My wife and I are starting a new 30g that we purchased this past weekend. We've read a ton on the internet and have started the fishless cycling. We were able to get some great used driftwood, slate, and lava rock caves and have set up the tank with black diamond sand. I'll upload some photos tonight. We currently have an Aqueon quietflow 55g on the tank and have it set to a balmy 80F for cycling. We washed the sand for hours but the water is cloudy although I'm not changing it as I don't want to disturb the cycling. I hope that's right?
We're planning to add some java fern to give it some real green (we dislike the look of the fake plants but do not want to add CO2...etc).
When we first set up the tank the Ammonia/ Nitrite/ Nitrate / pH was 0/0/0/7-7.2.
I added ammonia to bring it to ~4ppm.
Checked last night and we're now at ~2-4/0.5/5/7-7.2 so we're starting to get the cycle going. I think the use of the driftwood probably helped as I'm sure it had a good starter amount of bacteria. I've also ordered an active filter from anglesplus.com which we'll set up tomorrow afternoon.
We have some questions as we wait for our tank to cycle regarding what fish we should be looking at. We've been using aquaadvisor.com to try to estimate our stocking capabilities and have come up with the following:
6 - Drawrf Rainbowfish
6 - Neon Tetra
4 - Sterbai Cory
5- Yellow Shrimp
1 - Drawf Gourami
at this point we're at ~90% of capacity. We'd like to make sure we have some invert to walk around though we're not married to the yellow shrimp. We'll obviously need an additional HOB filter especially as a backup (so any thought would be great). What does everybody think of the fish? Which should we start with after our tank is cycled? We'll obviously get them in sets and not all at once but want to make sure we do this right.
Other fish we were considering (either subbing or to bring capacity a bit higher):
German blue rams (maybe temp will be a problem)
Cherry barbs
Paradise fish (very pretty) (may eat the shrimp?)
Ghost Glass Cats (seriously cool looking)
We're planning to add some java fern to give it some real green (we dislike the look of the fake plants but do not want to add CO2...etc).
When we first set up the tank the Ammonia/ Nitrite/ Nitrate / pH was 0/0/0/7-7.2.
I added ammonia to bring it to ~4ppm.
Checked last night and we're now at ~2-4/0.5/5/7-7.2 so we're starting to get the cycle going. I think the use of the driftwood probably helped as I'm sure it had a good starter amount of bacteria. I've also ordered an active filter from anglesplus.com which we'll set up tomorrow afternoon.
We have some questions as we wait for our tank to cycle regarding what fish we should be looking at. We've been using aquaadvisor.com to try to estimate our stocking capabilities and have come up with the following:
6 - Drawrf Rainbowfish
6 - Neon Tetra
4 - Sterbai Cory
5- Yellow Shrimp
1 - Drawf Gourami
at this point we're at ~90% of capacity. We'd like to make sure we have some invert to walk around though we're not married to the yellow shrimp. We'll obviously need an additional HOB filter especially as a backup (so any thought would be great). What does everybody think of the fish? Which should we start with after our tank is cycled? We'll obviously get them in sets and not all at once but want to make sure we do this right.
Other fish we were considering (either subbing or to bring capacity a bit higher):
German blue rams (maybe temp will be a problem)
Cherry barbs
Paradise fish (very pretty) (may eat the shrimp?)
Ghost Glass Cats (seriously cool looking)