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Questions about setting up new tank


stillnzcookie

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On Saturday I'm hoping to finally set up the Ecostyle tank I was given last Christmas, but I have a couple of questions before I do so.

1) I'll be transferring plants, wood and gravel from our old tank - which has a not insignificant amount of BBA. I can boil the gravel and wood and I'll cut off any visible BBA from the plants, but I realise I won't get it all. In the new tank, I'll be dosing with Flourish Excel - am I right in thinking that this will help prevent too much BBA? I'm pretty certain it has taken hold in the old tank in spots where there isn't enough water movement, so I'm hoping the new filter creates fewer dead spots.

2) Is there any point putting the new filter media in the old tank now, or is a day not going to be long enough to get bacteria started? I'll be using the old filter media as well, so I'm not anticipating an ammonia spike, so it's probably not that important?

3) I'm imagining it could be quite a long process to empty one tank, boil gravel and wood, trim plants, shift old and new tanks, aquascape and refill the tank. Will the fish be ok in buckets and, if so, for how long?

4) Is it necessary to check a brand new tank for leaks before setting it up?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give. I'm looking forward to setting up a new tank, but the thing I'm most excited about is finally finding out how many panda cories we have - I saw another baby just today!

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Yes to leak checking a tank before you set it up particularly if it's over about 20 litres - thats a significant amount of water to have deposited over your carpet/wooden floors. Best to leave over night.

Rather than a bucket put your fish in a 60 litre bin from the warehouse and pop your filter/ in as well if you can or an airline. Then you can take your time. You can use bleach on your wood rather than boil it as well. Same with a lot of your plants.

BBA is opportunist. Excel will keep it under control if dosed properly but some plants/fish don't particularly like it. It spreads by small pieces floating off and reattaching.

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New tank up and running, and all inhabitants looking happy and healthy, and busy exploring their new home :happy2:

pH a bit high (7.2, usually 6.6-6.8 ), but doesn't seem to be bothering the fish - they're all active and have good colour. I'll keep an eye on it.

So far I'm pretty impressed with new tank (Ecostyle61)

I'll post some pics when I get a chance.

Surprise of the day was finding an incy wincy (<5mm) baby panda cory when we were removing all the gravel :love:

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Have you grown plants in your ecostyle tank? If so, how well do they grow? The LEDs seem very bright white so I wondered if they are the right colour to grow plants successfully. Like you, I removed the filter pads that came with it, filled the bottom of the filter with ceramic noodles, then put filter sponge on top. I'm going to get a bit more sponge, but it seems good for now as is. There's a number of features of the Ecostyle that impress me - it seems a really good wee setup overall.

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Oh plants are great in it! You just need to pick the right ones to suit the LEDS. The plants that need really high light didn't like it (pretty much anything red would fade off then die). But things like java fern, anubias, stargrass, ambulia, swords, crypts etc will do just fine.

This was it rather overgrown with java fern (both normal and narrow leaf), and there's anubias in there somewhere, haha. I didn't add anything special, maybe a dose of Excel every now and again to keep BBA away. The gravel wouldn't have helped the plants much.

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Oh plants are great in it! You just need to pick the right ones to suit the LEDS. The plants that need really high light didn't like it (pretty much anything red would fade off then die). But things like java fern, anubias, stargrass, ambulia, swords, crypts etc will do just fine.

Thanks, that's good to know

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