Upsizing an established tank due to complications

[Mulder]

I had three triops and a mystery snail in a 3 gallon round tank with an undergravel filter. Unfortunately, the poor design of this tank and filter claimed two of my triops. They somehow got under the plastic filter base, and by the time I found them, they were fading fast. I siphoned out about 90% of the water, so that I could pull the plate out. I did suck some of the detritus out, but it was things that were on top of the gravel bed, like triops molts and plant fragments. I've added new tapwater, and the appropriate amount of Seachem Prime for the water change. Tomorrow, after the temperature has equilibriated, I'm going to move the surviving triops and mystery snail back into the tank.

I want to move them to a 10 gallon. The 3 gal is horrid for viewing, and its weird shape makes it extremely difficult to find a better filter for it. If I were to use the substrate from my 3 gallon, would I still need to do a full cycle? Or could I just treat it like a water change? If I do a full cycle, do the plants go in at the beginning? Or do they need specific ammonia concentrations?

Another thing I've heard is that I should add the amount of food I anticipate feeding every day while cycling. I noticed uneaten food gets white fuzzy mold really quickly. How would the mold affect cycling? I'm kind of reluctant to do this, since triops are pretty sensitive to bacterial spikes from uneaten food. Can I cycle without adding food?

 

[CAPSLOCK]

You could treat it like a big water change. The gravel will hold all the bacteria, which is already enough for the triops and snail. So if you move it all over, it is the same amount of bacteria just in a larger volume of water. Just give it a good week before you add any more animals aside from what was moved over from the 3g.

 

[Mulder]

Do I need to do anything to new gravel I add? Or just rinse it like normal and let the bacteria from the existing gravel do their thing?

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Just rinse the new gravel like normal. If possible, have the new stuff at the bottom and the old stuff added to the top, or all mixed together. Basically what you don't want to do is put an inch or more of new gravel over the established stuff, thereby preventing it from getting good water flow to the bacteria present in the established stuff.

 

[Mulder]

How do snails do with HOB filters? I'm a bit hesitant to use one, but I really want the live plants. Aside from under gravel, and external canister, what other options are there? Or could I use an air stone for water movement and do regular vacuums?

At this point, it's a single snail. I lost my last triops to a bad molt. I'm thinking a few tetras and maybe adding triops in the future.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Never had an issue with snails and the HOB filters - though I haven't had a large FW snail, just the little pond snails and malaysian trumpet snails. I have to imagine larger snails would be fine as well.

 

[Mulder]

Snail seems to be doing fine with the filter. My ammonia is reading 0ppm, my nitrites are 0, and my nitrates are 10ppm. I'm going to a decent pet store a few hours away on Thursday. If my readings are still in that range, I'm going to pick up fish. I'd like neon tetras, but I'm not really comfortable adding more than three until I see how my water chemistry holds up.

 

[Mulder]

Enough talking, how about a picture? I can only put it up as a link, though. http://db.tt/zVPRYVXR

I'm still watching ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates, but everything is steady. Just 10ppm nitrates, nothing else. I need to clean the outside still. I keep forgetting to buy vinegar for that. I think I'd like to tie some of my hornwort to the thermometer probe. I'd also like to find a small decoration cave and possibly tie a bit to that. Eventually, I'd like to replace the fake plants on the left, either with live, or nicer fakes.

 

[Mulder]

I was in another part of the state today, with a decent pet store. It was SO NICE to walk along the wall of tanks and not see bloated, webby carcasses in each tank. I didn't see a single dead fish at all. Nothing at all like my LFS. I came home with four cardinal tetras, and one neon tetra. There's maybe three inches total length among them all. They are not very large.

It was a four hour drive home, so we hit the pet store as our last stop, and put the fish bag into a cooler. They were looking pale and washed out when I opened the cooler, but after floating the bag for an hour, their color had returned. They huddled in the corner behind the plant for about half an hour, but they are all swimming around, with colors bright and fins erect. I'll be checking the water daily, and doing changes as needed.

 

[Mulder]

I'm losing tetras. I lost one Thursday, and another last night. I've also determined my ammonia test isn't working. I brought it to the lab I worked at and tried it with several ammonia solutions. It showed them all at 0ppm. None of them were. The nitrite/nitrate tests were working correctly. I have ordered a new ammonia test, which I'm currently waiting for. Nitrite is still 0ppm, nitrates are still around 10ppm. PH is holding steady around 7.21, and I'm using a regularly calibrated digital probe system to measure that. Temperature varies between 72 and 78, depending on the weather.

Should I just do daily 50% water changes until I get the new ammonia test? Is there any other indication that something else is off? Would pH be stable when ammonia is spiking? Or would it be getting more basic?