Help?

[jondub]

I have just set up my 5 gal. and it has been running for around an hour. The water seems really cloudy. Will this filter itself out, or should I start over? Also, if it doesn't filter out is it harmful to the fish I will eventually put in?

 

[cinlnk]

Let run for a day or two... it will clear out ....

 

[FroggyFox]

Depends what it is cloudy from on whether it'd be harmful for fish or not. Did you rinse the gravel before you put it in the tank? If you didn't, then I'd say you should dump it out and rinse the gravel well before putting water back in. If you did rinse it then you might think about just leaving it and seeing if it clears up overnight. Did you dechlorinate the water?

Are you going to do a fishless cycle on it?

 

[cinlnk]

Yea.... what froggy said.... about rinsing gravel and dechlorinating the water.... if you did not do either, I would dump everything out and start from scratch

 

[FroggyFox]

Sorry we posted at the same time! cinlnk is totally right too, a lot of tanks are kind of cloudy when you first set them up, or they look that way and if you look closely they're actually tiny little air bubbles...and if thats what it is then it'll go away on its own for sure.

 

[jondub]

I rinsed and cholornated, and as far as the cycling I don't quite understand could someone please explain it to me. Thanks alot. I am such a noob at this.

 

[FroggyFox]

Cycling means setting up the tank so that its safe for your fish...because initially when you set a tank up there aren't any good bacteria in it to turn your fish's waste into a less toxic chemical.

Why dont you go read through the posts stickied in this thread: http://www.myfishtank.net/forum/showthread.php?t=31669 If you still have questions feel free to come back here and ask

 

[jondub]

Is it ok, to do the fish cycling. Does anyone recommend it?

 

[FroggyFox]

There are people who only do it that way, people who only do it fishless etc. In a 5g its going to be hard to keep the ammonia/nitrites down where they need to be for your fish for at least a month you'll probably be doing water changes every day or every other day...but if you're committed it'll work out just fine. I would suggest getting maybe two zebra danios to cycle with...although they wouldn't do that great in a 5g indefinitely because they like to have lots of room to swim. Hopefully at the end of the cycle you'd be able to trade them back to your local store?

I love fishless cycling because I dont have to worry about any fish in the process, and then when its finished I can put whatever fish I want to in the tank without worrying how sensitive they are to ammonia and nitrite spikes.

 

[jondub]

So you think it would take about a month to cycle doing it fishless and changing the water daily?

 

[jondub]

Also, I have a bio wheel does this change anything? Just wondering.

 

[FroggyFox]

nope, biowheel wont change much...but its a good type of filter to have.

Fishless cycling would take about a month (give or take) with NO water changes. Fish-in cycling will take longer than a month and to keep the fish alive you'd have to do almost daily water changes.

 

[S-kate]

Do you have any friends with a fish tanks? You could take some of their water and filter material to speed up the process. I gave a friend of mine an old filter cartridge and a gallon of water to help start her 5 gallon and the cycle only took a couple weeks.