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I would follow the others advice and test the water you are using. How high is the ammonia? Plants help a lot with helping to keep your water stable, IMO. We have three partially planted tanks 150, 50, and 30) and our levels are pretty good.

Www.aquabid.com is nice for both plants, driftwood and fish. We have ordered a lot d plants and unique driftwood from there, as well as fancy pleco fish.

Do a google search for small Petstore in your area. You will be amazed to see who carries fish you never knew was there. I have about 5 awesome stores within an hour drive that I use regularly.
 
This is the only one I have left, my 35 gallon when I started it will fancy goldfish, it doesn't look great just yet because of the plants not totally grown in yet. So there is driftwood, plants, 5 gallon aqua clear, 1 blackmoor, 1 ranchu, 1 ryunkin, 10 jumbo shrimps.


Megan, some of those fancy pleco fish are amazing!!!!

 
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I love a nice planted tank. Sadly my royal pleco feels the plants are his dinner and likes to chew holes in my nice swords. My ludwiga, java, and Anubis are the only ones really doing well in the 150. The Severums also like the plants.

I need to grab pictures tonight. We are looking at buying a 265gal tank for the cichlids.
 
Which ciclyde are you planning on focusing.
Angelfish type the more destructive ones? If I got a ciclyde tank, the fish that I would be working around would be the Frontosa. When the water is at par for this fish, it is amazing.

In a 265 Gal, that will be amazing. It is funny that we always find the aquariums too small. It seems never enought. But the bigger the better the easier..

In my 150 gallon with the discuss, I don't know the name in english but it is a mini pleco maximum 4 inches long. They were excellent with plants. I had four and did the job.

With the fish I have right now, the Java, Anubis and lillypad are great. The pleasant thing with the Anubis and Lillypad, they give flowers. Which is neat.

Looking forward to seeing your tanks.
 
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Our cichlids are a huge mix honestly. I have Victorian hap, blue dolphins, yellow acei, yellow labs, a red sided peacock and a sunshine peacock and an ob. These guys are currently in the 50

We have rusty peacock, sulfur head peacock, an unknown fish I impulse bought (who is looking like a juvenile jack dempsey these days... Oops), one frontosa, a gold banded moori. Those guys will mostly all get put together in the 265. I'd like a few more fronts as they do better in groups.

We have a lot of misc fish as well that arent cichlids but coexist nicely in the set ups. They aren't overstocked right now, but the front will be large before long and my smaller guys will be lunch.

I am leaning towards the peacocks and Severums in the 150 and just the misc guys and a few fronts in the 265.
 
saphire said:
I don't know the name in english but it is a mini pleco maximum 4 inches long. They were excellent with plants. I had four and did the job.
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you are thinking of bristlenose plecos. i have a female and three of her babies (had a male bn pleco for a bit, but sold him when i downgraded my planted 55 to a 20 gallon long). they do a great job on munching away many types of algae, but dagnabit, they just won't touch the blackbrush algae on my mopani wood! lol.
 
If I am not mistaken, there is a fish or snail that takes care of the BBA. I hate the BBA's it is a wicked algae. I think it is the zebra snails. But I will check with my guys this afternoon and let you know.

Although that will not correct the source of the problem.
And it is a hard one to correct.
 
I believe the siamese Algea eaters will eat it too. Make sure they don't give you flying fox fish or Chinese Algea eaters... They won't touch it!
 
ChinnyMom said:
you are thinking of bristlenose plecos. i have a female and three of her babies (had a male bn pleco for a bit, but sold him when i downgraded my planted 55 to a 20 gallon long). they do a great job on munching away many types of algae, but dagnabit, they just won't touch the blackbrush algae on my mopani wood! lol.
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Otocinclus are another great mini-algae eater. Max size is around 2" and they travel in schools. Very active and voracious eater.
 
saphire said:
Yes Very True, that is the fish I was looking for Stackie... and they are cute too.
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otos aren't plecos though.

IMO the best thing to do with algae is to figure out why you have it in your tank, and then work on removing that 'why' variable. too much light, high phosphates, too many nutrients in the water for algae to feed off of...... all variables. i'd work on finding out the why in my tank's case and get the blackbrush algae off my wood, but i kind of like the 'furry' look of it, lol!
 
ChinnyMom said:
otos aren't plecos though.

IMO the best thing to do with algae is to figure out why you have it in your tank, and then work on removing that 'why' variable. too much light, high phosphates, too many nutrients in the water for algae to feed off of...... all variables. i'd work on finding out the why in my tank's case and get the blackbrush algae off my wood, but i kind of like the 'furry' look of it, lol!
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Yes, I know Otocinclus are not plecos, but they do a darn good job on Algae.
There is also the Zebra Snail that is excellent for Algae, just got to be careful with the fish you are putting them with.

The Pleco I was talking about is the Acitrus. Just couldn't remember the name.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=ancit...=1I7SUNA&redir_esc=&ei=TahYT-rjKsTr0gG0_s3XDw

http://www.aquabase.org/forum/view.php3?f=1&mid=573072

It could also be the lights that are not effecient anymore and need changing. There is one algae that you close it to all light so that it is in full darkness until there is no more.

Most of us keep the algae and put the fish to clean it up... but the BBA are a B====, not many fish will clean that up because of how hard it is.

BOOBOO, your water is good to go!
 
Booboo tap water is pretty good. What is the levels in tank?

Also are you using the liquid tests or the strips? Strips Can give false readings.

Still need to work on pictures. We have a candy cane striped pleco in the 30. He stays small and is adorable! I have my eyes on a stunning blue phantom pleco. I may get him if he is still there this pay!
 
yep, dose Prime when filling the tank up. no other additives or chemicals are needed. i'd do one cap full, because you have that 0.25 ppm ammonia in your tap water, and you want to ensure you are dosing enough Prime to convert it to ammonium. it's really hard to overdose on Prime, and i always use more than the bottle states. this way, if you decide to do a fish-in cycle, your tank is dechlorinated and safe for fish. just remember to do those daily water changes if you go with the fish-in cycle route!

looks like your ph is indeed 7.2 (pretty much perfect ph for just about any fish). if i remember right, you have the API test kit, and the normal ph card goes up to 7.6 while the high ph card starts at 7.4. so the lowest the high range test will read for ph is 7.4, and since the normal range one is not maxed out at 7.6 for your result, you know that your ph is lower than 7.6, and your test is showing 7.2. (hope that wasn't too confusing, lol)

as for the 5 ppm nitrates, that's nothing to worry about at all. nitrates are only 'not so good' for fish when they are above 60-80 ppm. high nitrates in a tank says that that tank is not maintained on a regular basis. 'old tank syndrome' is what us fish nerds call it.
 
I honestly cannot get my nitrates below 40 no matter how hard I try. We do weekly- biweekly water changes. Tanks are planted, sand substrate in two out of three. However our base water is high in nitrates too, and our tank is much lower then base water. Everything else is spot on. Nitrite, ammonia are .00. Ph is in range for the species we are keeping. For a while I freaked, but I watch the fish and no one is looking off or stressed so I've been content. I would kill to have my nitrate at 5!

I honestly haven't heard of prime. I'll have to look into that for future use, I never add anything to our wayer( we have a private well).
 
BooBoo*TheKiddo* said:
Using Liquid Test. :)

Tank is currently empty.

Should I put Prime in the water when I fill the tank back up? or a water conditioner?
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I would pick up some Stress Zyme as well (or any other cycling chemical). I always use it when starting up a new tank, and I used it in all my freshwater tanks as a bi-weekly supplement until I switched to saltwater. It has live bacterial cultures in it to give your tank a boost in the cycling process.
 
a majority of the 'bacteria in a bottle' products like stress zyme, cycle, etc are absolute bunk and actually don't work at all.

think about it this way: the beneficial bacteria in a fish tank need constant oxygen supply or else the bacteria die off. how does that bacteria in a bottle stay alive then?? also, most of those cycling chemicals require refrigeration in order to not end up as a completely inert and expensive bottle of stuff you add to your tank. most of the time there is no refrigeration during transport or at the store, so even by the time the product gets to the store it is no longer effective/working, and is you just wasting your money.

Stacie, i wouldn't bother using that stuff every couple weeks in your tank. as long as your tank isn't overstocked, your filtration is adequate for your bioload of fish, and your tank is mature, you will have an ample supply of beneficial bacteria in the filter media and in the substrate to handle the waste load of the fish.

i have never used any cycling product in my tanks, and never will.

Megan, how are you cleaning your filters? and are you gravel vacuuming your substrate on a regular basis? anywhere in the tank where mulm is allowed to accumulate will lend to a higher nitrate level, even if you do frequent water changes (even though you've changed water, that mulm is still hiding somewhere and continuing to break down from ammonia->nitrite->nitrate).
 
They always seemed to work for me. A marine biologist who mentored me swore by stress zyme. I don't even have freshwater tanks anymore so I don't need it. Thanks for the advice though.
 
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