Hi there - I’m kinda new to all this - got my first tank 6 months ago - 55 gal corner unit. A week later 30 plants arrived - together with 4 Oscars, a Lima shovel nose, 3 sailfin Plecos, and an assortment of smaller cichlids. Then the filter packed up, on the same day the other 12 fish came. It was round about then I looked up “cycling” on the net - lol - oh boy.......
Eventually I stopped washing out the filter foam under the tap - stopped using bio-degradable sponges in my canister, and figured I should have got the Fluval 404 and not the 204. It took over two months to cycle the tank, but curiously, I lost more fish to the Midas than I did to water conditions.
Everything is stable now - the plants are now plastic, and there’s a 4ft 75 gal tank waiting to be set up so I can spread the fish out as they get bigger, and the Jack Dempsey is in a 2 gal holding tank till then, cos he was worrying one of my blood parrots to death.
It’s been a heck of a learning curve, and there’s so much I picked up from forums like this that “thanks guys” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Looks like I’m firmly hooked on keeping large cichlids now (anything under an inch long just goes into the Lima shovel nose), very fond of the individual fish, and the tank itself - I spend as much time looking at the tank conditions as I do watching at the fish.
I’ll try and get some pics up soon............
Eventually I stopped washing out the filter foam under the tap - stopped using bio-degradable sponges in my canister, and figured I should have got the Fluval 404 and not the 204. It took over two months to cycle the tank, but curiously, I lost more fish to the Midas than I did to water conditions.
Everything is stable now - the plants are now plastic, and there’s a 4ft 75 gal tank waiting to be set up so I can spread the fish out as they get bigger, and the Jack Dempsey is in a 2 gal holding tank till then, cos he was worrying one of my blood parrots to death.
It’s been a heck of a learning curve, and there’s so much I picked up from forums like this that “thanks guys” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Looks like I’m firmly hooked on keeping large cichlids now (anything under an inch long just goes into the Lima shovel nose), very fond of the individual fish, and the tank itself - I spend as much time looking at the tank conditions as I do watching at the fish.
I’ll try and get some pics up soon............
