Biorb aquariums

davybuoy

Does anyone have any experience of these aquariums? I have received 1 as a gift, apparently I said I would like to keep fish one day. Read on another thread that you should dechlorinate the water for aquariums, but this isn't mentioned in the manual.

This is a 30L tank for tropical fish, 3 large or up to 18 small apparently.

All helpful advice greatly appreciated,

davybuoy

brianmc

davybuoy wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience of these aquariums? I have received 1 as a gift, apparently I said I would like to keep fish one day. Read on another thread that you should dechlorinate the water for aquariums, but this isn't mentioned in the manual.

This is a 30L tank for tropical fish, 3 large or up to 18 small apparently.

All helpful advice greatly appreciated,

davybuoy

Ugh! Something similar happened me. Now 18 months later I have 5 tanks and have spent a lot of money - but in a good way.

Dechlorinating the water is only the start of it. You will have to go and learn about how biological filtration works in an aquarium. You have to learn about "the nitrogen cycle". There's loads on the internet. I learned loads from the internet but in the beginning the piece of the puzzle that I didn't get from the internet is that there are now products available like Tetra "safe start" to get your filtration going without weeks of waiting and monitoring before you can add fish.

Read a bit about the nitrogen cycle and then go and chat to someone in a decent fish shop. Once you get everything running correctly there's not much work to doing it right.

The only problem I have with my "biorb style" aquarium is that the spherical shape distorts your view of the fish. It's great in one way because small fish etc. are magnified but it's a bit awkward when you're trying to see "what's behind that rock".

ValerieR

Welcome to the fish keeping world ! :-)

There are a few things you need to know when keeping fish. It might sound quite intimidating to start with, but, you'll soon get the hang of it.

Before you do anything, you need to acquire 2 very important 'tools' :
- a test kit that measures the ammonia, the nitrites and the nitrates and
- some water dechlorinator which you add to each of the 'new' water.

As Brian mentions above, you will need to get your tank 'cycled'. Without going into too much detail, your filter media needs to be colonized by beneficial bacteria which transform the very toxic fish waste (ammonia) into very toxic nitrites and then into ok-within-reason nitrates!
This process can take 2+ weeks to happen but there are some ways of helping it out :
- use the safe start type product and feed the tank daily with a pinch of flakes,
- get some filter gunk from a well established tank (from a friend or your local shop) or and squeeze it into your filter
- get a couple of hardy small fish such as danios that will contribute to the cycling (if you chose the latter, make sure to check the water parameters and change water in order to protect the fish so that they don't get burned by the ammonia/nitrites).

Best of luck with your new project ! :-)

Regards,
Valerie

bigpinkelephant

i will tell you one thing, buying fish is addictive!

If you google Irish Tropical Fish Society, they have a forum especially for beginners, its great.

flynnc

you should ring boardwalk pets 01-6779060 they stock the reef one products and they would help you with your biorb thats were i got mine

Jimkel

Biorbs arent bad but there are certain fish species that you probably should'nt keep, such as any fish that holds territory, IE: Cichlids, and Dwarf Cichlids. opt for really peiceful and small fish such as some shoaling tetra, cherry barbs, Ottocinlus, or Corydoras.

davybuoy

Thank you all for your helpful advice, I am looking forward to getting started. It seems more complicated than the blurb with the BiOrb suggests, there are two sachets of chemicals for the water and it states you can add the first fish 24 hours after set up.

I did notice that while the catalog for the shop it was bought in says maximum stock level is 18 "small" fish the instruction manual says 12, when I asked in 1 pet shop the guy was quite dismissive of the product and said it would only support 5 fish. If we assume the manual is accurate and you were in my shoes, what 12 fish would would you hope to have once the aquarium is fully stocked?

Thanks again for your help,

Davybuoy

ValerieR

Hi Davybuoy,

Nah, it's not that complicated, it only looks it :-). There are a few rules to follow : watch your water parameters, do regular maintenance and take things slowly. After that, you should become addicted ... :-D

As far as the rule of thumb for a tank's population density, 1cm of adult size fish (excluding tail) per litre would be correct. For example, if a fish reaches 4cm as an adult so you could get 7 or 8, adding two each week not to overload the beneficial bacteria and its development (This ratio applies to 'normal' tanks, ie rectangular ones, I'm not sure whether it's the same for a biorb though as the water surface is more restricted).

I hope this helps,
ValerieR

dubman25

hi people,i have a 90litre jewelo aquarium if anybody is interested in a swap for a marine...pm me for details thanks

brianmc

davybuoy wrote: »

Thank you all for your helpful advice, I am looking forward to getting started. It seems more complicated than the blurb with the BiOrb suggests, there are two sachets of chemicals for the water and it states you can add the first fish 24 hours after set up.

I did notice that while the catalog for the shop it was bought in says maximum stock level is 18 "small" fish the instruction manual says 12, when I asked in 1 pet shop the guy was quite dismissive of the product and said it would only support 5 fish. If we assume the manual is accurate and you were in my shoes, what 12 fish would would you hope to have once the aquarium is fully stocked?

Thanks again for your help,

Davybuoy

As for stocking, I know that when I got my first tank and for most people it's hard to resist wanting to get a couple of this and a few of that and maybe one of those and...

Anyway, since I've had my tanks for a little while now, I'm starting to come around to the idea of fewer species but more individual fish of the species - if that makes sense.

I think what I'm trying to say, is that if I was setting up a Biorb now I'd be thinking about maybe a shoal of some form of tetra - neons are pretty standard but there are lots of other very pretty tetra too.

In my 45 litre biorb type thing I initially picked a few corydora catfish, and some guppies but soon learned that while they corys were quite happy with our soft water, the guppies weren't. Now I add a brand of bottled water to my tank that is very hard and keep guppies in it with some "crystal red shrimp" in the bottom and a couple of plants and it all works very well.

My point - I think I have one somewhere - is that I find the dynamic of a group of 12 fish of the same species more interesting to watch and much more natural - obviously where the species in question is a shoaling type, as a lot are.

At the moment, I think I'd prefer some form of tetra to the guppies and more plants in it. (Well, actually I'd prefer to change it for a larger standard shaped tank, but there's only so many tanks you can put in your house before it all starts to seem a bit weird to people.)

/wanders off thinking... guppies or tetra...

Jimkel

dubman25 wrote: »

hi people,i have a 90litre jewelo aquarium if anybody is interested in a swap for a marine...pm me for details thanks

Don't mean to burst your bubble man, but Marine systems are quite expensive, even the Nano tanks, I don't think that anyone will swap a much more valuable tank for a cheap Juwel Rekord 90. It's like asking someone to swap their 08 BMW for your 99 Fiesta. 70 quid will get you a small protien skimmer, get your self some marine lighting and some live rock and you can have a basic marine environment in the Juwel.

davybuoy

Thanks brianmc,

Did you follow the instructions in with the BiOrb and stock it 24hrs after set up or wait longer to allow cycling, this seems to be a contentious issue!

brianmc

davybuoy wrote: »

Thanks brianmc,

Did you follow the instructions in with the BiOrb and stock it 24hrs after set up or wait longer to allow cycling, this seems to be a contentious issue!

Mine isn't a BiOrb. It's a 45L acrylic biorb copy type of a job. So I didn't have any sachets with it.

For that tank I spent weeks trying to get it correctly cycled using an ammonia solution. That wasn't the smart way to do it.

These days, what I would do is either "seed" your filter from another tank (i.e. squeeze some of the crap from someone elses filter into your own to populate it with a load of the useful bacteria you need) or use a product called "safe start" which is supposed to achieve the same thing. Either way, you can certainly stick fish in within 24 hours.

There's somebody on here who I noticed mentioning Organic Aqua as another option. The only shop that I know of it being available in is the Blanchardstown centre. I've tried it myself too. I bought a load of it directly from the guy who is the Irish agent for it. He was very prompt with replies and to get in touch when I was ordering loads of the product but didn't reply to any of my questions once the cash was handed over. Also, I was never quite satisfied that my fish were entirely happy so I did a lot of water changes and went through a lot of the product. I will admit though that my fish may not have been happy for other reasons and that I have heard a few other people report good things about Organic Aqua. Either way, I went off the whole idea and back to the traditional methods.

All of that said, there is another product out now from Tetra called "aqua balance" (Edit: It's called "easy balance") or something. Again it is supposed to look after the balance of the bacteria in your tank and reduce nitrates - meaning only needing to do water changes a couple of times a year. I haven't tried it yet but I have a bottle at home for experimenting with soon.

Hmmm... That was kind of a long post. In summary - read paragraph 3 for my suggestion!

Edit:

Don't forget dechlorinator of some kind!!!

Jimkel

Easy way to keep fish, just use Organic aqua. You can fully stock a tank as soon as you set it up, no cycling, no Dechlorination. I have tested it with a few thousand fish, including marines, It works.

The new Tetra easybalance is just tetras response to Organic aqua, but not the same as they don't know how it works. The fact of the matter is would you rather your fish live in a system treated with Chemicals or with an organic bacterial culture?

Jimkel

brianmc wrote: »

Don't forget dechlorinator of some kind!!!

Brianmcs advice Is correct for most parts of Ireland but if you live in certain areas of Ireland then you do not need to dechlorinate your water as it does'nt contain any Chlorine or Chloromines.

In fact Ozone/O3 is becoming a more and more popular method of governments water treatments, so check and see if you actually need to use dechlorinator first.