When is a tank good and established?

[KyleBradley]

I've read a lot of the posts and other online information about cycling and such, but answer me this: When would you veterans consider a tank good and stable, and what does it take to make it that way in terms of what fish cleaning up after what fish, etc? I know that two of my tanks have about three or four times the recommended number of inhabitants, but this is because I got that rare and awesome deal on the giant gourami that I hadn't planned on, so others got displaced into the 20 and 30-gallon tanks. I plan on just letting nature take its course and not restocking the tanks, meaning that if I suffer fish loss, I remove the dead fish and keep on trucking. If no fish die, then I'll be busy doing water and filter changes.

Also, I've taken to just using the sprayer on my sink to spray the debris off of the fiber filter media in my filters and putting it back in. Is this okay? I leave the bio-wheels alone and the charcoal holder, but the media seems pretty clean once I power wash it.

 

[Seleya]

Your tanks are crazy overstocked. I wouldn't 'powerwash' your filter since you're likely killing any beneficial bacteria with the chlorinated water and blasting them off anyways. With the stocking levels you currently have, messing with good bacteria can only lead to trouble.

I consider a tank cycled when ammonia and nitrite are at zero for a couple of weeks -- stable when it continues those readings uninterrupted for at least a few months.

Honestly, imo that 'awesome deal' is akin to finding a great price on a half grown pacu. You're gonna need a good sized pond for some of those fish.

 

[Lotus]

I'd say "good and established" happens after about a year.

I have to confess I do rinse off mechanical media with chlorinated water, but I know my tanks are good and established, and the biological media, plants and decorations have plenty of bacteria on them.

 

[KyleBradley]

Seleya, maybe you misunderstood my question. What I'm washing off is the disposable filter, in order to not have to buy them as often, since the purpose of the polyfiber is just to trap particulate. If I put in a new one instead of washing it off, I'd have to assume that it would be sterile and have no bacterial, anyway. My question was whether anyone else reuses the disposable media, as long as it's in good condition. It just seems like a waste to throw it away as long as I can blast the crap off of it and reuse it. I have a bio-wheel for the bacteria.

Also, is it a good idea to not vacuum the gravel if you have plants in order to let that uneaten food decay and nourish the plants? I've heard conflicting opinions on this.

 

[KyleBradley]

Lotus, I've never seen a tank as beautiful as your 87-gallon. I asked the LPS about plants that would take up my whole tank, and he started talking about laws against plants that would thrive too much because if they were discarded they could take over the local landscape and choke out other species... I thought that was way out in left field. Can you tell me about your plants. I'll go back to your page and see if I can get some more info, but I'd like to plant my 39-gallon that way. What kind of substrate do you have in that tank? Is there a kind of sand or dirt that is better than gravel? I went to a company the other day that had a new tank set up that they were obviously cycling, and it had a nice looking dirt-like substance in the bottom, and the water was crystal clear. I was worried about cloudy water, but that showed me that you can have both dirt and clear water.

 

[Big Vine]

Seleya, maybe you misunderstood my question. What I'm washing off is the disposable filter, in order to not have to buy them as often, since the purpose of the polyfiber is just to trap particulate. If I put in a new one instead of washing it off, I'd have to assume that it would be sterile and have no bacterial, anyway. My question was whether anyone else reuses the disposable media, as long as it's in good condition. It just seems like a waste to throw it away as long as I can blast the crap off of it and reuse it. I have a bio-wheel for the bacteria.

I don't think that Seleya misunderstood at all.
The concern here is not just that you are rinsing off the sponge and replacing it (makes perfect sense...like you said, why replace it if it is re-usable, right?), but rather the fact that you are doing so in chlorinated tap-water, which kills off the beneficial bacteria that help to keep your tank from "re-cycling"---which is a distinct possibility in your case.

Sure, Lotus rinses it under tap-water. So be it. Remember though, her tank isn't anywhere near as overstocked as yours appear to be at the moment.

The whole point of what Seleya (and others) have said is that you can do just about as well with rinsing off the old sponge in old tank water when you do water-changes. Getting the main debris off so that your filter doesn't get all clogged up is the main thing. And you can accomplish this just fine in a bucket of old tank water, and without needing to use a 'power-sprayer' nozzle or whatever. Once you've done that, you're still left with beneficial bacteria, and the bulk of the crud that is clogging up your sponge will have been removed---just use your hands!

Big Vine

 

[echoofformless]

There is definately something that happens after a long while which isn't often talked about when we discuss basic cycling. That is to say, a tank might be cycled and have a strongly established bacterial colony so that it has no ammonia or nitrite, but there is something else that seems to happen to a tank after it's been running for a year or so. I'm not quite sure what that is, or if anyone really knows for sure, but it's certainly something good and not able to be found on test kits.

My 20g tank amazes me. I hardly lose any fish in there at all. But my newer 55g, and Geekrockgirl's newer 10g, even though they're well established biologically, incur occassional sudden fish deaths. All of the testable water parameters are letter perfect but still we lose someone here and there.

For a while I thought I was just having a string of great luck in the 20g, but lately I'm starting to suspect that there's something else at work. A tank just becomes its own little ecosystem after a while, mimicking nature by keeping a certain degree of stability that somehow goes beyond the scope of simple water chemistry. At least that's my theory; that there are other systems at work which we might not fully understand just yet.


Anyone want to philosophize about what that could be?

 

[Seleya]

Before the nitrogen cycle was understood scientifically, aquarists used to refer to "aged or old water" and how that was the ideal medium. As Lotus expanded to my post, "good and established" is a matter of stability over time -- the more the better but certainly at least a year. Well established older tanks are really a joy to keep even tho it's way fun setting up a new tank or doing a wee bit of rearranging.

 

[Lotus]

On the plant issue, you can read this article: http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=17

There are lots of threads in the Aquatic Plants forum here on MFT that you can read through. Be warned, it gets expensive and time consuming.

 

[KyleBradley]

Here's the confusion.. You say that year-old water is good, but with 20% water changes monthly, how much water is actually left after a year? Seems you'd eventually get it so that it was all just sorta old.

I know a couple that has guppies that breed, and they not only never do water changes, but they don't separate the fry, and nature just takes its course. Their water is crystal clear, and their tank is beautiful. It's the most neglected tank I've ever seen, but also one of the most clear. They said that they have enough evaporation to keep the water changed out enough. Is this possible?

 

[Seleya]

That they have fish surviving in it shows it's possible. Advisable? no. If they had discus surviving in that tank, I might be a bit more impressed. Just topping up does nothing for the buildup of organic substances. Frequent, regular water changes are one of the best things you can do for your fish.

 

[homebunnyj]

No one's saying 'year-old water'. They're saying a year-old mini-ecosystem.

 

[S-kate]

They're saying a year-old mini-ecosystem.

Ditto-- though some of the water gets taken out and replaced, the majority of bacteria stay in the tank and they multiply over time, as long as the water changes aren't too large and as long as chlorine isn't introduced.