), a stand, and a Penguin BioWheel filter that sits on the back of the tank. I don't know the particular model of the filter off the top of my head, but I also had a smaller Penguin BioWheel filter so I'm going to use that one as well.

As far as gravel goes, the guy at Petco told me one pound per gallon, or 75 pounds,so I bought 60 pounds of some gravel that's supposedly suited for African cichlids and a 20 pound bag of regular white gravel.So anyways,I haven't bought a heater yet even though I know I will need one eventually, other than that, im not sure what else I need to start up my aquarium. I have a few assorted large rocks, all purchased at an aquatic store, mostly lava rocks with some Holey Rocks, Lace rocks etc. I plan on adding some plants, probably the fake variety but I want some that look somewhat real.

So anyways, I rinsed the gravel last night as best I could before putting in the tank, but after I added the water it still looked pretty cloudy a few hours later but hopefully it will clear up by tonight. I asked the guy at Petco how long do I need to let the tank run before adding any fish, he said one day should be fine but that just doesn't sound right to me. So I'm asking you guys, I set it up last night, how long should it run before I add fish? I was hoping to add an Oscar and then later maybe some assorted Cichlids. I was also gonna ask you guys what kind of Cichlids would be safe to add with an Oscar? I appreciate you guys taking the time to help out a novice lol.
 
Do you still have your other fish tanks? The best thing to do is wait a few days for the chlorine to dissipate (2-3), then add a filter sponge from an established aquarium and very few fish (in your case, you are going for large fish, so I would start with one). The bacteria in the old filter sponge will jump-start the cycle. Do frequent water changes and add other fish very slowly.

If you do this, the used filter sponge must stay wet,. If it dries out between tanks, all the good bacteria will die.

Hopefully someone else here can give you advice on cichlids. I only have tiny fish.
 
You should run the filter for on the tank, and probably add more filtration as oscars are messy fish; actually most South American and Central American cichlids are. You most likely have an emperor 400 anything under than that shouldn't be on a 75 gallon, if you want I would go out and buy another emperor 400 or a good canister... Marineland is good, so is eheim. Cycling the tank takes about 3 weeks, so yes you were incorrectly informed, you should be able to cycle the tank by simply dropping food in every day for the 3 weeks.


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I appreciate the advice, guys. I don't currently have any other tank running. I had a 20 gallon a couple years ago, was mainly just full of tetras. I'm not exactly familiar with canister filters.....do they sit underneath the tank?
 
Yeah canisters sit under the tank with the instake and outlet in the tank.

If you want to get fish asap then all you need is some prime to treat the water, get the temp up to where it needs to be, and add your fish. If you do regular water changes and keep ammonia and nitrites and nitrates in check then fish in cycle is perfectly safe.

Products like ATM colony and tetra safe start both work well when following the directions to a t. They can speed up the cycling process a great deal. I cycled my 75g with ATM colony in 10days with fish and never lost one.



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Just started reading the article "Getting Started", guess I should have been reading it from the get go lol. Anyways there's some good info on there, I'll read it over real good and then decide which option to do for cycling.
 
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