Your current Fish tank Setups!

Soldato
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I'm new to this thread and only just got into fish about 6 months ago. The wife just treated us to a 160litre tank to replace the 50l one we had. I was pretty good with the filter bacteria and always had a good level with low nitrates, amonia etc but with the new tank we've bought a Hydra 30 filter that doesn't use bacteria but some electrical means of filtration and it seems excellent. Apparently you can put fish into the tank within hours rather than a week or so waiting for the bacteria to populate. I'm now going to get the smaller version for my son's 25l tank. Anyone else it use one?
 
Soldato
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Never heard of it. Sounds like hokum, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Stick to proven methods in my opinion. Take your time and start slowly once everythings setteled down. I usually start a new tank with the botttled bacteria and put double the amount in. Then its just a waiting game.
 
Soldato
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Never heard of it. Sounds like hokum, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Stick to proven methods in my opinion. Take your time and start slowly once everythings setteled down. I usually start a new tank with the botttled bacteria and put double the amount in. Then its just a waiting game.

There's a few reviews on them online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKcjB_h9vqY
 
Soldato
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It seems to be good so far. I have a hydra 30 in the 160 litre tank and its showing nothing on the test sticks after nearly a week and the water is crystal clear. Ill do a proper test at the weekend.
 
Soldato
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It looks interesting, though hiding behind marketing blurb is never going to win over any hardcore fishkeeping fans, no one is going to risk ££'s of fish's life's on the back of a sales pitch. and there doesn't seem to be any serious reviews of it, or none that I found in the 2 seconds I googled it :)

Not seeing anything on the sticks would be quite normal for a week, that's still very much clean water + substrate etc. give it a few weeks/months.

However keep us updated :)
 
Soldato
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I am a little dubious of that video, he clearly has an established canister filter attached to the tank so I'm not surprised there is no ammonia in the the tank. He also works for the fish store selling them them.

They also use cartridges, how long do the cartridges? That piece of vital information is missing from the website, they are £10 each. I wonder how it differs from just running a load of nitrate absorbing media, most people quickly realise those are a waste of money.

I'm wondering how it would hold up in hard water, I would imagine the cathode/anode would get caked in calcium over time.
 
Soldato
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You clean the plates when you clean the filter sponge. My tank has pretty soft water at the minute soswill have to wait and see. The cartridge is a once a year change apparently. It will be interesting to see how it goes, I have the nano coming next week for my son's little tank and still have the bacterial filter in my old 50l incase I need to swap it in. So far so good though.
 
Associate
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any one ever known Amano shrimp to eat Frogbit roots? The roots of mine have vanished over night. The frogbits new and might be doing poorly and the roots have died but its over a very short period of time. have been feeding the tank less so figured msybe the shrimp were really hungry but theyve barely touched the courgette i put in this morning.
 
Soldato
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**** THE MISSING CHERRY SHRIMP HAS RETURNED ****

Actually that's not entirely true, the little git never left and nope he wasn't stuck in the filter...

Turns out he's been hiding behind the heater, must have missed him when swapping it out but we have a full 5 count which I'm very happy about.

Water levels are really starting to irk me now, I got them all nice and normal, checked them again 2 days later and they where starting to slide again, nothing as bad as they where but still, so done another 50% water change today. I know I'm still learning etc but I would have thought things with this tank would be getting easier now.

I definitely want a bigger tank though, I may have overstocked thanks to pets at home but getting rid of my lads pets with his issues would be a disaster at the moment.

What do you guys think about putting a tank in front of a radiator? The largest area in the living room we could use, you guessed it, has a radiator on it.
 
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What do you guys think about putting a tank in front of a radiator? The largest area in the living room we could use, you guessed it, has a radiator on it.


i don't think it's a good idea large temperature fluctuations will take place the water temp will be all over the place if too close too a radiator, I'm in the same boat i could get a 4 too 5 foot tank on the radiator wall i did some research decided it was a none starter
 
Soldato
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**** THE MISSING CHERRY SHRIMP HAS RETURNED ****

Actually that's not entirely true, the little git never left and nope he wasn't stuck in the filter...

Turns out he's been hiding behind the heater, must have missed him when swapping it out but we have a full 5 count which I'm very happy about.

Water levels are really starting to irk me now, I got them all nice and normal, checked them again 2 days later and they where starting to slide again, nothing as bad as they where but still, so done another 50% water change today. I know I'm still learning etc but I would have thought things with this tank would be getting easier now.

I definitely want a bigger tank though, I may have overstocked thanks to pets at home but getting rid of my lads pets with his issues would be a disaster at the moment.

What do you guys think about putting a tank in front of a radiator? The largest area in the living room we could use, you guessed it, has a radiator on it.

Tank infront of a radiator is a disaster waiting to happen
 
Soldato
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22 Nov 2006
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23,300
I'm new to this thread and only just got into fish about 6 months ago. The wife just treated us to a 160litre tank to replace the 50l one we had. I was pretty good with the filter bacteria and always had a good level with low nitrates, amonia etc but with the new tank we've bought a Hydra 30 filter that doesn't use bacteria but some electrical means of filtration and it seems excellent. Apparently you can put fish into the tank within hours rather than a week or so waiting for the bacteria to populate. I'm now going to get the smaller version for my son's 25l tank. Anyone else it use one?

The consensus is that there is no way to "skip" the cycle, it's going to happen one way or another. People have tried everything :)

You can only shorten it.

any one ever known Amano shrimp to eat Frogbit roots? The roots of mine have vanished over night. The frogbits new and might be doing poorly and the roots have died but its over a very short period of time. have been feeding the tank less so figured msybe the shrimp were really hungry but theyve barely touched the courgette i put in this morning.

Amanos will only eat dead or decaying plants.
 
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Soldato
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I'll chime in with the Ocean free stuff here. I run the nano with surface skimmer in my xl cube along side my 406. Purely for hospital tank purposes if I need a cycled filter in an emergency its there but its also cleaning the surface of scum. The technology behind it isn't proven and I did my own testing upon getting it in a spare tank and its hokus. I put 2ppm of ammonia in and it was still present in 24 hours. Didn't touch it at all and this was when it was brand new. So a regular cycle is still required, does it keep nitrates down? I don't know as iv got to dose easy life nitro now anyhow else my nitrate is unreadable
 
Soldato
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That's interesting. I'll check my amonia levels tomorrow as the test sticks I have only showing nitrite and nitrate both of which are still virtually zero.
 
Soldato
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I'll chime in with the Ocean free stuff here. I run the nano with surface skimmer in my xl cube along side my 406. Purely for hospital tank purposes if I need a cycled filter in an emergency its there but its also cleaning the surface of scum. The technology behind it isn't proven and I did my own testing upon getting it in a spare tank and its hokus. I put 2ppm of ammonia in and it was still present in 24 hours. Didn't touch it at all and this was when it was brand new. So a regular cycle is still required, does it keep nitrates down? I don't know as iv got to dose easy life nitro now anyhow else my nitrate is unreadable

They half work. Fluval cycle got my tank through the ammonia part in about a day, then spent the rest of the month only on nitrites.

Apparently Tetra Safestart works a lot better but you need to ignore the instructions and dump the whole bottle in at once. Then don't do any water changes for about a week.
 
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Soldato
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This fluval edge is really starting to **** me off now! I'm having to do 50% water changes every few days due to ammonia and nitrites with no end in sight.

I understand that thanks to bad advice from pets at home I've probably got a few too many fish and too soon, a mistake I won't be repeating. But short of rehoming them as my lad has some emotional issues, what can I do?

I'd have thought the beneficial bacteria would be handling things by now.
 
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