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10 Gallon journal [:

903 views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  crssrunner 
#1 · (Edited)
I just decided to finally make one big thread to track my progress of setting up Churro's tank. Here's where I'm at right now:

I dumped out the parasite infested water and disposed of the dead plants... So it's time to get serious now. The only things from the tank I'm keeping are the heater, thermometer, and gravel. I need to rinse out the gravel REALLY well. I'm not keeping my filter because it's very very loud and doesn't clean the water as well as it could. And after all my plants died on me, I'm down to no plants or decorations. And my light hood, sadly stopped working... I know it's not just the bulb or the battery, I tried replacing both... Since light hoods are so expensive and I'm going to be tight for money as it is, I'm going to try to find one from Kijiji. So, I have a step by step plan now. I'll post each step as it arrives, and each step will likely come with a question... I'll write up all the steps in order right now, just so you guys can tell me if I have the right idea and let me know if I'm forgetting anything. So here we go!

1. Scrub the tank and disinfect it & the rocks.
2. Buy the decorations (such as caves, hiding spots. Not live plants) and place them however I want in the clean tank (that still doesn't have water in it yet.)
3. Buy the Aqueon power filter and keep it for cycling later but still not fill up the tank yet.
4. Buy a new light hood from Kijiji or eBay, and a new bulb from PetSmart.
5. Save lots of money up and take a look around at different pet stores and get ideas for the live plants and keep note of which store has what... So that when the time comes I can go get all the plants on the same day.
6. Buy all the plants at once, as well as a test kit.
7. Plant all the plants in the gravel, carefully fill up the tank, turn on the heater and light right away, and cycle the tank! (I'm gonna need LOTS of help on this when the time comes.)
8. Baffle the filter before I move Churro in



OK, so now lets go back to the step I'm on, step one... How can I safely clean the rocks REALLY well, without using anything harmful to the fish... ? I had parasites in my tank, so it will need a super good wash.
 
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#2 ·
I've heard that boiling the rocks can make them explode so I'd avoid that. You may be able to just clean them in a vinegar and water solution and rinse them really well or rinse them in water a few different times to get it off.
 
#3 ·
Yeah I wouldn't boil them. You could put the rocks in a strainer and pour boiling water over them. But if you have painted gravel or polymer coated gravel (walmart sells it..) I wouldn't use boiling water.
You could use a small amount of vinegar and water also just make sure you rinse it really well!
If you are using all new stuff anyways, gravel isn't that expensive. Especially since you don't need a ton for a 10 gallon, I'd say your safest bet is just to buy a new bag of gravel! That's what I would do because I would worry too much that I didn't clean it well enough :p
 
#5 ·
Welll, I spent about 30 dollars on gravel. It's really nice natural tan gravel from an aquarium store. And it's gonna be difficult enough having to buy a new light hood when I have no income so... I'm just gonna stick with cleaning the gravel and not buying it all over again.
 
#6 ·
I cleaned my gravel by heating up water on the stove. ( not actually boiling the rocks).I rinsed the rocks in a strainer with warm water in the bathtub to get anydebris out...Then I put the rocks in a stainless steel huge bowl I had..Then I slowly poured the heated water over them...I repeated this a few times..So far so good.
 
#7 ·
^Alright, that should do. Thanks guys! I'll let you know when that's done.
 
#8 ·
Ugh, this is gonna take longer than I thought. My dad wouldn't let me boil water to clean it because it takes too long, and so then I just decide Alright, I'll use really hot tap water and everything's going good and I'm occasionally scooping up gravel with my net, running hot water through it, then dumping it back into a bucket and using my net to stir around the gravel and then my dad who's just SUCH a 'fish expert' comes in and says I'm going to break my net by using it like that and then without even asking me first he grabs a dirty shoe horn which has been stuck in peoples sweaty shoes and had peoples feet rub against it and he sticks it in my ALMOST CLEAN gravel, which took about half an hour of rinsing. So now my gravel is probably dirty all over again and after all that work I'm back to where I started. My dad insists on me getting the job done as fast as possible and I'm just trying to do a good job no matter how long it takes, but he's not letting me do it my way. So now I have to wait until tomorrow after school when my dads not home to do it.
 
#9 ·
Something else you could try is using a small amount of bleach on the gravel. this will kill anything thats still alive and then all you will have to do is rinse it good. Surprisingly leach will not kill your fish but soap can. just use a 1:10 bleach to water ratio. I use bleach when cleaning all on my ornaments and none of my fish have died. and yo wount have to worry about replacing your gravel because they exploded!
 
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