Mandy

Hello Everyone -
So, I've decided to treat myself to a new tank for my birthday today and I have lots of questions about it. For starters, I currently have a 26 gallon bowfront community tank with 5 zebra danios, 3 cherry barbs and 4 albino corydoras. The tank has been fully cycyled with ammonio being 0, nitrites 0 and nitrates around 20. I use the API master test kit. I also use the API Stress Coat+ when doing my water changes. I've had some problems with this tank and unfortunately I think I stumped a few people on this forum. I've had several fish die with all my water parameters being the same as listed above and no sign (at least, no sign to my untrained eye) of fish disease. The best I think we came up with was possibly not acclimating the fish the best possible way or possibly just getting a bad run of fish from the LFS. Anyway, I've decided to upgrade my tank today and just got a new 45 gallon tank and this is where my new batch of questions begin...

1. I'd really like to use sand in this tank and I've read and heard from a few people I can use pool filter sand - which is way way way less expensive in my area. What do you all think about this? Is it really difficult to vacuum as opposed to sand? I basically just like the look a little better and I thought the corys might like it better, as well.

2. I'll be running an Aquaclear 500 HOB filter for this tank and I'm wondering the best way to try the established tank method. How should I go about doing this? Can I move all the fish over and be ok with water parameters if I just take a little filter media and put it in the new filter OR is this method much more difficult than that? How should I go about this switch over.

3. I've just very recently started getting a little bit of brown algae in my running tank. I don't have any algae eating fish so would you suggest I get some or just cut the amount of time I leave my light running (about 10 hours a day)? I definitely don't want something as big as a pleco in my new tank, but I saw those little oto cats and they're small enough that I wouldn't mind having a few of them if everyone else thinks they do a good job at the algae.

Lastly...
4. Stocking the new tank is on the table now... I'd really like a tight schooling fish in my new tank since it looks so much bigger and all of my current fish are pretty small. I've heard the harlequin rasboras school pretty tightly, but they never really look like they are in my lfs. Based on my current stock and the algae thing along with me wanting a schooling fish what are some suggestions?
Again, I currently have -

4 albino corydoras
3 male cherry barbs (all the females died off after the males tormented them - keep in mind I'm not in love with these fish so I don't really want to get more)
5 zebra danios

I'm very excited to hear what everyone thinks - Thanks in advance.
Mandy

ynaggo

1) Yeah using pool filter sand is completely fine just rinse it good before you stuff it in. It doesn't affect any water properties that I know of

2) You could but the bacteria from a 26 to a 45 wouldn't be enough to sustain itself if your adding all those fish, so just add the filter media into the new tank for now and let it seed for around a week or more.

3)How long do you leave your lights on for? And make sure the tank isn't in direct sunlight. In my experience, Otos only algae when it begins to grow, It wont eat fully grown algae. You could get them and see how it works out

4)In my years, the best shoaling were - HarlequinRasboras, Black neon tetra, Cardinal Tetra, Lemon Tetra

jdhef

The brown algae is proabably Diatoms. It generallys shows up in a newly cycled tank. It is harmless to your fish, and usually gors away on it's own in a couple of weeks.

In my area, PetSmart usually has a bunch of harlequin rasboras, so if you haven't check PetSmart you may want to.