Hi, retired US Navy/Coastie getting back into aquariums after 35 years. Back then allot of the hardware was the same but not nearly as good as today. The common knowledge about aquariums back then was if the water is cristal clear the fish are too, with under gravel and inside box filter bubblers. Back then everything went in at once, water fish and decorations. Remember I said common knowledge back then not today's overnight internet expert ability.
Having said that I still started out too fast these 3 weeks with my new 60 gallon show tank, using well water, water treatment and after hooking up all the gadgets the following day threw in 28 fish that looked cool. Needless to say my 6 neon's got eaten that night by my two tiger Oscars, funny I don't recall them eating anything but beef hart 35 years ago. Anyway I did the required reading on the internet, took the Oscars back, bought a master
test kit, treatment chemicals, and started doing 6%
RO water changes everyday as 4 gallons a day was all my back can take in one setting. Other then the Oscar episode I only had 2 Silver Dollars die because I forgot that even RO water contains
chlorine. I also had a white cloudiness because I diden't wash the construction sand very well but it cleared up by the 2nd week and looks great white with black and tan speckles, Quick Crete uses good sand for their cement. By the end of the 3rd week a clear fungus slim problem abruptly started, one day the glass was clean and the next it looked like someone with a cold had repeatedly sneezed inside of the glass. Again after the required reading went out and bought a $49 24W sterilizer and by the end of 1st 24 hours the glass started clearing before I even cleaned it. All along my
ammonia PPM has never gotten above 1 and my
pH with the RO changes is now down to 7.2 from 7.8, according to the PH/ammonia correction table this places my true free ammonia at 0 PPM. No cycling yet but the Nitrites are just barely starting to rise and so hopefully the fish will remain happy and playful until my first full cycle completes. Greetings all
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Welcome to Fish Lore & back to the hobby!
Thanks! Below should be some pics I tried to upload. I lost my Starburst Platy this morning 
. But I was sort of expecting it as the Pet Smart girl who picked it out gave me one with a 30% nipped off tail unbeknown to me until I got it in the tank so the cause of death is accounted for 
. Since my PH is about where I want it 7.2 I started mixing more tap water with the RO to keep the PH from getting any lower. Ammonia is till hanging at 1 PPM, with Nitrates at 0 and Nitrites just barely at .25 PPM so the cycle is starting slowly. I have been changing out ammonia chips every 2 days by just handing them in a fish net inside the opening of my hanging Aqua-tech filter. Pretty convenient really just use a small fish net to lift and change out either graphite or ammonia chips in seconds without disturbing the main filter media. In the future I might just use the hang on filters entire volume exclusively to hold netted carbon or ammonia chip and use my 
.
. Anyway I posted a DYI mod over at the filter forum section that turns the $32 AquaTech 30-60 into a dual biowheel filter for $15 for those that are stuck with the AquaTech.