hughes

Ok, I NEED one of these for my sanity. Just a log of what I do each day to set up. Feel free to tell me things like, "AH! You're doing it all wrong!!" or "You might want to try..."

Well, you probably know what it is...

Ok, DAY 1. (Yesterday)

Set up Aquarium on its stand, set up a 4" deep sand bed with play sand, filtered sand so the really fine junk was gone, Aquascaped, filled with water, Installed lighting. Added Amquel, Algaefix, plant GRO and Aquarium salt in the proportions listed on the bottle.


Made and revised stock list. here's what I have now:
5 Kuli Loaches
1 Pearl Gourami
2 Clown plecos
5 Congo tetras
5 African dawrf frogs
2 wood shrimp.

DAY 2

Cleft tank alone. Refined stock list, I think I got it down.

7 neon tetras
5 Bronze Corydoras
5 Glo-Light Tetras
1 Pearl Gourami
3 ADF's
4 Amano shrimp.

Beginning to research on different kinds of plants.

Shawnie

goodluck with the journal..they are always fun to come back to read a few months down the road..and seeing how you are cycleing with fish, make sure you are doing daily water changes and treating the water with conditioner, if its city water...do you have pics?? goodluck!

Lucy

Overstocked, as TFA pointed out in your other thread. He's given you some good alternatives.

Shawnie, I don't think he has fish yet, just sorting out what he wants and can actually have.

lol, 2 different things, as we all know.

Good luck.

Shawnie

oops!! see dont take much to confuse me with so many threads about the same thing LOL

hughes

STILL overstalked? Man, the people at that other forums are way stupid! I tell them this, and they say, "That's all?" And here I thought I had a ton of room!

jdhef

The rule of thumb is one inch of fish (at it's adult size) per gallon of water. So check the fish profiles, see how large the adult size of the various fish are, add all the lengths together and if it is greater than or equal to 30 , you will be over stocked.

John

COBettaCouple

Think of how much space we take up in an average home. Pretty much that applies to fish even more. For small fish, the 1" (adult size) per gallon is a good guideline. Medium and larger fish tend to need more room per inch and some smaller fish (like Dwarf Puffers) need extra room.

Calab

One item I'd like to mention... You should avoid all the chemicals/additives until after you cycle your tank. The AmQuel will neutralize the ammonia and this could affect the cycle.

For your cycle simply use a water dechlorinator. All you want to do is remove the chlorine from the water.

Another item you should do on day 1 is to test your source water to see if you are adding anything when you do your water changes.

hughes

That's... not a good thing. What I wrote down here is stuff that I already did...
What should I do now to fix for that?

DAY 3 (Incomplete)
Finally finished with fish stock list:

2 African Dawrf Frogs
3 Bronze Corydoras
7 Neon Tetras
1 Pearl gourami

Joined an aquatic plant forum to get help with plants.

EDIT: Found a very helpful article on plants for tanks exactly like mine. Created a list of species that I want.

Beck Crypto
Hornwort
Lace Java fern
Guppy grass
Anubia Hetero

Finally fixed my camera! Pic's coming soon!

hughes

Day 4.

Went to petco and bought a test kit. my ammonia is zero, nitrites zero, and nitrates 2.7. From what I know about the nitrogen cycle, this means it's done cycling. Went to Wal mart and got a great shock, they had healtheier fish then petco! Purchased 1 ADF, 3 bronze cories and 1 pleco. That was my mistake, I thought I had 1 pleco on my list instead of pearl guorami.... I just realized my mistake now, when I logged on.

Float acclimated all my fish, adding a cup of tank water to the bag water every 15 mins. Rememberd not to put any bag water into my aquarium.

Carfully placed fake plants into aquarium, until a time that I can go out nnd buy some real one's