My new 55gal freshwater

[SeantheCatfish]

55gal, 3 sunset Gouramis, 3 pictus catfish, 2 apple snails, 2 golden dojo loaches, and a Banjo Catfish.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Oooh, such nice clean fresh sand!

That's a fair number of fish all at once - make sure to keep an eye on the parameters and be ready to do water changes if you're seeing ammonia. Did you seed it with media / bacteria from an established tank?

 

[arcab4]

nice white sand. good to see something different than just black or regular gravel. how long has this been running?

 

[Grover]

Beautiful clean tank, love the fat cats

 

[SeantheCatfish]

Perimeters are mostly good, I used a little bit of cycled tank water/sand as well as a bacteria supplement. It's been running for I think a couple weeks now. I also did a water change today. Thanks for the comments guys. BTW, I have a gravel vacuum, but does anyone know of another way to clean poo off the sand? Between the Catfish and the Gouramis there seems to be a lot of grossness

 

[arcab4]

i've only used a gravel vacuum for it...but never used sand before. i would assume it's be too powerful for sand and you'll just end up sucking up the sand that way huh. and manually picking it up is not feasible either.

have you tried to use the vacuum but just lightly over the sand? you'll end up probably sucking up some sand in the long run but can always replenish it.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Yes, you just hold the vacuum a bit above the sand and the poo will kinda float up and off and get siphoned out. At first you might vacuum up some light particles but after a few times all the light stuff will be gone and the rest will be more settled. Alternatively / additionally, you can kinda swish up the poo / detritus and then use the vacuum to suck it out (or let the filter get it once it is suspended in the water column).

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Sometimes catfish are actually helpful as they swim along the bottom and kick up the poo and help the filter suck it up. Though they also contribute, so it's kinda 6 of one and half a dozen of the other I guess...

 

[arcab4]

think you should be good with the vacuum slightly over the sand. i've done that with my saltwater tank to just pick up detris that's settled (since you're not suppose to disturb the sand anyways) and it seems to work fine. give that a try first and let us know!

 

[FreshyFresh]

Nice looking setups!

Like said, this is going to be a nightmare if these tanks were not setup with seeded media in the filters. Using used substrate and water isn't going to cut it. Daily water param measuring and large water changes until you see nothing but nitrates.

I so love the looks of dojo loaches!! I was trying to find one recently for my 55g goldfish tank but hit a brick wall. You can't get dojo loaches in NY State because they were put on the "invasive species list". Booo. Not that I go fishing much anymore, but I've never heard of anyone catching one locally.