My 70L tank

[yorkiemad00]

Very Excited. My tank has been up and running for 3.5 weeks now.
 It is showing the first signs of reaching the end of its fishless cycle. the nitrites level this morning were down to 0ppm.
I have added many plants but unsure whether many will survive long. Trying a bit of trial and error.
The hitch hikiong limpets seem to have disapeared but the snails are still around and the copepods seem to have multiplied exponentially.
The fish will have a treat when they are finally added.

[TropicalFishForums]

[yorkiemad00]

Possibly too excited.
Dumped 2ppm of ammonia in the tank this morning. Just tested the water and its gone down to 0!
Nitrites have dropped. Just waiting for them to reach 0 and then onto the big water change. Planning to finally sort out my KH problem by mixing in some RO water.

[Oldspice]

Good luck x.

[yorkiemad00]

Nitrites are still at 1ppm. Feels like its taking forever for them to disappear

[yorkiemad00]

After getting home from a hard day at work with more work yet to do this evening, I tested my tank and got the best results nitrites are 0ppm according to my liquid test!

I also found out where are tap water comes from, a borehole in the chiltern hills. It is completely saturated with calcium before its pumped to our homes. No wonder its off the scale of my test strips.

[yorkiemad00]

Water levels remained stable so now introducing my first fish and purpose bought snail; 3 salt & pepper corys and 5 threadfin rainbowfish. Will get some more corys when these all settle in.

They are sooooo teeny

[jackiemcg34]

oh you are not to add cories till tank is 3 months + in use, well good luck remember and give them food too

[yorkiemad00]

oh you are not to add cories till tank is 3 months + in use, well good luck remember and give them food too

Having done a fair bit a research into what fish to introduce to my tank while waiting for my fishless cycle to complete, I haven't seen this written anywhere. A fair few sites were saying how hardy corys were and how good a fish they were for beginners.
I understand bottom feeders/ algae eaters should not be introduced until there is something for them to eat which there currently is in the aquarium due to the very high nitrate levels during the fishless cycle.

[vess]

With cory its a couple of reasons.

When a tank is new its parameters are prone to swinging dramatically as it stabilises itself. (even after a cycle) Hence the view hardier fish do ok. Cory are hardy once they establish and grow a little.

Cory also tend to starve because by the time the food gets to them its been savaged by other tank members. Even pellet food can be hit and miss because most fish will come down and have a go at it often bullying smaller fish out of the way - including young cory.

When the tank has matured there tends to be more things to nibble on and also a sturdier bio system.

Hope this helps

Lee

[yorkiemad00]

Their only rish is possible changed in the water, there is alot for them to nibble as there are a fair few plants that are still settling in as well as a large number of copepods. They were in the same tank as the rainbowfish and they seemed to ignor each other in the shop.

[yorkiemad00]

Still acclimatising the fish but put the assassin snail in alittle quicker. Too impatient to see it go after the many pond snails and ramshorn snails.

In the time taken to write this post, the assassin snail has already disappeared into the plants like a little ninja.