happygirl65
Aquarium Advice Addict
Greetings!
I have read many posts here and know you guys can help me with some advice. I have had FW tanks before quite sucessfully but it has been a few years and I will be getting ready to set up my tank again finally after having it in storage for about 5 years. I am not feeling terribly confident at this point on how much I can remember.
I have a 55 gallon acrylic tank, biowheel filter, thermometer, heater, nets, plants, driftwood, and a med sized lava rock. Of course they have been in storage for years and so I would think any bacteria is dead by now.
I am trying to decide whether to use white sand at the bottom or river rocks (as I live close to a river and can get some gorgeous rocks for free totally legally.) or some combination of both.
Is it safe to use white sand? Is that only for marine tanks? I know that I do need to be careful about what to put in there so I am hoping someone can advise me on that.
I also have questions about cycling since it has been a really long time and someone helped me before....this time I am in charge and I want to do it right. My water is fresh natural spring water as I live in the mountains and we collect our natural runoff water...it is not chemically treated but does have a fair amount of mineral content a test strip done a while back indicated it is hard water so I know that much is certain. The water itself is very clean, clear and beautiful, perfectly safe to drink etc.
So my question is, will this effect the cycle time....or does it simply mean that I dont need to ADD chemicals to clean the water first?
For this size and type tank how would you recommend I go about cycling? And do I just let it run a few days then add a fish or two and then let it go another couple of weeks? I know I have a test kit in all my supplies and have no problem checking for levels and all of that. I dont remember doing all of that before but I think someone else may have done it without my knowledge. I think the whole process is exciting and now that I have children I want to share it with them letting them help me choose a fish or something like that.
The eventual stock I would like to include would be:
Bala Sharks
Opaline Gouramis
Blue Gouramis
Clown Loaches (maybe...not totally set they seem more sensitive)
Plecostomus
Barbs or Tetras (not sure what kind....everytime I ever chose one from a book they didnt have them at my LFS)
So you can see I want a community tank, not looking to breed anything just want a variety in ones or twos except for the sharks I would like 6 or so of those because I think they are so beautiful.
Any ideas also on having a crab or two OR those tiny water frogs? I would like to add something like that for extra interest.
I am open to all opinions and advice so please, anyone help me out!
Thanks in advance!
I have read many posts here and know you guys can help me with some advice. I have had FW tanks before quite sucessfully but it has been a few years and I will be getting ready to set up my tank again finally after having it in storage for about 5 years. I am not feeling terribly confident at this point on how much I can remember.
I have a 55 gallon acrylic tank, biowheel filter, thermometer, heater, nets, plants, driftwood, and a med sized lava rock. Of course they have been in storage for years and so I would think any bacteria is dead by now.
I am trying to decide whether to use white sand at the bottom or river rocks (as I live close to a river and can get some gorgeous rocks for free totally legally.) or some combination of both.
Is it safe to use white sand? Is that only for marine tanks? I know that I do need to be careful about what to put in there so I am hoping someone can advise me on that.
I also have questions about cycling since it has been a really long time and someone helped me before....this time I am in charge and I want to do it right. My water is fresh natural spring water as I live in the mountains and we collect our natural runoff water...it is not chemically treated but does have a fair amount of mineral content a test strip done a while back indicated it is hard water so I know that much is certain. The water itself is very clean, clear and beautiful, perfectly safe to drink etc.
So my question is, will this effect the cycle time....or does it simply mean that I dont need to ADD chemicals to clean the water first?
For this size and type tank how would you recommend I go about cycling? And do I just let it run a few days then add a fish or two and then let it go another couple of weeks? I know I have a test kit in all my supplies and have no problem checking for levels and all of that. I dont remember doing all of that before but I think someone else may have done it without my knowledge. I think the whole process is exciting and now that I have children I want to share it with them letting them help me choose a fish or something like that.
The eventual stock I would like to include would be:
Bala Sharks
Opaline Gouramis
Blue Gouramis
Clown Loaches (maybe...not totally set they seem more sensitive)
Plecostomus
Barbs or Tetras (not sure what kind....everytime I ever chose one from a book they didnt have them at my LFS)
So you can see I want a community tank, not looking to breed anything just want a variety in ones or twos except for the sharks I would like 6 or so of those because I think they are so beautiful.
Any ideas also on having a crab or two OR those tiny water frogs? I would like to add something like that for extra interest.
I am open to all opinions and advice so please, anyone help me out!
Thanks in advance!