Andrew 22

Dose anyone use pool salt in there aquariums? One of my freinds uses it to bost the dH along with a few other chemicals for his frontosa tank. It sems to work quite well although he has only been using it for about six months.

Dose anyone use pool salt in there aquariums? One of my freinds uses it to bost the dH along with a few other chemicals for his frontosa tank. It sems to work quite well although he has only been using it for about six months.

Sorry about the wait but here are the vaues i prommesed for anyone wanting to try fishless cycling. I must first state that i have never used these theroetical values nd that any one that uses them dose so at there own risk. I would keep an eye on the ammonia nitrite and nitrate values during the process to see how things are going and that a compleat water change change AFTER the cycle has finished befre putting any fish in might be a good idear. To start a biological filter: -add NH3Cl @ 46 mg/L for 20 days -add NaNO2 @ 73 mg/L for 20 days -water temperature 20-28oC Note leave the heater on during the process as this will greatly accelerate the amount of bacterial growth. Good Luck

I hate pH meters with a vengeance :evil: I have the problem of waiting for what seems half an hour for the stupid thing to stabilize so I can get a reading. It sounds like you are doing everything right. the only thing that i can think of is that the glass still had some residual bakeing soda in it after you rinsed it out giving rise to the high reading. The issue with the reading bouncing around due to the heater is novel to say the least, Has anyone else heard of electrical interferences (I take that’s what you meant?)Affecting pH readings?? If you had rinsed the glass out several times (which I am sure you did) then I would suggest borrowing / buying another pH meter and see if you have the same problems. For a ball park range the colorimetric test kits are pretty effective, and while the readings can be a bit ambiguous at times the are consistently ambiguous I hope some one has a few more ideas on the issue. Good luck.

One major pro of fishless cyclying is there is no need to 'seed' the bio-filter with media from another tank (as alredy mentioned)., This eliminates the risk of introducing dieases to any incoming fish that your old stock may have. By seeding from an old aquarium you still don`t have high enough bacteria numbers to cope with a hevaly stocked large aquariun, and fishless cyclying can get around this. Personaly i would simply slowly increase the number of fish in the tank over a number of weeks keeping an eye on the ammonia and nitrite levels as you go.

Rob wrote.. ..I wouldn't use this for fishless cycling though, as it is going to push your pH up I don’t think that ammonium hydroxide will change you pH as the dissociation equation that you wrote shows that ammonium hydroxide dissociates into ammonium as you said ammonium chloride being commonly used. I have a recommended dosage rate some were I will have to dig it up. Ira wrote.. ..It wouldn't matter what the PH is ...Unless the bacteria are sensitive to PH. Nitrasomonius and Nitrabactor (can’t spell it :oops: ) are the two common bacterial species that convert anomia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate and their optimal pH is around 8 - 8.5

I think that most of these points have already been covred but i will reitterate them here as it would take me a long time to go back through the replys to check them (happy reading Bill :lol:). I work part time for a aquarium fish producer having many hundreds (probbly more like thousands) of tanks. It will take the same amount of energy to heat your water to the required temperature wether you use heat pads, hot water, or in take heaters (excluding external losses) so i would recomend using the on that is on the cheapest rate. I think that you will find it very difficult to heat your water using the hot water cylinder as you described as there will be an air gap (although small) between the copper pipe and the base of the tank reducing your transfer efficiance dramaticly. If you want to use your hot water system i would recomend simply running the pipe through each tank makinging it act as a heat exchanger. Obviously you would not use copper pipe for this as it will kill your fish. You may need to increase the flowrate to ensure an even temperature spred among the tanks. i personaly would use multiple smaller lengths of pipe. At the place were i work we heat some tanks up to 30 degrease (discus) by heating the air to aproximatly 31-32 degrease as was mentioned previously, it may take a bit of time to get the water to the required temperature but once this has been reached it takes a long time to cool down. Humidity occures when the water temperature is greater than that of the sourounding air so i would recomend having lids on all of your tanks if yoou are simply going to heat the water directly or you will be living in the tropics. If you decide to heat the room to heat your tanks then i would recomend an airconditioner. They are quite efficient and enable to keep the temperature down in the warmer months which is a major probblem with gas or wood fired heating (we have wood fired heating). Airconditioners also have the added advantage of removing moisture from the air wich will keep you humidity down. I wouldn`t be complaning at the prospect at sitting back at 27 degrease admiring what will be a realy impressive set up. I hope this helps a little bit nothing beats doing it your self Good luck, Andrew

I too think that john has a good point. I have heard that PVC, while being compleatly safe to use in it`s present state releases extremly toxic chemicals when it is burnt. I hered a story where a company reused some PVC pipe that was damaged in a fire for a re-circulation system and they got a lot of dead fish . While polystyrean is not PVC i would be very carful about putting burnt/melted plastics into an aquarium.

Hi Rob; I noticed that you were thinking about a tank 6'x2'x2'. One of my freinds has a marine tank of this size and it looks great, but it dose protrude a significant way out into his loung room. Another of my freinds just bought two 200cm X 60cm high X 40cm back (7'x2'x1.3'). These tanks also look fantastic especialy since he has them end to end and they don`t protrude out into the loung room. It would take about the same amount of glass and i personly think they look better. Any way thats just my thoughts and it will look great either way. Regards Andrew.

Woo i didn`t expect so many replys this is great I was looking at the glass thickness site suggested by Rob and i think that i might make that tank just a little bit smaller for the sake of the peoplue living down stairs AQUAMANX wrote: please check out my site I built the stand myself. I think your set up is great, i hope mine turns out as well as i am hopeing to build the stands myself. I particulary like the rainbow fish. Chris wrote: What are you going to put into it? I was planing to plant out the back of the aquariun and fill the tank with rainbow fish and about 10-15 discus. (i will probbley de-stock the tank when they get bigger). In the second tank i am hopeing to build i was thinking of filling it with electric blues and yellows as a frend of mine breads them and i can get them for about $2.00 each I was also planing to build a 100*50*50cm tank with the left over glass but i havn`t decided what to put in it yet probbly discus. Sorry that i carn`t reply to everyone as your input was most helpful. I will let you know how things go :-? Thanks again.

Hi first i would like to say that this is a great site loads of info. I am looking to build what i think is a reasinably sizable aquarium. I managed to pick up a load of glass from the local recyclers some 12mm, 10mm 8mm and six. I am hopeing that it isn`t tempered as it come out of an old bank. Anyway to my question. I was wanting to build a tank about 1.4m long by 90cm high and 50cm back out of the 12mm. can it be done with out flooding out my appartment not to mention the flat down stairs Any info at all would be helpful as all i can find is these chars that say i should by using 19mm or 24mm. Thanks again.