Aquarium Water Safety

[Abercrombie6202]

I was jsut curious, i have a 20 high set-up, the filter has already been used, but i put tap water in there and used the dechlorinator, i was wondering, when is it safe to put the discus in there?

[mattrox]

My best guess is: When the temperature matches the water the fish already are in, as long as the tank that the filter came from has been disease free for a minimum of a couple of months.

What do others think?

[Carol_Roberts]

With a cycled filter you can move the fish as soon as the water is stable. You move a cycled filter with the fish. IF you put the cycled filter on several days prior to fish the filter bacteria starve to death. Is your filter still alive?

[ronrca]

Carol is correct! Do not starve your filter otherwise you will have 'cycling' problem when you do add fish. You can also add ammonia if you cannot put fish in immediately! ;)

[RAWesolowski]

Nice catch, Carol!

[taters]

About the only way to know it's safe for sure is test the ammonia,nitrite,and nitrate.If the test show nothing it's not cycling.If it shows ammonia or nitrite it would be a bad thing.If it shows no ammonia or nitrite but has nitrate then were on to something.
How to go about getting the water to show nitrate without killing a fish is the tricky part.There will have to either be some kind of fish or do a fishless cycle with ammonia.
I like useing Seachem Prime.It removes (converts) chlorine,chloramines,ammonia,and detoxifies nitrite and nitrate + provides a slime coat.(So much for my commercial :))anyway it's good stuff.