GrahamC

The organic chelating compounds will be fine. I wouldn't worry about ammonia as a byproduct. But if you are concerned, do an ammonia test

A couple of months ago I setup a 60L tank with some Pam's potting mix, and covered the mix with fine pumice ( most of which sank ), and then planted a couple of plants that weren't doing so well elsewhere. As I recall nitrates were pretty high and I left things alone. My neighbour gave me a bucket of plants from his tropical tanks 2 weeks ago. Rather than try and plant them into fish tanks, I thought I'd use this 60L tank as the quarantine tank. Included were vals with leaves over 1 m long, some crypts, java ferns, oxygen weed (from his bath tub ) and a few other things. I washed them in aged water to try and get rid of most of the algae and planted the rooted plants. I moved the tank to a window, but left it unheated. The crypts melted, but looks like some new leaves are appearing. A couple of day ago I saw 4 fry swimming there. Odd really as he thinks he only has live bearers, and hard to imagine that fry survived washing, and a cold tank! His tank did have guppy and some swordtail fry present. To give them a chance I put a heater in set at 20 deg. The tank heats up to about 25 deg in the sun, and most all of the plants are bubbling away. The fry are 3-5 mm long head to tail, and neighbour suggested I just feed them with powdered tropical flake. I presume that they have been living on algae, or microscopic aquatic life. After I put the flake in yesterday, I can only now see 3 fry, so perhaps I'll just let them eat algae and protozoa. There are also a few tiny worms, white tiny things that swim in a brownian fashion, and lots of snails, and algae. Ammonia is < 0.02ppm, and nitrates have dropped from very red several months ago to 0-5 ppm when tested today. I did a 90% water change at the time I added the new plants so that might explain why the nitrates have dropped so much. Pam's potting mix doesn't explicitly added fertilizers though they say there might be some present. So, should I remove these fry and put them into a net and raise them in a tropical tank? Or just let them get on with it?

As they are obligate parasites I would have thought they would not survive the proposed fishless cycle.

I'd assume the risk is the same as taking from another tank to start a new tank. Except the pond is so much bigger that your average aquarium.

We are just postulating why your tank has apparently not started to cycle yet, and the method of water change you are doing is not that which is recommended. Once you have the filter/tank fully cycled, it won't make much of a difference. Some people don't even bother to add dechlorinator at that point for small PWCs. The dechlorinator is non-toxic so a teaspoon above what you need won't hurt.

I took driftwood, plants, sand and a sponge filter from my healthy goldfish tank to start up my angel fish tank. Had no problems. Although goldfish might be a vector, doesn't mean they will be. So, if we know what possible disease might be carried across, we can then better manage the risks. I did this because I acquired some angels without a cycled tank to put them into. Gotta stop using that buy now button on trade me! :slfg:

Most sites don't recommend using feeder goldfish because of disease susceptibility. But here we are talking of taking material from a healthy pond and putting into an empty tank. Any obligate parasites won't survive even if they are there. So, I'm interested in what particular disease you think might be introduced.

I'm not aware that they are different bugs...

Yeah, better to sweep the rubbish under the carpet aka gravel

Good enough. Grab some gravel from the pond to seed your aquarium filter

Use the aqua vac to remove the water and use the buckets to refill. Stand the buckets for a few mins, and give it a good mix so that the dechlorinator mixes with the water. Grab some more gravel from your other tank and put in this tank to help seed it. Return the other gravel sock. Use some tape and place on the tank to mark the 50% mark. Gravel line to top of water. And remove this amount each day until ammonia is a much lower level.

Yeah, that was the article I read too.

I don't know what an aqua vac is but there's no way any dechlorinator can instantly remove chlorine. It has to be mixed into the tank so it has a chance to neutralize the chlorine. So, it is possible your method is stopping the biological filter from being established. I add dechlorinator into the new bucket of water first, give it a mix, and then put into the tank by siphon. Mostly I use buckets of aged water that have been sitting outside for day, or week, which has most of the chlorine degassed naturally. If your water company uses chloramines, this won't help that much. So, my suggestion is to use aged dechlorinated water for the PWCs, and see if your biological filter can get started.

Read somewhere that high nitrate levels can affect the vascular control of the swim bladder. Nitrates are used as vasodilators in medicine.

Lucky bamboo

One would think so. Just remind us, what temperature are you running this tank at? And what is in it, are they still okay?

It's the Waitangi Stream flowing from Te Aro which has been landscaped. It empties into the waterfront.

Bad things come from cleaning! Some people use an air line hose to drip new water into the holding area to slowly acclimate them. pH is just one ion, more likely to be osmotic stress.

Sounds correct.

Since colour blindness is primarily an x-linked recessive disorder, it is possible the grandmother was a carrier and gave him the condition. Perhaps he should be chewing her out if she were his maternal grandmother! lol

Better than those 5 PhDs would get flipping burgers at McDs.

:thup: <= digital display

Caper - I suspect you shouldn't buy a nitrate test kit. I have difficulty distinguishing between a reading of 20 and 80, and your score was worse than mine on this eye test!

Best thing to do is get everyone in the house to do the test, and use the person with the best scores to read the test strips ( or send them to si_sphinx! )