Help me clear up my 200

[cvermeulen]

OK, so this is a newly set up (about 1 week) 200gal tank. Not yet cycled... I tried to get some bio spira today, but the wait at the Can/US border was 90mins so I boned out.

Anyway... right now there are some snails, a little goldfish, a BGK, couple mollies, and 2 plecs in there (1 5" and 1 11"). I have 2 problems:

I've been doing daily 75 gallon or so water changes to keep everyone comfortable until I can get some bio spira in there, and to try to get rid of the cloudy water. It's improved dramatically from when I set it up (dusty gravel sucks), but there is still a heavy haze in the water. Is this the bacteria blooming that hasn't found a home in the gravel yet?

The other problem, is that damn 11" pleco generates some serious spaghetti poop, that hangs up in my plants, on the driftwood, and was even hung up on the poor goldfish a few minutes ago. If I'm gravel vaccing DAILY and tehre's still that much crap in the tank, what's it gonna be like after the cycle is done?? I dont want to have to gravel vac every damn day to keep it clean!

Filtration right now is a 75gal sump, with 100micron filter bags in there. I put 5 micron bags on there the other day and they plugged within hours... so I know some of the haze is solid contamination, maybe I just need to run a few more of those bags through to get the rest of the haze out. There are two pumps in the wet/dry, 800gph each, but with the 6 foot head hight above them, it's probably closer to 1000gph, half returning to the tank at the top to generate some agitation, and half returning under the gravel.

To deal with the pleco poo, I'm thinking of adding one of those koralia pumps to keep the water current moving faster in the tank, and maybe get the spaghetti strands up to the overflow. I'd also like to bump up the flow of my W/d a bit. 1600gph seemed like so much that I couldn't imagine it not being enough circulation. Can anyone suggest a pump (or preferably 2 pumps, that I can sub out for my crappy magnetic drive pund pumps? preferably something that has a 1" outlet, and can run submerged.I know the popular choice is the danner mag drive pump, but they are a bit on the pricey side and I hear they get noisy after a while in service.

 

[cvermeulen]

Oh yeah, and that plec isn't finished growing either, so when he's 18" long... wtf is my tank going to look like?

 

[DasArab]

I wouldnt get too upset, the size of tank, filtration and water changes will all be helping keep things under control. You might want to add a couple of powerheads nearer the mid water level to help move things on and help the poop find its way to the filter inlet. Hagens 802's are big powerful powerheads that will do the job nicely.

 

[JonF]

I could be wrong on this... so someone else chime in off I'm off base.... but couldn't the large daily water changes slow down the cycling process. I was under the impression that one should wait until amonia and nitrate have both taken a nose dive... then do a large 50%+ water change to lower the Nitrates.

 

[rallysman]

just find a bunch of already cycled filters and clean them out inside the tank. It does the same thing as bio spira. It looks nasty, but works well. I do it all the time.

If it was me I would cut back on the water change. You need some nasty stuff in there to complete the cycle.

 

[Bsixxx]

I could be wrong on this... so someone else chime in off I'm off base.... but couldn't the large daily water changes slow down the cycling process. I was under the impression that one should wait until amonia and nitrate have both taken a nose dive... then do a large 50%+ water change to lower the Nitrates.

thats what i was thinking

you should probably do only about 5-10% water changes
but actually now that i think about it that sounds about right maybe a lil over but fine

but yeah power heads would be good

and to answer your question about that pleco

well i have a 17.5" gar in my 210 and hes fine
the only think i think of though with big plecs is well bigger messes!

 

[cvermeulen]

I'm sure you're right that I need ammonia to get the cycle moving, but I have planned on using bio spira all along, as I plan on going on a 4 day vacation soon, so I won't be able to be here to monitor it. That and I've been trying to get the suspended dust out of the tank from my dirty gravel that I used.

Good idea on the used filters thought... I tossed the entire contents of a running 5gal in there to seed it, but obviously that's not much bacteria for a 200. Maybe the LFS will give me a used filter to try out.

 

[rallysman]

I'm sure you're right that I need ammonia to get the cycle moving, but I have planned on using bio spira all along, as I plan on going on a 4 day vacation soon, so I won't be able to be here to monitor it. That and I've been trying to get the suspended dust out of the tank from my dirty gravel that I used.

Good idea on the used filters thought... I tossed the entire contents of a running 5gal in there to seed it, but obviously that's not much bacteria for a 200. Maybe the LFS will give me a used filter to try out.

Go to the LFS and ask them to clean their filters in a bucket for you LOL

 

[Bgonz]

Just sit back and let it do its thing. Do not do water changes !!! That will only slow down the cycling. No matter what you do it will still take 4-8 weeks to cycle completely. The more you mess with it the longer it will take.



bob

 

[cvermeulen]

OK, well thanks for the cycling advice, I appreciate it, but... back to my original question: how can I better manage the pleco 'deposits' and the fact that my tank is cloudy? is the tank cloudy from bacterial bloom, or is it probably still the suspended dust?

Like I said, my large water changes have been mostly to get rid of the cloudy water. I know that I need ammonia to make it cycle... and I guess I'm being influenced by bio-spira success stories here, but I thought the general consensus was that it worked to cycle tanks rapidly (?)