AusBloke

Well my tank finally cycled 2 weeks ago (42gal) and I have so far added 4 Red Eye Tetras, 5 Neon Tetras and 5 Black Neon Tetras. I have 3 live plants so far, but plan on adding more when i can get some.

I would like to add some center piece fish and was thinking of 2 Dwarf Gourami and 2 Pearl Gourami, or any other suggestions are most welcome. Plus I want to add another 5 neons and some kind of bottom cleaning fish or snail (need some advice on this)

Also when should I clean my filter? (fluval 305).

Cheers.

capekate

Hi Ausbloke
As for your filter, I really wouldnt think about cleaning it yet, as the tank is fairly new in running time. Since you are still adding new fish to your tank I would leave it as it is, since there is a lot of beneficial bacteria growing in your filter media.
I think that IMO if you decide to add those four gouramis and 5 more neons you will be just about stocked without going over. If you decide on a bottom feeder you may want to omit a pair of those gouramis. I would keep the idea of the dwarf gouramis and omit the pearls.

jdhef

I have a Fluval 205 for my 36 gallon tank. Every week I clean the sponge pads in used tank water. Since I have 2 bags of carbon, I change out the bags monthly, but I stagger it so that I change the top bag on the fist of the month and the bottom bag in the middle of the month.

Fluval recommends changing out 1/2 of the BioMax rings every three months. Don't change the BioMax out all at once since this is where most of your benificial bacteria is located.

capekate

Hi JD
with the large amount of fish that Ausbloke is adding to his newly cycled tank, its not a good idea to rinse out the filter media at this point. He really needs to get the fish settled and let the beneficial bacteria catch up with the added fish before he gets into a filter/rinse routine.
Once all his readings are stable for awhile after he has finished adding new fish to the tank, then its a good routine to get into. I have seen too many tanks go into mini cycles after adding a lot of fish and also after rinsing out the filter media too soon after the tank has cycled. IMO he has plenty of time before having to rinse out the filter media.

jdhef

Well, the Bio Max is supposedly where all of the bacteria grows. The filter pads are there to do the course filtering.

But, judging by the amount of debris I get in my filter pads (very little) I'm sure he can hold off awhile before cleaning those and it would be the prudent thing to do. I was seriously considering going to every two weeks on cleaning the pads myself due to the low volume of debris.