Getting ready to jump in

[tbrown7552]

What are you starting off of a friends?

To get your fish in the water safe fill your tank which you did let it run a day with some aeration.
Next put a fish or fishes in the tank then get your buddies filter and put it on your tank along with your own filter. Let his bacteria seed into your filter.

Very important to not put friends filter on the tank BEFORE fish are in tank.

10 gallons of his tank water which he vacuumed some of his substrate and he shook out on of his filters in it.

The tank ran on ~110 gallons of tap water with prime for 2 days before i poured the water from his in. The pleco went in right after i dumped the 10 gallons into my tank. Later that night i added 10 more gallons of tap water with prime. Then the next day i did a 30 gallon water change.

 

[CANAMONSTER]

Water won't do nothing, bacteria needs a substrate. Dirty filter wool is OK. I just moved. I set up my 180g with pure tap and prime. Ran a new filter in it for a week. Two days ago I put my 6 bass in it with same filter from the tank they were in. Zero issues they are perfect. Also I love running sponge filters for this reason. Least 1 in a tank.

It's always better to have something with higher amount of bacteria to bioload then higher bioload to bacteria as this is where I have run in to problems with bacteria can't keep up with the bioload when seeding new tank

 

[tbrown7552]

Water won't do nothing, bacteria needs a substrate. Dirty filter wool is OK. I just moved. I set up my 180g with pure tap and prime. Ran a new filter in it for a week. Two days ago I put my 6 bass in it with same filter from the tank they were in. Zero issues they are perfect. Also I love running sponge filters for this reason. Least 1 in a tank.

It's always better to have something with higher amount of bacteria to bioload then higher bioload to bacteria as this is where I have run in to problems with bacteria can't keep up with the bioload when seeding new tank

Wasn't able to use his media. I asked him if it would be better just to take a fx5 loaded with media and just let it run on his tank for a coupke weeks. Ut he said what we did should be enough. He's not able to take a filter down. I was told just to wait it out at this point. Water parameters are still the same. Pleco seems to have ate a algae disk last night and is starting to color up. PH is creeping up some and the tank is starting to stink which might be from the pleco food? Almost want to do a 10 gallon water change tonight to help with odor and ph. I'm realizing I managed to do just about everything the wrong way. I did find out which pleco he is though. L235 Flying Cat. Hope he hangs in there. Putting jacks udder the floor this weekend so I can add substrate and fill it up.

 

[tbrown7552]

Sorry for the lack of updates. I figured out that the carbon i was using is weak. So i went to the LFS and picked up some goodies. I also started filling with rock. To be honest i think BB might have started in the tank but i think its very little and with just a pleco it might die off. So im going to use DR Tims One and Only to help with this. I also picked up some cheap carbon and loaded the second Fluval 404 i have with the cheap carbon and biomax and went ahead and brought it online leaving the initial 404 with the weak carbon. So far i havent had any issues with algae blooms with the window at all though im sure it will happen and ill address it when it does. I picked up some Chemi Pure regular for after the tank cycles to go in the initial 404 to replace the weak carbon. I will cycle out the carbon and upgrade to Chemi Pure Elite or Blue in a staggard rotation once the carbon fades out. I had some issues with the vegi tabs the LFS gave me for the pleco so they gave me some different stuff to try and he seems to like it more as he is eating and more active especially as soon as the lights go out. Here is the pics

Ray

Some Arowana goodness

And finally CICHLA!!!!

 

[PanAntV]

Oh man. Where do you live? Those are some great prices!!

 

[tbrown7552]

Oh man. Where do you live? Those are some great prices!!

Louisville, KY. The bass are 9.99. They are just labeled as Peacock Bass though. Here is the tank today.

 

[Ping]

Looking good! Kudos to you for taking the time to get set up properly. I see some very happy pbass in your future! I don't think the carbon is going to do much for establishing your BB though. Also saw you added new biomax to the filter? Did you replace the old stuff that was in when you dumped your friends water in it? That's where the BB grows so if you tossed that, you also tossed whatever BB you had in that filter. I would say now that you have your filters set up the way you want, get your friend or lfs to squeeze out one of their sponges into a ziplock baggy for you and add it straight into the water. That should seed your filters hopefully at least enough to handle the bio load from the one little pleco. Keep an eye on your water parameters for a couple weeks and if everything tests fine you can slowly start adding fish. The BB will only colonize relevant to the amount that you're feeding it and since it's too late to do a fishless cycle you'll just have to work a bit more slowly, gradually adding to the bioload while allowing the BB to catch up. Good luck!

 

[tbrown7552]

Looking good! Kudos to you for taking the time to get set up properly. I see some very happy pbass in your future! I don't think the carbon is going to do much for establishing your BB though. Also saw you added new biomax to the filter? Did you replace the old stuff that was in when you dumped your friends water in it? That's where the BB grows so if you tossed that, you also tossed whatever BB you had in that filter. I would say now that you have your filters set up the way you want, get your friend or lfs to squeeze out one of their sponges into a ziplock baggy for you and add it straight into the water. That should seed your filters hopefully at least enough to handle the bio load from the one little pleco. Keep an eye on your water parameters for a couple weeks and if everything tests fine you can slowly start adding fish. The BB will only colonize relevant to the amount that you're feeding it and since it's too late to do a fishless cycle you'll just have to work a bit more slowly, gradually adding to the bioload while allowing the BB to catch up. Good luck!

i filled the tank halfway and just put one fluval 404 on it. I took the 10 year old used carbon that came with the filter and the biomax that came with it in that filter. I havent touched that one since. When i dumped the water from a buddys tank in it had just that same filter. When i filled the tank up i added the second fluval 404 with new biomax and new carbon to keep it staggered for maintenance. The initial filter that had my buddies tank water ran through it hasnt changed. I hope i have some happy bass. Im just trying to do what i can to make sure everything goes smoothly. I dont want to kill them and want as little issues as possible.

I bought enough of that DR Tims One and Only to do 240 gallons. Your supposed to dump that in the put the fish in right after. That should take care of the BB.

 

[tbrown7552]

Did a water test last night and the nitrate is finally dropping. I tested it twice to make sure. The pleco was really active last night. Left the lights off today for him.

 

[tbrown7552]

Nitrate down to 20. Went ahead and topped it off for now. Was about 20 gallon. I had taken one of my glass canopies off to move the powerheads up. When i was going to put it back on the glass came out of the hinge and smacked the side of the tank putting 2 small scratch like gouges in the tank. Im going to get some bloodworms for the pleco this weekend. Also going to get some fast swimmers like rainbow tetras or Austrailian rainbowfish to put in there so its a social environment for the bass. Will help prevent them from being shy and even be fun to watch. Im sure eventually they will be eaten but thats fine. Might even get bass this weekend.