Hello, I am Daryle. I am not completely new here but I cant remember the account I had used about a year ago today, although I know I only had about 50 or so posts.
So here it goes (this is a copy and paste from another forum, but I would like a larger variety of replies)
Buckle in its kind of a long post.
I am very excited as this is the first time I've really actually cycled a tank. When I was younger I would just add start right to my 10 gallon tank, wait 24 hours and then add fish.
The cycle only took a little less then 2 weeks with the assistance of "Nite-out" two.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/images...ish-supply.jpg
I added it every 2 days for 6 days...that's about when I ran out of the stuff.
ammonia-0 nitrites-0 nitrates 10
PPM pH-8.3 water temp is 74 now but I am slowly working it up. Its a standard 55 gallon tank.
I haven't really been keeping attention on the tank for the last few days though so for all I know the tank has been cycled for over a day. I had topped it off with 5 gallons of water 2 days ago that I dechlorinated with 'Start Right' and that 5 gallons of water contained 2ppm ammonia (I have ammo-lock for addition water changes and top offs)
My only concern is that without a continuous feed of ammonia the bacteria will start dieing off, I could just keep adding my water which already contains ammonia, but its not something I really want to do, and I am very anxious to add fish. Right now I only have nine bucks, but I could possibly get ten more. I could go get a few fish from my tank from my
LFS for that much, but 4 or so cichlids would probably be a bad idea due to aggression, but I was thinking of 1 demonsi until I can order my other cichlids. My original plan was to order 15 mbunas (It will be an assortment picked by livefishdirect for compatibility) from livefishdirect, but if I do that I would have to skip a car payment (I do 2 equal payments a month by my own choice, to keep it interest free). I have already payed once this month which meets my minimum monthly payment for it to not get repo'ed, but I would have to make up that additional payment to get my car completely interest fee, it wouldn't be a problem really, I could even make a partial second payment so when I make up that difference it wouldn't be as costly. Even if I were to do that I wouldn't have the money to make that order for 3 more days from today, and then I wouldn't get the fish until the day after (assuming that no problem occurs in the over night shipping) and even then I might not be able to have them shipped until the following week, since I would be ordering on a Thursday.
I was also planning on picking out the more aggressive of the mbunas and giving them to my LFS, and reducing my number to 10-12 or more depending on how bad they are.
I have plenty of filtration loaded with sponges and other biomedia and am building an algae scrubber. I do have an air stone and wand running, and a
powerhead/sponge for circulation/biomedia. I also have 2 heaters on either side of the back panel, along with 2 thermometer strips, one for each side =P
But wait! There's more!
I am a little concerned with my rock structure. There are PLENTY Of hiding spots (and I dont have any pictures right now)
I count 9 caves that I have formed from leaning piles of slate against each other, so a fair amount of them are triangular crevices. and they range from being big enough for a cichlid to just kind of hover in, and up to being big enough for several to swim through at once, a few are that size
HOWEVER, the distance between the back of the tank to the rock structure is very small, maybe 1-2 inches, maybe 3 max.
The distance from the rocks to the front of the tank is anywhere from 3-7 inches, mainly about 5. I don't want fish running into the glass. But there is about a little less then a foot between the top of the structure and the surface of the water, and its mainly open. And the sides of the tanks are pretty open too.
I really like the look of what I have going now and am dreading to have to rebuild it. But if it has to be done it has to be done...but I don't really see any other way I can form these rocks and have just as many caves and more space, without leaning the rocks against the back of the tank...I DO NOT need 55 gallons of water flooding my cluttered room. Or should I just Completely remove some of the rocks.
And this post might not be in the right spot...maybe general, so if I mod wants to move it there, or anywhere, that would be fine with me.
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