Here is the techy explanation:

New tank syndrome is a phrase used to describe a number of imbalances in the water and is a bit vague I find. What we have here is before any fish have been put into the water. Basically all the water was straight from the tap and contained chloramine. I added conditioner (sodium thiosulphate) which breaks the chloramine's chlorine/ammonia bond. The result is harmless chlorine ions in the water (in the form of salt) and a small amount of ammonia. Because the water no longer contains chloramine it is no longer sterile, and hence bacteria are free to "bloom" in suspension. They feed on organic nutrients naturally occurring in the water, sand and drift wood in there, together with any chemicals left over from glues, oils etc in the tank. The result can be cloudy water even BEFORE the first fish is put in! This bacteria is known as heterotrophic bacteria and is not the same bacteria repsonsible for nitrification (which multiplies at a much slower rate and never "blooms").

Heterotrophic bacteria is nearly always responsible for whitish cloudy water and happens in established tanks aswell, normally after water changes or if there is significant organic matter available, such as from over feeding.

Because of the nature of the bloom I am better off letting it burn out, which it will do when the bacteria have consumed whatever it is they feeding on and it should disappear.

When it clears I will add the fish, monitoring ammonia carefully after a few days. Only when there is a trace of ammonia can I seed the new filter with media from the old filter. If I do it too early the bacteria will die through lack of available ammonia. The nitrifying bacteria should then begin multiplying in the new filter and the tank cycling process begins.

The only thing I have done so far is added some activated carbon to the filter to try and remove any traces of organics from the water and hence speed up the rate at which the heterotrophic bacteria runs out of nutrients. It is starting to clear now, albeit slowly. Interestingly this is the first time I have had a bacterial bloom that has lasted this long immediately after dechlorination. I assume there must be a fairly high organic content in the new sand and wood and due to the volume of water involved, the usually 2-3 day clear-up is obviously extended! There is probably a bit of dust in there from the new sand too. No matter how well you clean it, some always gets through!

I am still aiming to add the fish this weekend, unless anything goes wrong in the meantime. I'll have to go out and buy a few new nets beforehand since they always seem to be able to trash at least one net whenever I move the little gits!!

 

[QUOTE]If you've got a good set-up QUOTE]


Thats the bit I'm missing , I am in discussions at the moment , hoping to have something earlyish next year.

Not sure what fish to go for yet, I like the look of a tank full of nice plants and bogwood, and this tends to steer you towards certain species I suppose.

Out of interest, how much are discus these days? In a good tank they can look amazing.

 

The problem with products that claim to clear cloudy water is that they are usually flocculents that cause particles to stick together into larger particles and fall out of suspension. They are made out of a polymer which behaves almost like a glue and whilst it can reduce the immediate cloudiness it rarely fixes the underlying cause of the cloudiness.

Bacterial blooms are not usually dangerous in themselves, the danger usually comes from the depletion in oxygen in the water which the fast multiplying bacteria uses up as it thrives.

 

mj, your looking at £20-30 for a medium sized one. Pricing is difficult as it depends on the type/strain of Discus. I beleive the strain of pidgeon bloods are the most expensive and fully grown ones in excellent condition can fetch big money.

 

ajm, whenever I have setup a new tank I have transfered some of another tanks water to the new one and some of the media also. I use the same brand of filters in my tanks at home and the office tank at work and this process has always worked for me. I think your problem has occured as you pointed out, that you have a HUGE volume of water which is possibly why you have experienced the bloom. Sounds like you've got it under control but if I were in your shoes I would transfer some/a little of the old media to help things along. If you have another tank running try transfering the water you take out when doing a water change. Obviously this method is only possible if you are having no problems at all in your other tank/tanks.

 

I know what you mean, but the aim of transferring water and filter media is to establish a culture of nitrifying bacteria in the new tank. I plan to do that, but not until there is a biological load that can sustain that bacteria. Nitrifiers feed on ammonia (and then nitrites) which will not be available until the fish have been in the water pooping away for a while! At the moment there is no fish in the tank at all. If I put old filter media in the new filter now the nitrifiers will die because there is nothing in the water yet to sustain them.

The cloudiness I have is caused by a different type of bacteria entirely and is feeding on organic compounds in the water. The only cure is to remove the source of the nutrients or let the bacteria eat the lot and then die!

It is a very common misconception that cloudy water is caused by or is linked to the same bacteria that is responsible for keeping your filters healthy (the nitrifiers). Nitrifiers can never be responsible for cloudy water because they cannot reproduce fast enough to cause a visible bloom.

I think nitrifiers have a reproductive time of somewhere between 10-20 hours, whereas heterotrophic bacteria reproduces every 20 mins, which is why it is able to multiply fast enough to be visible in the water column.

A bit geeky I know, but you gotta love bacteria!

 

especially freindly bacteria

Would the polywhool help in your situation ajm?

How about dropping a few mollies in there to get the system started. They are robust fish and good for cycling new setups? Then when its time to transfer your little critters they'll have a nice surprise when they get in there new home in the form of some tasty snacks

 

interesting that you add tap water. I'm just getting into marine fish, got a 100g system that has been up and running since mid November. People in the marine world tend to use water that has been through a reverse osmosis unit to clean it all up, only issue is you get a trickle out of the unit so it took me about a week to fill the tank!!

 

Going the r/o route is a good one but can be expensive (although that doesnt seem to be an issue for ajm )

I always use a de-chlorinator / de-chloramine additive to any new water being introduced to my tanks. I was surprised to read ajm had filled his tank up with untreated water but it sounds like he's got a plan so there must have been a reason for it i guess.

By the way, any news ajm?

 

Which RO unit do you use?

Yeah marine tanks are much more sensitive to phosphates, silicates etc that are present in tap water, hence the use of RO water which is then reconsituted with salts to achieve the correct water conditions. That's not to say that tropical fish can't benefit from using RO water too, unless the species in question favours hard water of course.

The other thing is that water changes tend to be much smaller in marine tanks. Shoals of piranha eat like food is going out of fashion and the only way to keep up with the nitrate produced is regular, relatively large water changes. If I could get the plumbing to the tank I would definately consider a RO unit to supply a drip feed to the tank and to replace evaporated water.

Got any pics of your setup? I have no direct experience in marine setups but it's something I'd also like to try at some point.

 

I use a 50gall per day, 3 stage unit from this chap, he's very helpful and responsive to email, replied to my email about setting up my auto switch off unit at 8pm on night!! He does special offers every now and again.

http://www.ro-man.co.uk/

Pics, yup, loads!

Most of them in this thread:

http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/i...howtopic=30760

cheers,

greg

 

Latest news is that the water is looking pretty clear now! I have added some large pieces of bogwood and all being well I will move the fish in this weekend. I'll try and get some pics up over the weekend.


The sump does already have a sheet of wool in the drip tray to take out particles before the water passes over the bioballs.


When I set up my 5 ft tank I used goldfish to cycle the tank. The trick is to use enough fish to cycle the tank that produce more bioload than the fish that will be moved in. Then when the final fish are moved in there is excess bacteria to handle the load.

When I did that I only had 5 fish and they were realtively small and I had room in my pond to pmove the goldfish into afterwards. In order to adequately cycle this tank for 9 decent size piranha I'd need literally LOADS of goldfish or mollys!

I filled the tank up with untreated water because its brand new, I was testing the flow rates and heating and there is no livestock in the tank. Once it was set up I added the water treatment to the water. If it was established with livestock in there then I'd treat it before adding, obviously !

 

oh and I use crabs, snails etc to keep the detrius down and nitrates/nitrites down, 1 per gallon they reckon.

People seem to do 10% water changes monthly in marine world.

cheers,

greg

 

Looking good! Its great watching the rocks slowly coming to life!

 

With the bioload in my 5ft tank with 8 piranha I am doing up to 50% (200 litres) water change per week!

 

ajm,

All sounds good - looking forward to some pics. BTW I take my hat off to you, I knew there was a science to this stuff, but sounds like you're at professor level

Seriously despite it not being my bag so as to speak it's a very interesting read - keep us updated.

Regards,

tiggers.

 

Cheers tiggers

Understanding the science behind it certainly helps, but there is also experience, huge amounts of trial and error and good old fashioned luck when dealing with nature. I don't have much experience compared to a lot of seasoned fish keepers, I'm not a particularly lucky person (well I don't think so anyway ) so getting to grips with the biological and chemical aspects is my way of making up for the other shortcomings!

My tanks probably suffer the same clusterf*cks as everyone elses from time to time, that's nature's way of punishing those who rest on their laurels!

With regard to this project, it may look like I know what I'm doing but this whole thing is still a learning curve for me. Sure I have a masterplan to follow, but I am filling in the detail as I go along!

 

Well ajm, you certainly make it sound like you know what you're doing to a layman like myself and that's half the battle isn't it? Like all things in life I find you can never know too much not to learn something new - stood me in good stead so far.

Regards,

tiggers.

 

Well..... they are in!!!!

I moved the smaller reds and caribe in first because I was worried that the big tern would trash my net..... he didn't disappoint! Check out the perfect bite hole!!! He actually had a chunk of net left in his mouth that I had to coax him to spit out!!



They are happily swimming around the tank at the moment. Apologies for the cap quality of the pics.... its hard to get a good shot in daylight as there is too much reflection.




I transferred about 200 litres of water from the other tank and a load of biomedia. The original plan was to wait with the biomedia until there was some ammonia present to avoid too much bacteria dieing off, but with nothing in the other tank the bacteria would die off anyway, so I moved it now.

Now the fun starts.... it will probably take at least 6 weeks to cycle properly, so I will have to monitor the water parameters closely. I expect the water will cloud again for a while too.

Anyway... so far so good!

 

Looking good mate

 

did you fish them out of that washing machine?

 

Is this the first time the new guy has been in with the rest of them ?
Looks really good, get some pics taken at night tho.
Got my plants yesterday:

 

stop posting pictures of bloody fish tanks

I want one

ajm, any thoughts yet?

 

My two...

Jewel Rio240


Trigon190 (Before fish)


Cheers
Lee

 

Me like where from Lee and how much for the basic set-up?

John.

 

Have a look at http://www.juwel-aquarium.com/uk/index.html and search for your local stockist.

For the Trigon 190, stand, sand, plants, rocks, wood, etc. You are not going to have much change out of £400, unless you can get a good deal, and then you have to buy the fish.
Juwel are good mainstream tanks suitable for run of the mill cold water and tropical fish. If you want something more specialised or marine then I would look elsewhere.
I used to have a superb minireef setup that was a lot cheaper to run and less maintenance than the Juwels but the firm went bust and the media and fluids were nolonger available.
If you wanted to go down the trigon route but wanted a more advanced setup you could always buy an external pump and filter setup.

By the way......
ajm, the new tank looks awsome.

Cheers
Lee

 

lee, looks good, and PG's, ajm's looks so-so at the moment more function over form, should look mint when things have cleared up. We need some footage of live feeding time

I want to fill this hole:




its 18" deep, 46" high,44" wide, and candles, stones & coal buckets just don't do it for me .

how about....

the bottom of the opening framed out to say 12-15" high - would this accomodate filters & electrics?

the tank would be full height, width & depth to the low point of the arch less say 1-2", would have to leave room at the back or side for cables for the heater & lighting - or could the heater be an in-line jobbie underneath?

can you make pipe entries to the base of a tank with the right fittings?

how thick would the glass need to be for a tank 3ft deep?

 

Yes, this is the first time "Lecter " the big tern has seen another fish since he murdered his tank mate a few months ago in his previous owner's tank!

Fantastic looking tank btw! The plants look great!

I would love to plant mine like that but there is no way I could keep up with the maintenance. My 5ft tank was quite heavily planted until the red bellies reached sexual maturity, then they started trimming all the plants to make a nest every time they came into season (every few weeks). After a couple of months I had been forced to remove all the plants (or stalks as they were by then!)

I'm going to have to go for the minimalist look unfortunately.

 

I'm not sure 15" will be enough underneath to accomodate a decent filter. You can get heater/filter combos which would do the job nicely. Eheim make a very good one: Eheim Thermo

Looks like the units are about 40cm high.... so they might fit at a push!

If the tank was 36" x 44" x 18" it will be about 124 US Gallons which is actually a fairly sizeable tank!

However I reckon you should leave about a foot at the top if at all possible because you will need to get into the tank for maintenance. For 3ft depth they would probably use 12-16mm glass, but don't worry too much about that, the tank manufacturer will know what thickness to use from your dimensions.

 

remember I have an arch, could I work the 12" fom the top of the arch?

I would like a wall of fish,nearer the top if possible

If the Lintel has to go, then it has to go

will I need building regs?

what is the thickness for an 8 ft deep tank @ STP ?.