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Hey up!

Bought my 1st tropical freshwater 10 (UK) gallon aquarium last week complete with heater, filter air pump and flurescent light.

I have added the water treatment and a few plants. (which seem to be doing ok)

I have done loads of research into it and will be starting the fishless cycle when i return from vacation. ( how long should tis take in a 10 gallon tank?)

Ideally I would like some colourful varieties of fish such as a school of neon or cardinal tetras (6) and a few guppies (MFF) would these be ok in a 10 gallon tank together? (i know about the 1" per gallon rule)

If anyone has any other suggestions for fish i would like to know? (so long as they are colourful)

If anyone has any tips/ advice i would love to hear from them.

Hi and welcome to FP!

You seem to have done a good deal of research before starting up your tank, and good job on that. As for the cycle, if you're going to have live plants in your tank you may not need to technically cycle the tank at all, in the traditional sense. If you add some more plants - what kind do you already have? - they will use any ammonia created as food, so you won't have an ammonia spike.

In other words, when you do a fishless cycle with enough plants in the tank, if you add any ammonia it may not register on your test kit because the plants will have used it all. Planted tanks are definetely the way to go, especially with the fish you'd like. I'd suggest cardinal tetras over neons - they're a little bit bigger and seem to be hardier and less disease e. A few guppies should also be fine, though I don't have much experience with them.

Good luck, and feel free to ask any questions you have!

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Back in the saddle!

I would watch the Male/female guppy combo, unless you plan on getting another, larger, tank for the fry that will come. Harlequin Rasboras are some good looking fish, especially in a planted tank environment. Have you thought of putting in a small piece of Driftwood? You could go with some White Cloud Minnow as well. A small school of mest Tetra varieties would do well, just try to keep the same type in that small of a tank. You could also try adding some Ghost Shrimp to help with cleanup.

What plants do you have, what type of substrate, what are your Watts per gallon, and what kind of filtration do you have (biowheel)?

-Keith

Oh yes, and welcome!

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Won't the plants use the NitrAte at the end of the Nitrogen Cycle?

-Keith

http://www.ozarkgames.com

Yes they will, they'll use whatever source of N is available to them, but that includes ammonia. I'm not saying the tank won't cycle, I'm saying it'll cycle in a way that's less intense than a straight up fishless cycle, because any fast growing stem plants will suck up ammonia before it can spike.

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_newtank.htm

Last edited by NowherMan6 at 18-Oct-2005 13:42

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Back in the saddle!

After you cycle the tank, i would only add a school of Cardinals & they will look very nice with the Plants.


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Don't do a fishless cycle with plants in them. Adding pure ammonia will cause algae to thrive and may lead to an algae bloom (green water). If you've only got a few plants and if they're the hardy kinds, I would put them in a separate container while you do your fishless cycle (should take anywhere from 3-6 weeks IME). A better way is to add a lot more plants (just cheap, fast growing ones will do) to your current tank and get a light timer (set it to 10 hours a day) before you go on vacation. When you come back, add a couple of hardy fish (like your guppy). If they do ok, then add the other fish gradually (a few per week). Cardinals look awesome in a planted tank.

-P

couldn't i simply add more ammonia when doing the fishless cycle if the plants are absorbing it as food?

I'm not entirely sure what plants i have-
I know one is a java fern
I have two with rather large variagates leaves (these were sold as cuttings)
and one bushy plant that was reccomended as it is a very good areator.

Sorry i can give any more info on the plants.

also the substrate is no2 gravel (not the finest but not very corse either)

The flurescent bulb, filter, heater and air pump were supplied with the tank. (I will check the make when i an next at home)

I can leave the airpump/ and lights on a timer no problem when i go away.

couldn't i simply add more ammonia when doing the fishless cycle if the plants are absorbing it as food?

The thing is, the amount of ammonia you're adding for fishless cycle is way too much for the plants to consume, especially if the tank is not heavily planted (read: wall-to-wall plants). Algae thrives on excess nutrients in the water, so it's basically a recipe for algae bloom (aka green water). Plus as nowherMan6 said, it is very hard to monitor fishless cycle in a planted tank because the plants consume all the the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. So you won't see the spikes that you normally would in a true fishless cycle and it's very hard to judge when the cycle actually finishes.

I made a mistake once of trying a fishless cycle in a new heavily planted tank, and although I was very lucky not to get any algae bloom (because I only added a few drops of ammonia compared to what I did previously with true fishless cycles, which was trying to get to 2ppm ammonia), I couldn't determine when the cycle process finished because I never got any nitrite spike. So I finally gave up after a few weeks of this and added a couple of algae eaters, then added the rest of the fish very slowly.

The link that nowherMan6 gave is a good article on starting a planted tank without having to cycle per se. Just do steps 1-4 before you go on vacation, and you can do the rest afterwards. How much light (total wattage) do you have? CO2 is not absolutely necessary if it's a low light tank. HTH!

Last edited by upikabu at 20-Oct-2005 16:48

-P

my tank is an Aqua-40 Silver 40litre tank
the light is a double colour 11watt pl light (blue/white)
How do i work out the watts per gallon? dont have a clue about k level

the filter is an Aquaflow 1 internal filter (6 watt)
the heater is a combi-heater 50 watt

thats about as much info as i can get at the mo

40L = less than 10 gallons. So you have about 1 watt per gallon (wpg), which would be considered low light and hence CO2 addition is not necessary. You can use Flourish Excel (CO2 substitute) if you want additional growth. But if you stick with low-light, slow-growing plants like Java Fern, Java Moss, Anubias, and Crypts, you don't really need that.

-P

masta_2009,

About your light: you say it is 11W and white plus blue? In that case the blue won’t do much for you as it is more useful for the saltwater setup (called actinic). That means that your wpg is actually only ½ the 11Watts divided by 10 Gallons = 0.55 WPG. This is very low and you might get away with growing very low light plants (because your tank is not very deep), but that’s about it. In any case, it would be better to get a bulb that is all white (I prefer a temperature of 6,700K for plant growth) or a stronger light at all.

Your plants need 3 things to grow (besides water) Nutrients, Light, and Carbon. Adding an extra dose of any one of these is useless (and actually will increase the chance of algae) unless the other two are increased as well.

Hope this helps,

Ingo

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