I have been given a 55 gallon tank from a friend. It has been empty for several years, so it's my very belated Christmas present now ;-)

Here are my questions:

1) Is it okay to pump water from my established tank into my new tank to help speed along the cycling process?
1b) Same for filter media? (If I buy another EHEIM, that is...)

2) What's a good filter strength for 55 gallons?

3) My plan once the tank is cycled and decorated is to get 1 fish at a time until I get to 5 fish. That way, I can break them in slowly and also I can shop around for the healthiest looking fish.

4) I'm a huge fan of orandas... but am thinking of mixing in a couple ranchu. Are they okay to have in the same tank or will they compete for food?

5) What decorating materials are okay for fish tanks? I'm thinking of doing the bottom in those colored glass beads from the craft store, but not sure if those are safe for fishies.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!! :-)

FTB

Hi there. I personally like to start out with new tank water myself. Using your other filter media/ornaments/Plants/gravel,etc. can also help speed the process.
For a 55 gal. you want a filter thats going to be 10X's filtration for your tank---so you want At Least 550 gph (gallons per hour) If you can afford another EHEIM, that's great,but if you can't,there are some other good options. Combining two filter's on a tank is always a good idea for a couple of reasons.You could go with a couple of Emperor 400's, or even two Penguin 350's,or one of each.I have found that it's much better to max out over the 10's filtration-seems to keep my tanks much cleaner.
Because you're starting out with a new tank,getting one fish at a time is a great idea.People tend to load new tanks up with too many fish while cycling a tank and often have alot of probs because of it.
A couple of Ranchu's are /would be fine with Oranda's.
As for decorating,I've seen quite a few people using the glass beads,and it seems to look /work fine for them.
You'll have to post back with pics once you get everything up and running.
Congrats on the tank by the way,what a nice friend you have!

Thanks Devs! You are too nice! I'm pondering and scheming and hoping to win that Tank of the Month award! hehehe...

FTB

With the filters, even if you dont end up buying ehiems you can still shove the old media into the new filters, it just wont fit right, but you only need it in there until it seeds the new filters media.

Also did you have gravel on your old tank? Put some in your new one, it holds shiteloads of good bio-bugs. Even if your not planning on using the old gravel in your new tank, put it in some stockings and just let it sit in there, once your tank is cycled you can just remove the stockings with the gravel in it.

Wow, great idea svenden! I will definitely make good use of some knee-highs and borrow a bit of my old gravel to help get the new tank running.

I'm buying a Penguin 350 and an EHEIM 200 (same as my other filter), so I'm gonna take 1/2 the media from my existing tank and stick it into the new EHEIM when it arrives.

Had the darndest time today at the local "fish" stores (the two that start with "Pet-"... one of them had every filter BUT the one I wanted (and even then the price at the store was $10 more than the price online from the same store!), the other one had hardly ANY filters at all except the cheap no-name kinds. That, and they had goldies with ICK! Poor guys. The cashier guy had a picture of his fish on his name tag so I let him know that the goldfish tank had a nasty case of Ick. Poor fishies look like they'd been attacked by a salt shaker :-(

Mental note: Not buying goldies from them!!

The other "fish" store had better looking goldies, but I'm still trying to find a decent REAL FISH STORE in the central florida area. Heck, I"m even willing to drive an hour or so out of Orlando to find it. Anybody know of any?

FTB

Yay for replying to my own post!

I now have two Penguins - 350 and 200 - running on the new tank, as well as a 4 inch wide airstone circle. My bedroom sounds like a fish store! Hahahhaha... it's going to make it even HARDER for me to try to hit the snooze one more time in the morning and have the mental fight of sleep vs. bladder!

Oh well, such is life! ;-)

The new tank looks AWESOME and I have the two final touches coming from http://stores.ebay.com/Aquaria-Kiln-Creations. These items will be PERFECT for the little "theme" I'm shooting for... I'm so excited!

My new filters have new carbon filters and also I shoved in some of the old filter media from my established 20-gallon to help speed things along. I think I will try to find ONE decent looking fish at Petsmart tomorrow afternoon.

I'm holding out on buying more until 1) the tank gets cycled and 2) I can find a decent fish store. I noticed the "A Fish Wish" store posted by Ranchugirl, and I'm thinking I might go check that out, even tho it's about a 40 minute drive from Orlando. I just need to find a real FISH store. :-)

FTB // all excited!

I looked at that eBay store and I really like it! I have a couple ornaments and a few plants in mind for when I redecorate here shortly. Tahnks for the link!!