sasm3

5ish

The Red Apricot

Chief_waterchanger; I've heard that before, about the larger tanks, but I'm still sort of intimidated by such a large tank. I looked up the longfin albino bristlenose, and I'm sold. They're way too cute.

Barbrella; I'm so there.

sasm3; thanks!

rifter098

http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm
i would try to do a fishless cycle, there are many ways to do it including putting food in the tank and letting the bacteria grow and eat it...but with snails in your tank, u wont want to do that...the snails will eat the food and easily overpopulate your tank in a matter of weeks lol...not fun
...see if your lfs has any pieces of filter media that they would let u borrow to get your cycle going quicker...then add 100% pure ammonia once a day until the tank has cycled (it should only take about 2 weeks this way)

HatchetHaven

BN's are great fish, if it where me I'd be getting 2 of those, 4 pearls and perhaps something small like a school of Panda corys.

Rifter's said what I'd say on the cycle - apart from one thing. Make sure you go and buy yourself a few jars of patience before you start the fishless cycle!

rifter098

aw man...i forgot the patience lol
yea it is very hard to wait...but it is worth it in the end...your fish will be less stressed and as long as u keep up with the water changes, they will prob live long healthy lives!

The Red Apricot

Would adding some of the water from my other, established, tank, and adding plants with some liquid fertilizer, over the course of two or three weeks, cycle the tank? I mean, I'll be doing readings and stuff with my handy-dandy test kit, but it'd be nice to have an idea going in, you know?

(And may I just say that you are all so knowledgeable and helpful and nice? Thanks again.)

HatchetHaven

Water carries almost no beneficial bacteria. The plants would help, as they act as secondary filters. I wouldn't be using liquid ferts if I where you - long story short almost all of them don't contain all the nutrients plants need, and I acctualy had an algae outbreak because of that once. In a low light tank, you probably won't need ferts anyway.

What would speed up the cycle is if you put some gravel from the established tank into the cycling tank. Gravel is the second best bacteria carrier after filter media.

The Red Apricot

Ah, sweet, thank you. I didn't know that about the liquid fertilizers, either. I'll figure out a way to add gravel to the tank without adding it-- my established tank has gravel, but the new one has sand. =P

rifter098

filter media bags or pantyhose work well for adding stuff and making it easy to remove...i use flourish in my low-light tank and have very little algae (and no algae eating fish) as long as u stick to the directions, there shouldnt be any problems...but if u add BNs, the algae will be good for their health...personally i think small amounts of algae make the tank look more natural

HatchetHaven

You will need to get MTS (Malaysian trumpet snails) snails for sand. They dig in the substrate, stirring up the sand and stopping it compacting and bubbles of toxic gas developing. Or, you can stir the sand around regularly. MTS snails also do algae eating though - and are pretty interesting if you watch them up close (cute little face!) as well.

What kind of Flourish where you using Rifter? Excel is a CO2 supplement (Not a macro/micro fert), and adding that is a pretty good idea as it does help with algae.

rifter098

i just used the regular flourish...but ive been looking for some excel around here...just cant find any yet...but im going to a new lfs today, and they are supposed to have a really nice selection of freshwater supplies and fish o, and they have hand-selected bettas!!! lol

The Red Apricot

rifter098; The pantyhose is a great suggestion, thanks. I'll do that. =)

HatchetHaven; I didn't know about having to stir the sand up, thank you so much. I'll definitely do that. And I'll look into the snails.

rifter098

snails are cheap...but if there is any extra food laying around on the sand...watch out for a population explosion lol loaches do a good job of keeping the snails in check tho...and BNs do a good job of keeping sand pretty clean...i know u said u dont want a bunch of fish, but cories would do wonders for keeping the sand free of extra food...just a thought lol

HatchetHaven

Just make sure you don't get Pond snails, they don't dig in the sand and are more of a pest IMO. If you have MTS snails, then sand stirring is unnecessary.

Flourish is a good fert with both macros and micros if I remember rightly, so it should be safe. I once made the mistake of using only macros and had a hair algae farm!

The Red Apricot

Well, the tank is set up insofar as it now has sand, water, a running filter, a few (not enough!) plants, and probably some snails. I don't know what kind of snails they are, but they're tiny and blackish green. At any rate, they were not intentional guests. I've also added some gravel (inside some pantyhose) from my other tank.

Any other helpful advice? This whole process is very exciting!

rifter098

it sounds like u are doing great! i cant think of anything else u should do right now...im guessing u dechlorinated ur tank water b4 adding the gravel (in the pantyhose)

The Red Apricot

Of course. Actually, the water was in the tank for about 48 hours before I added the gravel.

HatchetHaven

Did you wash the sand in some water first? If you didn't, it would be wise to empty the tank and wash the gravel. There is a surprising amount of dirt! The way I cleaned it for my 48 was this: Get a bucket, and a hosepipe, and you can guess the rest.

Those sound like pond snails. Get as many out as you can! They will take over your tank, I've seen tanks that had 2 snails 1 day, 2 weeks later there was over 75!

Oh yes, and what about pics?