Setting up your First
Tank
Now comes the bit where you will need the most patience and can’t rush
things or everything can go very wrong indeed.
Add your substrate and décor to your tank. If you have chosen to grow
live plants, add these as well. Take them of the little plastic pots
they come in and get rid of all the rockwool. Remove all the dead roots.
It also helps to cut the roots back with a pair of sharp scissors. If
you are really out for a densely planted tank you can add some
fertilizer substrate underneath your chosen substrate. Sera, Tetra, JBK,
etc. all offer these fertilizers. You can also add a CO2 system to even
further enhance your plant growth.
Neither a CO2 system nor fertilizer are strictly necessary with most of
the low maintenance plants.
Now add water. Add one of the commercially available dechlorinators to
tap water. If you want to safe money, buy the dechlorinators that are
sold for use in garden ponds. Essentially the same stuff as the ones
sold for aquarium use but they are a lot cheaper and will dechlorinate
more water. Another way to dechlorinate your water is to put in
foodsafe containers and leave it stand for a day or two, ideally
aerating it as well. The harmful chlorine will dissipate with time. If
your local water authority use chloramines
you
would
need
a
dechlorinator which removes
these..
It is important to get rid off any chlorine in aquarium water since
chlorine will kill filter bacteria and can irritate gills.
Set your thermostat to about 24 degrees C.
Your tank will now need to go through the nitrogen cycle before it is
fishsafe. If you have read the Aquarium
Chemistry article on this site, you will know that fish and rotting
food produce ammonia which is highly toxic fish. Bacteria break ammonia
down to nitrite which is still quite toxic. This will further be broken
down to nitrate which is not really toxic but will still need to be kept
to a minimum since it will enhance algae growth and stunt fish growth
neither of which is desirable.
So how do you cycle your tank?
The easiest way to do this is by introducing a filter sponge from
an already cycled tank. This will introduce the bacteria required to
break down ammonia and you will be able to introduce some fish straight
away and slowly keep adding stock. Somebody in the club will be able to
give you a filter sponge.
You will have to keep an eye on your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate
readings for a couple of weeks.
The other way and the one where you really have to be patient, is to
cycle from scratch and cannot really be rushed. There are various ways
of doing this. Pure ammonia and rotting shrimp have been suggested.
However, the easiest way to cycle a tank from scratch is to add as much
flake food as you will eventually feed your fish to your tank twice a
day. This will help establish the bacteria in your filter that will
break down ammonia and nitrites. You will have to test for ammonia on a
daily basis. What you will see is that ammonia will initially increase
and then fall to 0. Now perform a 50% water change with (and this is
crucial) dechlorinated water. Keep adding food as before but now test
for nitrite. You will see the same spike and falling to 0 of nitrite as
you did with ammonia before. Perform another 50% water change with
dechlorinated water. Keep adding food and test for both ammonia and
nitrite after a week. If they are both still at 0 you are ready to add
your first fish. Cycling a tank from scratch can take several weeks.
The growth of bacteria is temperature dependant. With every four degrees
Celsius their metabolic rate will roughly double provided there is
enough oxygen available. To speed up cycling time you can raise your
water temperature to 28 degrees and if you have no plants in your tank
you can even go as high as 32 degrees. Set your filter outlet so that
the outflow will disturb the water surface. This will help to dissolve
oxygen.