Addicted!

[LtGtR2]

SO, some of you may know me and some of you might not!

My name is mike and probably about 3 or 4 weeks ago i started a 30 gallon (tall) tank and i jumped the gun on not letting it cycle!

Well guess what! its pretty much done cycling and i have a nice healthy Oscar living in the tank and he seems to be enjoying him self to the fullest! The downside is this tank has a small leak in it and is simply just a turn off to me, i know it is fixable and probably easy to do at that but i just don't like how tall the tank is itself...

so i went out on a lim and i bought a new fish tank! a 55gallon tank at that! and now i want some ideas of what i should do with it!

First things first is if i want to put plants in it or not or if i should wait to put plants in after the cycle!

heres a picture of my now cramped room but rather enjoyable hobby hangout!

 

[d3sc3n7]

Well, I'd say cycle the 55, no plants...and put the oscar in there...then you can fix the other tanks leak...and plant it! The oscar is going to need that swimming space of the 55 anyway.

 

[brooklynfish]

yea, its better if you put the oscar in the 55. You could make the 30 a planted community tank.

 

[d3sc3n7]

In fact...you could use the 30G as a breeder for oscar food. Guppies and whatnot. Save yourself some cash when you want to give the oscar some live food

 

[LtGtR2]

Yeah thats what i was thinking exactly!!! thank you for the responses and i am letting this tank fully cycle before i do anything.

 

[Fuzz16]

a tank that tall would suck to plant because the light wouldnt reach deep
youd have to stick wit really low light plants.

and yep, oscar would be happier in the 55
make the 30g a community and if it gets overun with babies yo could feed them to the oscar, but he needs to be on a pellet/frozen food diet mainly.

 

[MatthewLaw]

suggestion

While you wait for the 55g to cylce, I would strongly suggest that you get the 30g fixed. I am not sure where the leak is but that it has created a weak point in the tank. THe last thing you want is to wake up to a pool of water OR the sound of rushing water.

 

[brian1973]

In fact...you could use the 30G as a breeder for oscar food. Guppies and whatnot. Save yourself some cash when you want to give the oscar some live food

You know my oscars do not even bother the smaller danios in my tank anymore. I think they have learned that I will feed them so it isnt worth the effort to chase live foods anymore.

 

[LtGtR2]

The 55 gal is up and cycling! with no fish in it!

The Oscar eats and enjoys Hikari Cichlid mini pellet (floating type), i also caught what i believe to be Ich on his fins and i am currents treating him in the 30 gallon (i know lot of space but its not being used for anything else currently)

In the 55 gallon i am using a product called cycle to see if it will help out It seemed to help my 30 gallon, lemme know what you think and how long you think the 55 gallon will take to cycle!

 

[jo3olous]

I don't think it would be a good idea to plant the tank with the Oscar in it, if I'm not mistaken they like to move things around a alot and are not very nice to plants! I would definitely go for fixing the 30G tank and planting that one for some community fish. Yes this hobby is sooo addicting!

 

[brian1973]

when I cycled my 90g I went out and bought 6 giant danios, a bateria supplement product and filled some socks with gravel from my existing tank. I know many people here dont agree with having fish in the tank when you cycle it but you have to decide for yourself on that one. Anyway about 1 week into it I began to see the nitrites rise and ammonia started showing up..within 3 days 0 ammonia. So i slowly began adding the other fish. Keeping an eye on the water params..I did see one small spike in ammonia that lasted about 12 hrs. since then water params have been great. I did have live plants also which I have heard help eliminate waste as well, btu i dont know. So my 90g from the time I added the danios to adding the final fish was about 2 weeks.

If your doing a fishless cycle are u adding ammonia.. I dont think a tank will begin cycling without either ammonia or fish.

Added the link to my old thread so you can kinda read thru it and get an ide of what I did if u want. http://www.myfishtank.net/forum/freshwater-general-discussion/51708-my-90g-tank.html

 

[MatthewLaw]

I used BioSpira (original refrigerated version) and it reduced the cycling time by 2 weeks (relative to another tank). It took about 6 weeks for my 30g to cycle, and only 4 weeks for my 60g to cycle.

Granted I put some media (gravel) from the cycled 30g into the 60g tank. On the other hand in general, should it take more than 6 weeks for a much larger tank to naturally cycle??

i would frequently monitor the amonia, nitrite, nitrate levels and record this to track the progress.

 

[LtGtR2]

I am using a product called "Cycle" and i will create myself a log shortly.