Your current Fish tank Setups!

King4aDay said:
Heh. Keep up regular water changes, don't feed too much and put some floating plants in (amazon frogbit is a good one). Then you don't need to know.
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At last a post I can agree on with a qualifier, floating plants are good as long as you harvest them and leave some surface area or they too will choke the aquarium ;).
 
You would be shocked at how much plant growth is needed to counter-balance nitrate production from food.

http://linuxhost.matsp.co.uk/calculator/nitrate-plants.php

And water changes do more than just remove nitrate, including replenishing used carbonates by the ammonia/nitrite processing bacteria.

Generally speaking, a lot of freshwater fish can tolerate upto ~300ppm nitrate before it becomes toxic, but there are exceptions where <100ppm can be fatal.

It is pretty reasonable to expect to maintain nitrate levels less than 40ppm above the levels in your supplied tap water (~40ppm on UK south coast), which means fishkeepers in such areas (like me) need to do ~50-66% weekly water changes to prevent a steady buildup of nitrates over a period of months which eventually become fatal.
 
Little update following the excellent help in this thread :

Since removing the male guppies there have been no more fatalities, all the fish seem a lot happier. Before the tank was a little like mafia town with the three male guppies swimming wherever they pleased with the rest of the fish hidden away.

Now all the tank regulars are quite happily swimming around again wherever they please. Have a feeling the males were little bullies so they can be returned to Trimar. We offered them to a neighbour but she doesn't want them for fear of them being testosterone terrors in her tank!
 
Changing filter

What's the best way to change the filter in my tank?

I've got an Interpet PF3 atm, but want to change it to an external one (probably Fluval) both for looks and to reduce the water disturbance.

As I've got fish in there I can't do any cycling, do I run then both for a period of time?
 
Just put the old filter media in the new filter and you're good to go. Try and maintain some surface ripple in the tank at least to encourage gas exchange - oxygen levels are important for fish health and also are the main limiting factor in the efficacy of the filter bacteria.
 
King4aDay said:
Just put the old filter media in the new filter and you're good to go. Try and maintain some surface ripple in the tank at least to encourage gas exchange - oxygen levels are important for fish health and also are the main limiting factor in the efficacy of the filter bacteria.
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I've got an airstone and an airwall, should that be enough?
 
nst68 said:
I've got an airstone and an airwall, should that be enough?
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You don't have to have visible surface agitation. I've kept fish for over 20 years and don't use airstones or venturis etc.
As long as your filter offers good overall water circulation, there will be enough gas exchange as the water at the bottom gradually gets circulated to the top of the tank.
 
gort said:
You don't have to have visible surface agitation. I've kept fish for over 20 years and don't use airstones or venturis etc.
As long as your filter offers good overall water circulation, there will be enough gas exchange as the water at the bottom gradually gets circulated to the top of the tank.
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Sure, but increased oxygenation can only ever be a good thing. And oxygen levels can become problematic in some tanks that are particularly heavily stocked or otherwise have a high BOD, particularly for rheophilic species.

Airstones and such only really improve aeration by increasing surface movement and circulating water (the air bubbles themselves are not in the water column long enough to really diffuse much O2), so if you can get a reasonable level of flow just from the filter you don't need to use them (unless you want them for aesthetic reasons).
 
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UTmaniac said:
Something like a long bladed craft knife will do it, cut through the silicone blobs that hold the filter in place on the side and back.
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Well this is probably one of the easiest jobs I eve had to do, cut the top 2 bits of silicone with a normal kitchen knife and the rest just came off.

Loads more room in the tank now:)
 
gillywibble said:
Perhaps I'm over cautious but I would worry about an ammonia spike doing that.
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Yes, you're over cautious :D.

As long as you swap things straight over, using established tank water, and have rinsed out the new filter casing with established tank water first, then there's zero risk really.
 
Makhaira said:
Yes, you're over cautious :D.

As long as you swap things straight over, using established tank water, and have rinsed out the new filter casing with established tank water first, then there's zero risk really.
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Yup, essentially your just moving cycled biological filter media from one box with a pump to another. As long as you don't wash the bacteria out of it with tap water it'll be fine.
 
Moved the external filter and UV to the new tank, installed Co2. :)


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No fish yet as still on cycle, plants been in a couple of days :)

Will post more once i get the fish and shrimps in and hopefully some good plant growth.

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Siliconslave said:
lovely set up there and a really nice looking layout!
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Cheers mate, the redmoor root wood is holding down with a rock, been on soak for three weeks aswell and still floats :(

Got bored of just a bogwood tank with silver dollars, so they have gone a new home to eat their plants :D

I seen to have got my c02 level right according to test kit, just waiting for ammonia levels to drop so can transfer the other fish into tank.
 
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