New Plants

The new plants came in on Friday, and I put them in. It took a whlie for everything to settle, the Hornwart (top left) is messy but will provide plenty of hiding for the Gouramis I plan on putting in there. The ammonia levels keep dropping, and I keep putting more in to keep the levels up to as close to 4.0 as possible. The Nitrites are off the charts and I'm seeing Nitrates too. Now, I'm just waiting for the Nitrites to drop down and I'll be ready to put the fish in there. Should be soon!

The drity dirty tank

Here's the latest picture of the state of the tank. Today, the nitrites are up to 0.5 PPM. No nitrates yet, and the ammonia is holding steady between 2.0 and 4.0 PPM. In this picture you can see one of the snails that hitched a ride on the plant I got last week. I counted 7 at one point, but I'm sure there's more. There are a few big ones now. They grow pretty fast. When I first put the plant in there, they were merely specks. They seem to do a good job at cleaning up the algae that's growing in there, so I think I'll keep them.

We have nitrites!!

Well the tank is looking dirtier and dirtier.  I suspected things may be happening, and last night I finally have some purple showing up on the nitrites test.  I'll post some pictures of some of the brownish looking sand later.  Still no nitrates, and the ammonia level is still the same.  It will probably take a bit before the ammonia will go down, and then a bit longer still for some nitrates to show up and the nitrite levels to drop.  Here's hoping it will be soon though.  I was planning on pulling the plug and doing a water change and putting the frogs in tomorrow, but I think I'll just stick with the original plan now.

And waiting...

Still no nitrites, and the ammonia level seems to be holding steady.  I am noticing the sand getting a bit darker in areas.  I'm hoping that's a sign of bacteria moving in.  I moved the rock that was in the frog tank into the new aquarium temporarily to try and spawn new life.

Still waiting

Well last night I tested the levels again - ammonia went down, no nitrites or nitrates.  When the ammonia level goes down to almost zero I'll put another dose in to bring it back up to 4.0.  I did clean out the frog bowl and dumped all the gook into the filter of the new aquarium.  I waited an hour and tested again - same as before some ammonia, no nitrites or nitrates.  Hopefully we'll get some bacteria in there soon.

The frogs

Here are Kim's/Elizabeth's african dwarf frogs that will eventually end up in the supersized home. Elizabeth affectionately refers to them as "Hops" and "Jumps". Only she can tell the difference. Kim would like a whole aquarium full of the dwarf frogs. They are very active and facinating to watch. There's also one more occupant in the little aquaruim that will end up in the new home - "Speedy" the snail.

D'oh

Well I'm a bonehead. After doing some more reading today, I discovered that I put way too much ammonia in the initial round of seeding. A tank my size actually only gets 2 teaspoons of ammonia - not 2 tablespoons. I took out about 75% of the water and replaced it with fresh dechlorinated water and ran the filter for an hour. It went down to 1.0 PPM. I just added 1 teaspoon full of ammonia to try and get it back up to 4.0 PPM. We'll see how it goes. I also tested the 1 gallon African Dwarf frog aquarium for nitrites and nitrates. It had 0 nitrites and 20 PPM nitrates. I think I'll be stealing some of water by vacuuming up all the good stuff at the bottom of that tank and putting it in the new one to try and jump start the cycling on the new aquarium.

The waiting game

So now it's just a waiting game. I filled the tank on Saturday. I put 2 tablespoons of pure ammonia in and I'm checking the readings every day to see if there's any bacteria. So far, same readings every day - 4+ ppm ammonia, 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates. I've got the temperature up as high as it will go, and it's reading 82 degrees F. I'm hoping some bacteria will come with the plant I bought today. Everyone's anxiuos to get some fish in there!

Substrate decisions

As I read about all the various options one has on deciding what to put in the bottom of the tank, I really liked the idea of using sand. I knew I wanted to keep Corys (or Corydora Catfish who like to sift through the substrate looking for food), and I would have preferred to use a darker substrate but after buying all the initial supplies things started to add up quickly. I heard good things about pool sand filter, so I went with that. I think it turned out rather nice looking. I do intend to keep live plants, and sand doen't fair so well with most plants but I'll try to stick with ones that will do ok in sand. You can see here that I bought my first plant today, an Argentina Sword Plant.

Filled and waiting

Here's the aquarium all set up and rearing to go. Hold on a minute!! Aren't aquariums supposed to house fish you ask? Well yes, but after reading up on starting your aquarium, I came across this notion of "Aquarium Cycling". Its a process of building up the necessary bacteria in the water that will break-down all the nasty stuff the fish and plants leave inside the aquarium as they go about their day-to-day actvities. There are a few ways to go about growing this bacteria, but the one that appealed to me the most is something they refer to as "fishless cycling". Cycling the new aquarium without fish in it has its advantages and disadvantages, but I weighed the options and decided on this way.

One of the best places I found on the web that has all kinds of information about keeping fish as pets is the Aquatic Community .

Aquarium Details:
Marineland 46 gallon bowed-front glass aquarium
Marineland Bio-wheel power filter Emporer 280
Standard hood with pre-installed light
Topfin 300 Watt heater
Tetra Whisper Air Pump with 2 valves and airstones

Full view

Here's the full view of the aquarium so you can get a sense of the size of it. We initially wanted to put it right here in the eat-in kitchen area (which is where we spend a lot of time), but there was no outlet there and Kim had been hankering to move the computer into the play-room. I actually did make a trip to the local mega -harware store and purchased the supplies to drop a new outlet here, but the computer move ended up winning out after we did some manual moving to visualize.

This is it

Here's what I ended up with after my research. A 46 gallon, bowed-front aquarium complete with Pirate ship.

Welcome Post

Thought I'd give this blogging thing a shot they have on the Internets, and what better subject to write about than my new "obsession" (as the wife puts it): the new aquarium. I've always been drawn to the aquariums at visits to the pet store, and we've always talked about getting one. Well I finally broke down and took the plunge.

As with anything I get obsessed with, I can never just buy something at random. I've spent the past few weeks doing extensive research on all the various details with setting up a freshwater starter aquarium. Who knew there was so much to learn about this hobby? I assumed I'd walk into the pet store one day, plop down some cash and walk away with a fair-sized aquarium - fully stocked with fish, plants and other aquatic life forms.

Then I started to read about cycling, aggression, filters and all kinds of different things. Well I think I got a handle on it enough to start my own project, and I'll be writing about my new found hobby as I learn more and more.