anybody have an aquarium?

[white92coupe]

You guys are my wife's favorite place to go! Definately helped us alot when our tanks had some nitrate problems and now we just get our water from you guys to do our changes!

Glad we could help! PM me you and your wife's names. We probably know each other from there. I'm Matt, the one with a big V8 tattoo on my leg.

 

[Pulp]

I haven't in a long time, don't have room in my house for a set-up, but when I was teaching science I always kept several 10 gallon tanks going, with one big difference from y'alls. I never had tropicals, just local fish and critters. Blue-gill, sunfish, catfish, crawdads, anything the kids could bring in. I even had a mussel. It is fascinating to watch a mussel crawl across the bottom of a tank. One year a kid brought in an amphiuma ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphiuma ). It lived the rest of the school year and one of the kids took it home for the summer. We had a very big crawdad that learned to take food from forceps. The kids loved it. I also had a few terrariums set up for small snakes, lizards, salamanders, tarantulas, etc. Be careful with these, critters are excellent escape artists. One morning I picked up my typewriter(remember those?) off the floor to type a test. I started typing and the typewriter started hissing at me. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a hog-nosed snake out of the innards of a typewriter?

The catfish in one tank could sense a grasshopper on top in just a second or so, and just like that, no more grasshopper.

Edit: I know this has nothing to do with answering your questions, but just throwing it out as a different, easier, and cheaper alternative.

 

[BadgeBunny]

Where are you at in OKC? I have a 70 gallon African Cichlid tank myself. I also work at Wet Pets by Steve in Norman. If you would like to come down I would be more than happy to show you all you options for starting a tank up, and give you any advice to help you along the way.

Also, for those of us that already have tanks we do free water testing for all customers. If any of you have any questions feel free to PM me or visit us at the store. Everyone that works there is a hobbyist.

I was reading all the posts, racking my brain trying to remember your screen name ...

We used to have aquariums when I was a kid ... couple of 100 gallon ones but it's been so long I'd probably just create more problems for the OP than give good answers so I'm out ... Except to say some of you guys have really nice set-ups!

 

[Werewolf]

Basically, fish waste creates ammonia, ammonia is eliminated by nitrates (or nitrites). Without nitrates (or nitrites), your fish would die from ammonia poisoning. Cycling with ammonia "tricks" your tank and filter into thinking there's fish waste, so once the bacteria is there to consume the ammonia properly, the tank is ready for fish.

Partially right.

The cycle goes like this. Fish waste - primarily liquid breaks down into ammonia. A kind of bacteria breaks down the ammonia into nitrites. Anothe type of bacteria break down the nitrites into nitrates.

Ammonia in concentrations higher than about 5 PPM kills fish. Nitrites kill fish. Nitrates - anything under 40PPM is OK though can cause stress in some fish. Nitrates less than 20 PPM is the goal.

The bacteria needed to perform the ammonia to nitrite to nitrate cycle are everywhere. They'll get into your water just from the air in your home. They will be captured in the part of your filter meant to hold them. I like the ceramic rings but many use a coarse fibrous material - both work well.

You will need a test kit to check ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels.

To cycle your tank you will want to add enough ammonia to your water to get a level of 2 or 3 PPM. There are calculators to figure out how many drops needed in a tank of a given size to achieve that level. We're talking drops here not spoonfulls. It will take anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks to properly cycle a tank. I once did it in 10 days - still haven't figured that one out. Usually takes 3 to 4 weeks for me. Patience grasshopper. If you try to go to fast you will regret it.

Each day you will test your ammonia level and once you see it start to go down you will know that the ammonia eating bacteria are present and doing their job. After you test your water each day you will add more ammonia to feed the ammonia eaters and beginn testing for nitrites. During this time you may notice your water taking a milky cast. don't worry about that - it is a good thing. What you are seeing is a bacterial bloom. It means the little critters are breeding and that's whay you want.

Each day before adding ammonia you should see 0 PPM of ammonia and some level of nitrites. Feed the ammonia eaters with the right amount of ammonia to get the level to 2 - 3 PPM.

Next day make sure ammonia is again at 0 and you have nitrites. Eventually you will see the level of nitrites start to go down and at that point you will begin to see nitrates going up. You've got the nitrite eaters doing their job.

Keep up the routine until nitrites are at 0 and ammonia are at 0 and nitrates are going up.

Congrats! You've got a cycled tank you can put fish in.

PH: You're gonna see a lot of stuff about PH. If you're doing freshwater fish and aren't interested in breeding them you can pretty much ignore it. The pH of your tank water is gonna pretty much depend on what it comes out of the tap at. Where I am in OKC it runs 7.5. Fish don't care what pH they're in (except for breeding) as long as it is stable (doesn't go up or down) much. ONe thing you don't want to do is fall into the trap of thinking my fish need 6.8 and trying to use pH adjusters to get there, buffers etc. You'll be chasing your tail forever and doing nothing but stressing out the fish.

TEMP: Pick a temp. Again kind'a depends on the fish but for most freshwater fish (except goldfish) anything between 72F and 78F is fine. Again just make sure you keep the temp stable.

FOOD: A pinch a day or even eveyother day is plenty! Most folks new to aquariums tend to overfeed. Mucks up the tank and it doesn't help the fish - heck they can even get bloated and/or constipated from over feeding.

PLANTS: Recommended but not necessary. Plants can help reduce nitrates but won't eliminate them (the only way short of using expensive cartridge type and sump filters to get rid of nitrates is to do weekly partial water changes - not that big of a deal once you get used to it).

Lots of good forums for the aquarists out there. Find one you like and ask questions. You'll find that the hardcore aquarists think of their fish like the rest of us think of our dogs or cats. It can get pretty wierd sometimes especially when a 10 cent fish dies and the owner has a freaking meltdown over it. Just Don't do what I did and comment that "it's just a freakin' fish. It didn't even know it was alive for kriste's sake".

 

[Danny Tanner]

There ya go. Like I said, I'm no professional aquarist and I was recalling things I learned 2 years ago when I setup my first tank.

Thanks for the clarification!

 

[Werewolf]

There ya go. Like I said, I'm no professional aquarist and I was recalling things I learned 2 years ago when I setup my first tank.

Thanks for the clarification!

No thanks necessary. That cichlid tank of yours is beautiful. You know what you are doing.