jono_nz

Hi guys! Been a while since I got the aquarium upgraded, but now that I've got everything roughly where I want it to be, I'm finally happy to show some photos: So right now I have 6 bronze cories with 7 gold white clouds (and a single normal variant - survivor of my more inexperienced days :C) I wish I could've taken more pictures of the other bronze cories, but the only one that doesn't run away at any sign of my approach is that massive one in the foreground! I'm still tossing between getting some kind of gourami or ram or just throwing in another school of fish, like tetras. Thanks for everyone who offered suggestions, they definitely helped remove any potential headaches that might have occurred (Although putting that cabinet together was a royal pain in the buttocks!)

Is it possible to minimize the cycle? I presume if I hook up the old filter to the new tank (An Eheim 2213) and leave it running for the first few weeks (or even permanently), this shouldn't be too much of an issue? For the first few days/weeks I am intending to do daily water tests, and change about 20% water if necessary based on what I read, and slowly reduce the frequency if the water is stabilizing, in hopes that it'll catch any problems early. When the water does stabilize, should I wait a few weeks before adding more fish? Or should I be okay to add a few at a time when I'm back to my weekly water changing?

Thanks! I promise you dechlorinator was something I intended in the list as well :sml2: With regards to topping off water then adding fish - will I have to reacclimate them? Or should I just try to match the water parameters to as close as I can? (On that note, I am assuming it's just water hardness, ph and temperature - am I missing anything else important?) With the driftwood, I saw some for sale at my LFS - is there any point to getting those or am I just wasting my money? Also, do I just add in the driftwood after washing as I'm setting up the new tank or should I let it sit in water for a bit? Sorry about these possibly obvious questions - I've never really looked into adding these before! Thanks - I'll keep this in mind. I wasn't sure if I should even add any of the old water in, but I suppose the more old water I add the less change the fish will have to adapt to. I definitely want a bigger one - but unfortunately I don't have any room in the house Admittedly, I've got space for an aquarium around 75cm long as opposed to 61 - but I just can't seem to find one that fits properly! I did think about getting one custom made, but just prefer the look of some of the commercial tanks - such as the AquaOne 620 or the Juwel 120. Unfortunately the latter is a little too small for what I'd like, but the next size up (Jewel 125) is too wide!

So I've had my small 35L tank running for a year, and think it must be time to finally upgrade my tank! (Something I've been trying to fight off for a while...) Anyway, so I'm currently looking at getting an Aquaone 620, but I'm not too sure about the steps to upgrade. My understanding so far is that if I have established media, I should be using them all in my new tank, so if I transfer everything over the bio-load should still be the same. If I do this, I should not need to cycle my new tank, right? Although I am also assuming that if I transfer the substrate (fluorite in this case) I might be hurting some of the bacteria colonies in there, so I am expecting a slight ammonia/nitr*te spike, and will just keep up with the water changes. But essentially, I should be able to move my fish over to the new tank instantly, right? Unfortunately I don't really have the room in my house to have both tanks running concurrently, which is why I'd like the change to go as quickly and smoothly as possible. I'm intending to do the following: 1. Move all the fish to a new home (i.e., bucket) 2. Empty the water of the 35L tank to around 1/4 3. Move the substrate & plants, and attach filter 4. Move the old tank from its current perch, and move the new tank there 5. Fill new tank with a bit of the old water, and reintroduce fish (?) 6. Top off with new water 7. Fin! Now as all my projects go they don't typically go according to plan, so I'm hoping you guys would be able to help with figuring what I should or should not do before hand. I'm not particularly sure if I should do #5 or #6 in any particular order, or if I should have standing water set aside to match the parameters of the old tank as closely as possible, in terms of ph, hardness and temperature. I guess I should be doing this anyway, but as I only have one or two 20 litre buckets that I can reliably move around, I don't know if I can add enough water that way. Any help in auditing my moving steps would be appreciated! Some other questions: I intend to add bronze cories into my tank as well, but hear that fluorite will ruin their barbels, so was thinking that I'd mix my fluorite with some other dark sand substrate - any recommendations? Should I also be worried about the sand compacting? I'm intending this to be a planted tank. I was also thinking of adding a piece of driftwood into the tank - how do you guys prepare this? I heard that people boil driftwood but I don't really have a pot large enough for it... Would maintenance of this be as usual with other ornaments - taking it out of the tank and cleaning once every month? Thanks everyone

Hello again! Just got back from a work trip to Australia, glad to see my family didn't kill off my fish! Many a breath of relief has been had. Anyway, regarding the surface movement thing - I'm not actually sure how to decrease it, to be honest... I've currently the filter I have makes a hell of a loud grinding noise if I try to turn down the waterflow (and I feel like it's going to break or something!) One thing I was considering was a floating plant - I'm not sure if there are many floating plants we can get over here, but I did see that we have the riccia plant. Will the gourami make nests within those?

Thanks! That picture is a actually a little older... since I had to prune my plants a little it doesn't quite look as nice anymore Anyway, to be honest - I really have no idea which is the male and which is the female. One is a bit is a bit duller and slightly larger, the other has a reddish hue by the fins. From this I am only assuming that the former is the female, and the latter is the male. I don't really see them chasing each other a lot, and if they do it always goes back and forth! It's a bit cute to see. They also do this thing where they swim in parallel and in circles... which from looking at other vids online I think is their mating ritual but at the same time, doesn't quite look like it.

Thanks! I also just realized that I had the wrong link for one of them. Here's the picture of the honey gouramis as advertised.

Thanks guys! And yeah - it's a 37 litre tank. Sorry - been lurking too much around US forums to the point that I've just gotten used to referring to it as gallons. To share some history about my tank, when I first started this one I tried out a silent cycle, loading it with lots of plants so that it would absorb the toxins before they spiked. But as it turns out when I added my fish it spiked anyway, When it cycled again after that I rearranged my tank as below. (Please excuse the links instead of actual images, they're kinda big.) This one was during the earlier days, it looks orange because I had just treated it with maracyn-2. (Tank wasn't properly cycled at this point.) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16903230/Fish/GSDfdOkh.jpg A month later it had stabilized, which was when I rearranged it and took the pics below. Sadly when I did this I found that two of my pygmy cories had died. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16903230/Fish/J16Ki81.jpg More recently, I added in the centre piece fish to my tank, two honey dwarf gouramis. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16903230/Fish/J16Ki81.jpg Bonus picture of one of the cories! (I think this is a dwarf, as opposed to pygmy as it's quite a lot larger than the other pygmies in the tank!) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16903230/Fish/DSC_0281.jpg In my 6 month long process of keeping my first fish tank I've lost 2 WMCM (these are tough buggers, they've gone through a lot in my tank!!) and three pygmy cories. I had a moment of weakness when it came to adding the dwarf gourami but for a while now I'm resolved to stop adding fish until I can maintain this tank to a suitable standard.

Hi guys! I'm a pretty new fishkeeper, having only started my first real tank in January this year (not counting the debacles that my parents bought for me as a in my preteens) and have been stumbling along with caring for my fish and the aquarium. Finally decided to start up here so that I can start actually relying on you more knowledgable folk's experience, instead of just going through old content Now to talk about the tank that got me into the hobby: I decided to get a 10 gallon tank on a whim last year, when I saw that it was on sale at the local pet store, and fell into the usual traps of a new fishkeeper - uncycled tanks, instant introductions of fish and etc. Anyway, since my headlong dive into this, I'd like to think that I've learned a lot - although there's still a lot more that I could get a hand on, such as improving my current maintenance habits. So right now I'm just maintaining the 10g tank with every intention of upgrading to a minimum of 30g soon, but only after I'm really confident that I can keep fish alive! Currently I've got 4 WMCM, 2 pygmy cories, and a month ago added 2 dwarf gourami. Anyway, look forward to learning a lot from you guys. (PS: I'm aware I need more WMCM/cories, but my LFS has no pygmy cories in stock and I'm debating whether or not I should change my WMCM for some other fish.)