# New Fish



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

Hi 

I have just put in four fish to start with into newly cycled tank, but they are just hanging about the top, they are not gasping for air, or darting about is this normal?

Lisa1


----------



## Danny (30 Aug 2012)

What fish are they and have you tested or had the water tested for Ammonia/Nitrite and what are the levels of those? What is the temperature of the tank?


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

They are gold white cloud mountain minnows, the ammonia was 0 so was nitrite 0 and the temp is 25/26 degrees


----------



## Danny (30 Aug 2012)

They will spend most of their time in the top 3rd of the tank but do better in cooler conditions about 20 degrees.


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

Ok thank you, l was just worried as they are at the top of the tank, huddled together they have not swam down at all and its been a couple of hours


----------



## nry (30 Aug 2012)

WCCM are certainly 'cold water' fish vs. tropical, might just be the temp?  Are you running CO2?


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

No I am not running Co2 just looking into it at the moment, but it is a newly cycled tank did it with nutrofin cycle and filter media squeezed in from an older tank, it no trouble to put them back into the older tank if its all wrong


----------



## dw1305 (30 Aug 2012)

Hi all,
Lisa it doesn't sound like they are very happy, as they are naturally fairly lively fish, I'd definitely move them back. You can't really accurately test for NH3 or NO2, but if you have any Prime or Amquel it would be worth adding some. These won't effect the cycle, what-ever you might read on other forums.  


> filter media squeezed in from an older tank


Did you swirl the new sponge in the squeezings from the old sponge? or did you just tip the old sponge water straight into the tank? If you just tipped it in, there may not be much bacteria in the filter yet.

If you have some quick growing plants (floaters would be ideal) I'd add them for a week or so, and after that you should definitely be good to go.

cheers Darrel


----------



## Nathaniel Whiteside (30 Aug 2012)

Lisa1 said:
			
		

> No I am not running Co2 just looking into it at the moment, but it is a newly cycled tank did it with nutrofin cycle and filter media squeezed in from an older tank, it no trouble to put them back into the older tank if its all wrong



Hey lisa, 
I would put them back in the old tank & wait about 3-4 weeks for tank to establish a good amount of beneficial bacteria, otherwise you risk killing your fish by ammonia poisoning possibly.

I would also have the tank at room temp. The potential problem here could be lack of oxygen, as the higher the temperature goes, the less oxygen the water can hold. So, possibly install an air pump too.

Cheers,


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

Thanks everyone, the fish are going to go back to old tank, 

I dipped the sponge in the water and gave it a good squeeze out, l have got an air pump but was told that it did not add oxygen so l now have filter part just out of the water so its causing a good old ripple and bubbles, 

Have got quite a lot of plants in it, about 25 and external filter, 
 but dont want my fish suffering 

Lisa


----------



## Nathaniel Whiteside (30 Aug 2012)

Good move lisa. 

1 point though, I know its hard to believe but airstones do oxygenate water


----------



## Iain Sutherland (30 Aug 2012)

hey lisa, i believe the bubbles dont add oxygen per say, it is the bubbles causing surface agitation that increases o2.


----------



## Nathaniel Whiteside (30 Aug 2012)

easerthegeezer said:
			
		

> hey lisa, i believe the bubbles dont add oxygen per say, it is the bubbles causing surface agitation that increases o2.



Hey iain,

I run an Eheim airpump with an Eheim air stone and you can create a really fine 'mist' with the bubbles, this definitely does the 'trick' for me.

I agree you are correct in saying surface agitation is a good point. But the bubbles must add something


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

Right am back now been chasing the fish round the tank, they can move when they want, anyway they are back home zapping around the tank, bossing everyone around, so much much happier, hope l have not done any damage to them.  So give it another 3/4 weeks add some prime and amquel can l get this from lfs. what does it do, if its not a daft question,  l know l have come out with some belta's already like air stones not putting in air, the name kinda gives it away really lol but l was honestly told it was for ornamental rather than practical, oh well lol.

So the minnows not really tropical so will keep them in this old tank then, and get some more, whats good for a new cycled tank as l was also told that tetras are not good for new tanks, cant remember if this was the same person who told me that air stones do help with oxygen lol 

Lisa


----------



## darren636 (30 Aug 2012)

.... take some of your filter media from the established tank and put it in your new tank filter, turn the temperature down to 20 degrees or so, do a 25 percent water change and test for ammonia and nitrite. your white clouds should then be much happier. or put them back into the old tank. remember, a tank will not cycle unless a food scource for the bacteria is present.  please do not use fish to cycle a tank. hope all goes well.


----------



## darren636 (30 Aug 2012)

Lisa1 said:
			
		

> So the minnows not really tropical so will keep them in this old tank then, and get some more, whats good for a new cycled tank as l was also told that tetras are not good for new tanks, cant remember if this was the same person who told me that air stones do help with oxygen lol
> 
> Lisa


how did you cycle the tank?


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

I used nutrofin cycle and squeezed out my existing filter into the tank, it was also a second hand tank and external filter, l have added fish food and just waited and kept doing tests of the water.


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

Fish are back in the other/old tank and fine now unless l have done long term damage but they were only in for two hours max


----------



## darren636 (30 Aug 2012)

ok, the filter on the empty tank will uncycle without fish or ammonia. hope  the wcmm are ok.


----------



## Nathaniel Whiteside (30 Aug 2012)

The best plan would be to take a trays worth of filter media from another tank and do it that way, then you could put them in straight away.


----------



## darren636 (30 Aug 2012)

i said that !


----------



## darren636 (30 Aug 2012)

have a look at this http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/ta ... albonubes/


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

I don't know anyone local to me that has any filter media, l am getting a bit confused as when l bought my old small tank l was told to set it up, wait two weeks and then put fish in, that is exactly what l did, l did not know about fish forums, fishless cycles etc. Also looking back what was l cycling just an empty tank? So l then went out and bought some fish and put them in, did water changes, and slowly added to the numbers luckily no fished died.  

Tank number two l have a bit more info but not that much l fill up the tank, l get filter all set up and add nutrofin cycle following the instructions, l have squeezed out my filter into the new tank, but its only a small filter, l have also added fish food to try and kick start things.  

I just dont know what else l should do, am l on the right track l dont want to harm my fish.


----------



## darren636 (30 Aug 2012)

i would put the nutafin cycle in the bin. basically , the fish produce waste, bacteria feed on the waste and reproduce inside your filter. using fish food will work, as it decomposes it will be food for bacteria.  how big is your other filter? how many fish are in the other tank?


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

My existing tank is a small 25L nano tank its a superfish sponge filter max liquid flow is 50- 200L/H ( l am going by what is written on the side of the filter, inside the filter is little balls of carbon l assume.

The new tank is a superfish pro 400 and does 1000L/H


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

Oh and l have got the four minnows and four ember tetras


----------



## darren636 (30 Aug 2012)

ok, you could take half of the stuff from the filter that is cycled (your old tank) and put it in the new filter, then use the new filter media to replace the amount you took out of the old filter... if you have half in each filter it should be ok- i have done it many times.


----------



## darren636 (30 Aug 2012)

if your filter has sponges, you can cut them in half or to any shape you need, if they have balls or ceramics just take half out and put into other filter. the bacteria will regrow soon enough- just make sure both filters are full up with media/ sponges etc. so that bacteria have something to grow on. embers are one of my favourites, do you have plants in the tanks?


----------



## Antipofish (30 Aug 2012)

easerthegeezer said:
			
		

> hey lisa, i believe the bubbles dont add oxygen per say, it is the bubbles causing surface agitation that increases o2.



Iain, do you not think that as the bubbles rise through the water column, that any of the O2 is absorbed into the water ? In the same way that CO2 is ?  :?


----------



## darren636 (30 Aug 2012)

Antipofish said:
			
		

> easerthegeezer said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


they usually travel so fast that any absorbsion is minimal.


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

Right ok, would I still wait for putting in any fish, and how many would l put in to start with?

If l just wait and carry on with the fish food, how long would it be before l am able to put fish in are we talking a few days or weeks? l am in no rush, l just not sure l am doing right thing, and want what's best for the fish at the end of it.

The filter has not had an ammonia spike yet it just went on to the nitrate so l thought it had done whatever as the cycle lotion said it was ok to put fish in from the start but l didn't l have left it a while?


----------



## darren636 (30 Aug 2012)

if you have all 8 fish in one tank, taking half of them  out means you can also take half the filter media too. remember, the bacteria need food, without fish in the tank the bacteria die, and the filter uncycles and you have to start again from zero.


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

Yes l love planted tanks and both have a fair amount of plants about 19 in the 25L tank and l would say about 35/40 in the other tank, thats one reason why l thought l might not see much ammonia in my tanks as l know plants like ammonia


----------



## Lisa1 (30 Aug 2012)

Yes they are lovely little fish, the minnows do go for them a bit, but they have a right go back to and they are a fraction of the size, under the blue led lights all you see is little gold darts flying about the tank they are lovely


----------



## dw1305 (1 Sep 2012)

Hi all,


> they usually travel so fast that any absorbsion is minimal.


 Yes, this is true. The bubbles need to be incredibly tiny and have a very long residence time in the water column before they directly add much oxygen, details here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_bubble_diffusers>. The main reasons for this are that air is only ~ 21% O2, and it isn't very soluble in water. 

This whole subject area is covered fairly fully in: "*Aeration and dissolved oxygen in the aquarium*" - <http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=829>.


> remember, the bacteria need food, without fish in the tank the bacteria die, and the filter uncycles and you have to start again from zero.


This is widely quoted on many web sites, but it isn't entirely true, particularly for planted tanks which are never cycled in the same way that an un-planted tank would be. Have a look at this article on PFK: "_Think you know filter bacteria? Dream on…_"
<http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=4780>

There is further discussion of this in these posts on UKAPS:
<http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=20856> and links <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=10572>, <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=18200&hilit=fishless+cycling+Darrel&start=10> & <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17590&p=180865>.

cheers Darrel


----------



## nry (1 Sep 2012)

Good read on PFK - back in the day, when my aquarium was in my bedroom, I used to turn the filter off at night due to the noise.  Until I read the above, I always thought that in hindsight I was killing off much of the filter bacteria each night - I never had any issues with fish health (or algae for that matter), so it seems that little was happening beyond, perhaps, a mild waste build up overnight which was quashed when the filter went back on each morning.


----------



## Antipofish (1 Sep 2012)

dw1305 said:
			
		

> Hi all,
> 
> 
> > they usually travel so fast that any absorbsion is minimal.
> ...



So an air curtain with fine bubbles, or better still, a wooden air stone as used in the older style marine protein skimmers (to produce fine O2 bubbles so that skimming works using the downdraught method) would therefore enable O2 to be at least partly dissolve in the water column then yes ?  If the bubbles are fine, and they remain in the water the same amount of time as the CO2 when that is on during the day, surely there would be absorption ?  I'm not talking one of those grotty blue airstones that pushes out bubbles the size of your fist    I mean something decent that makes bubbles small enough that can be blown around the tank the same way the CO2 is


----------



## Nathaniel Whiteside (1 Sep 2012)

My Eheim airstone diffuses bubbles into s fine mist that slowly blows around the tank, so imagine the absorption rate would be okay.


----------



## darren636 (1 Sep 2012)

i turn my filters off for feeding, sometimes i go off and do something and the filtres are  off a few hours, this is ok, but i would not risk more than a day or so like this. my house move at the weekend resulted in filter outage for just over 24 hours with no issues. but leaving a filter in a tank for a week or so with no fish etc- i would not do it.


----------



## nry (1 Sep 2012)

The PFK article suggests the filter can be off for weeks/months without much hassle...


----------



## darren636 (1 Sep 2012)

nry said:
			
		

> The PFK article suggests the filter can be off for weeks/months without much hassle...


indeed, goes against everything i have experienced since 92' though.  i suppose we 'could' do lots of things and get away with it.....


----------



## Antipofish (1 Sep 2012)

darren636 said:
			
		

> nry said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Question is, "Do we want to risk it !!??"

You COULD house a Polar Bear in a 15 foot cage.  But SHOULD you, or would you want to ?

I had a filter that was running until 3pm and left the water in it for transport.  Got home 6 hours later, emptied the water (which would definitely have been pretty nasty by then), hooked it up to the tank, added the fish in that I had already and all was well.  I reckon anything longer than 12 hours would be my ceiling though.


----------



## nry (1 Sep 2012)

Never said we should do it


----------



## dw1305 (2 Sep 2012)

Hi all,


> I'm not talking one of those grotty blue airstones that pushes out bubbles the size of your fist  I mean something decent that makes bubbles small enough that can be blown around the tank the same way the CO2 is


 Yes, you are right, “EPDM diffuser“ is the term you are looking for. If you can get the bubbles small enough and keep them in solution for long enough, the gas they contain will eventually be dissolved. I've never had an air filter in the tanks, but I usually run a venturi on the filter if I don't have a spray-bar that I can position above the water level. This is the "direct aeration" bit from the dissolved oxygen article:


> This means that an air pump needs to produce very fine bubbles (in the range of 10 – 200 microns diameter), that have a long “residence time” in the water column, if significant exchange of oxygen to the water is to occur. For maximum residence time and effect, unless you have a “wet and dry” or bio-wheel filter it would be advantageous if the filter intake picks up both the bubbles and oxygenated water, and feeds them straight into the filter where they will provide much needed oxygen to the nitrification process (when I wrote this I didn't realise that some-people didn't have a filter sponge on their intake and used the filter as a _de facto_ syphon).
> 
> *Diffusers and bubbles*
> Ceramic flat plate diffusers are one possibility for producing fine bubbles, and they are widely used in aquaculture, they have the disadvantages of being expensive, requiring high air pressure and clogging relatively easily. The other option is a membrane diffuser, which has the advantages of not clogging so easily and requiring lower air pressure. The technical term to look for is “EPDM“ (ethylene propylene diene terpolymer), and the membrane diffuser can be in the form of  a disc, tube or “air wall”. These kinds of diffuser are widely used in the waste water industry, and in aquaculture, where the BOD of the water may be several hundred times the waters natural oxygen holding capacity.





> i turn my filters off for feeding, sometimes i go off and do something and the filters are off a few hours, this is ok, but i would not risk more than a day or so like this.


I've accidentally done this as well, including a couple of times where I've turned an internal filter off for cleaning, and failed to turn it back on and only found out when I've come to clean it 7 days later, without any fatalities.
I'm a lot less cavalier these days, and I tend to have both an internal and an external on all the tanks that are bigger than nano. 

cheers Darrel


----------

