Group set up...

[PaulineMi]

If this thread will be of help to noobs......do not put a Chinese algae eater in the tank. Its the golden fish swimming by in the beginning of the video. They are indiscriminate "sucker-type" fish that will attach to anything. That includes the sides of fish and even eyeballs!

Activity levels of the fish going into a community tank need to be considered. Will all fish be able to compete for food that is dropped into the tank?   Water temps were addressed in a previous post but water flow is another consideration. Riverine types usually prefer cool flowing water. Other species prefer calm waters.

Then there are fish that need cover to feel secure and/or dither fish to up their confidence levels.  If the dithers are out and about the less bold or shy fish believe there's a safe environment out in the open.

If cichlids are chosen as tank inhabitants a person must do their homework on these guys. Most cichlids, especially the Africans (old world cichlids) and many South and Central (new world) cichlids are very territorial. This behavior results in varying degrees of aggression that can even result in the death of tankmates. If a cichlid is described as peaceful understand that the term is relative.

[PaulineMi]

Oops.....we skipped cycling a tank.....the need to established a healthy active biofilter.

[LizStreithorst]

I personally have never cycled a tank.  My water is cheap and I just change tons of it until the filter becomes cycled.

[BallAquatics]

Same here Liz, I can't remember the last time I "cycled" a tank.  Drop in a pre-seeded filter, some substrate and plants and away we go................

Frankly, I think all the BS about "fishless cycling" puts off many newcomers to the hobby.  If done properly, you can cycle a brand new set-up with fish and never lose a single one.

Here's a great article on the subject by my friend David in Florida ==>> http://www.aquariumadvice.com/fishin-cycling-step-dark-side/

Dennis

[LizStreithorst]

Shoot, I've even done it that way without substrate, plants and a cycled filter.  I just keep an eye on water parameters and change water like a crazy person.

[BallAquatics]

Shoot, I've even done it that way without substrate, plants and a cycled filter.

Yea, if I'm doing it that way, I don't even bother checking the water parameters, just daily massive water changes.

Dennis

[LizStreithorst]

If I were setting up first new tank and doing it that way I would not buy all the fish at once.  A lower stocking level makes cycling from scratch easier.  I'd try to find my mated pair of Discus (that will cost an arm and a leg) and the group of rams from the same supplier.

We need to think about how we would manage QT as well.

[wsantia1]

If we don't have well water and use tap water we need to test the water.  My tap water has chloramines in it, so I have to use something to get rid of the ammonia from the beginning.

[BillT]

Frankly, I think all the BS about "fishless cycling" puts off many newcomers to the hobby.  If done properly, you can cycle a brand new set-up with fish and never lose a single one.

This is like what I call jump starting a biofilter.
We did similar things several times with very large biofilters on water systems with lots of fish. if you transfer lots of bacteria on some kind of substrate, they will be already able to act as a biofilter. Nitrifiers on substrate can process ammonia. Nitrifiers floating around unattached do not.
Combine this large addition of bacteria with initial lighter than normal feeding until the bacterial populations can increase and you should not have problems. If you have a UV, turn it off if you want your bacteria to become more rapidly established.
A potential drawback is the inadvertent introduction of disease, but if you know the source of the bacteria it should not be a problem.

I have also found that a large dose of DrTim's bacteria can start a biofilter in a day or two if done properly. This would remove the chance of disease introduction and would provide a quick start without having another tank going already.

An additional advantage of using material from an established tank would be the introduction of thousands of other species of bacteria found in a mature filter which will provide a more complete bacterial ecology.

[PaulineMi]

I've never done the 6-8 week fishless cycling either.  Have done the other types that are in the link Dennis provided. My first tank..a 90 gallon African cichlid tank...was slowly stocked over a couple weeks with juveniles.  From then on all tanks have been "seeded" using substrate and/or established filter media. Stem plants help also. The bare bottom plant-less discus tank got daily 75 to 90% water changes when it was new (thank you Liz for the heads up on that procedure).

Next is the acclimation of fish when getting ready to put them into a new tank.     Drop and plop......

[LizStreithorst]

I have read that some brands of commercial filter seeding bacteria actually work.  Some do not. 

I want to know what y'all will do when introducing fish from different sources.  How will you do it, just dump them in and hope for the best of do you have a QT plan?

[ilroost]

Q.T. tank here. melafix and 2 weeks before adding to a tank

[LizStreithorst]

I would do way more as far as QT.  I've been hit hard in the past by disease.  I will not allow it to happen again.

[Mugwump]

I would do way more as far as QT.  I've been hit hard in the past by disease.  I will not allow it to happen again.

yeppers, once with the 2 X 4 is enough. 

[BillT]

The ZF lab standard for quarantining is to hold new fish in a separate room, breed them, collect the eggs and bleach the eggs to "sterilize" the surface and then grow them up in the main fish room.
This will eliminate bad stuff on the surface of the eggs (some diseases, like microspridia, can already be inside the egg).
Two kinds of diseases, obligate diseases (those that require the host to survive, like ich) and opportunistic diseases (those that do not require the host to survive, like mycobacteria or many surface bacterial or fungal infections that can just live it the fish tank without infecting fish). The opportunistic infections are more difficult to exclude than opportunistic pathogens.
Some other pathogens (like digenetic trematodes (certain flukes)) require an intermediate host like snails. To me this is a reason to not have snails. If you do get a fish infected with one of these pathogens, they will not be able to propagate and infect other fish if no intermediate hosts are present. If the intermediate host is present however, they could infect other fish.