My first.....

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
tank looks great man, they'll be happy in there. you can throw some cycling fish in there whenever you want to, the sooner the better. the time it takes your tank to cycle can vary quite a bit, i always recommend testing once a week, you should have an ammonia spike, followed by a nitrite spike, then things should even out, once your ammonia and nitrite levels are stable at zero and your nitrate levels are rising, your tank will be good to go. i use seachem stability to help with my cycles, some people say it doesn't work, but i have had tanks cycle in one week using it.

i attribute the color on my natts to excellent water quality and a good diet, i am running a wet/dry for bio filtration and a magnum 250 for mech, i perform a 50% water change every 5 days or so. my nitrate levels stay pretty constant around the 10-15 ppm range because of all the plants.
 
I'm going to head out tomorrow and get 5-6 Zebra Danios and get that cycle rollin'. I'm going to give the seachem stability a try.

What do you keep your ph and stuff at?
 
i just leave my ph alone, it stays pretty steady around here at 7. you could get a lot more than 5 or 6 danios for a 125, i'd go with at least a dozen of whatever is cheapest at your lfs
 
lookin forward to the updates man... your cycle could be done in a very short time, i just set up my new planted tank a week ago and it's already cycled. i put a penguin 150 from one of my established tanks an there and used stability per the instructions on the bottle and with the help of a couple dozen tetras, i'm good to go... i actually have a drip line going right now to acclimate the new fish i just brought home about 20 minutes ago.
 
Joe what are the new fish? Do tetras make good cycle fish? If they do thats what I'm going to go with cuse they are usually get cheaper the more you buy.

Hopefully the cycle doesn't take to long I really want to get those rbp.:D
 
the new fish i brought home last night is unidentified, most likely a compressus, frank over at opefe wants me to fatten it up a bit before he makes a positive id. any cheap fish are good to use for a cycle as long as you make sure they are healthy, you don't wanna start your tank out with something bad making it's way in. i had about 2 dozen neon tetras in my tank up until yesterday, i woke up this morning and there were only 7 left, so apparently the new guy is settling in.
 
Well tested my water for the first time today. Everything is still pretty high.
Ammonia- 0ppm
Nitrates-40ppm
Nitrites-1.0ppm

So I will check it again on Sunday and we will see what its at.
 
that's actually a good sign that there is no ammonia, low nitrites, and nitrates are showing up
 
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