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hey everyone, well today i went and bought myself a brand new 180 litre (48 u.s. gallons, [or 40 uk gallons]) tank which is made by jewel, seems a nice unit with a nice filter. anyway!. i have had my current 2 ft aquarium 7 years now, which im going to keep aswell.
i know i need to add some dirty water or aught to to speed things up, only thing is i have recently had a white spot problem in my smaller tank, so how should i go about that.
should i go and get some from my local pet shop and if so ... how much should i add?.
then how long should i wait before adding the first fish?...
also i wanted to add sand as i think it looks nicer than gravel, but the dealer said not too as it will destroy the impeller in the filter .. is this accurate?.
also the fish im thinking to add are:
* 2 guarmis
* 8 neons
* 1 angel
* 4 clown loach
* 1 pleco
* 3 guppy
* 2 silver sharks
is this too much do you think?
any help would be much appreiciated!




[span class="edited"][Edited by tomsparsons 2004-09-05 18:26][/span]


[span class="edited"][Edited by tomsparsons 2004-09-05 18:27][/span]

[span class="edited"][Edited by tomsparsons 2004-09-05 18:43][/span]

Even adding water from an established tank, you're going to need to cycle the tank. There are two ways to go, fishless or with a few hardy fish.

Fishless involves adding houshold ammonia (non-detergent, unscented)to feed the bacteria until the get established. During Cycling you have no fish in the tank. At the end of it you stock your tank completely.

When cycling with a few fish, it's the fish that provide the ammonia. Once cycling is finished you stock your tank a few fish at a time so the bacteria colony can catch up.

So the first thing is to decide how you want to cycle. Can you go 3-4 weeeks looking at the tank with no fish in it? (you can speed it up some with bacteria from established tanks) Or do you want a few fish right away?

If I was starting a new tank from scratch, I'd go fishless but I'd rather someone who has actually done it explained the details to you.

I wouldn't use stuff from a tank you've been treating.

Sand works fine. If you're worried about the impeller you can put a sponge over the intake but I don't. I do however have my intake 4-5 inches above the sand and I shut the filter off if I'm cleaning or doing anything to stir it up.

Have fun, Mike

* 2 guarmis
* 8 neons
* 1 angel
* 4 clown loach
* 1 pleco
* 3 guppy
* 2 silver sharks

That won't quite work. Clown loaches get too big, as do the common pleco and silver sharks. They all need at least a 125 gallon. However, you could get a bristlenose pleco. They are smaller and better at eating algae anyways. You might have problems with the angel eating the neons if the angel is big enough and the neons are small enough. How about:

2 gouramis (dwarf or pearl)
1 angel
1 bristlenose (b/n) pleco
3 guppies (1 male, 2 females)
6 smaller loaches (yoyo, sidthimunki, etc.)
10 neons

As for adding water from another tank to the new one, I wouldn't do it. It won't give you much bacteria, if any, so it is pretty pointless. It just risks giving you ich in this new tank.

---

They shade the glow of it with their mossy-misty costumes,
They wear masks of silk, porcelain, brass, and silver,
So as not to mislead with their own, ordinary faces.

Hi there

I too have a couple of Juwel tanks and I think the reason why the dealer didn't recommend sand is that the filter and heater is housed in a box on a corner of the tank. Saying that, I think you will be fine. My smaller Juwel has sand in it and as long as the height doesn't go over the grill at the bottom of the housing, then you should be fine. This means making sure that your sand level doesn't go over the bottom of the filter housing.

Depending on the type of fish you plan to keep, you might have to upgrade the filter pump as although it's okay, it's best to get s stronger one. I think it will be okay for a general planted community tank but you would be better off upgrading it due to the plec. I have to agree with most of the comments here although I would assume that the clown loach and silver sharks will be small when you get them. Bear in mind that they will outgrow your tank and will have to be transferred to a bigger tank - eventually.