Fluval Edge, No Cycle.....

Ok, have got home tonight and one shrimp left....I took him out and he will join others in my pond. Aquarium as it stands has the following parametres:
 
ammonia 0-0.25
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
Ph dropped to 6
temp 24C (75.2F)
 
This may sound macabre but, should I leave dead shrimp in the tank? for helping grow some bacteria? daft?
Not sure what to do next...apart from complete water change....
Do you guys recommend starting over with new substrate and new wood?
So confused that I swear this is giving me anxiety as I hate myself for making the poor shrimp die unnecessarily.
Looking forward to your continued help and advice and above all, patience.
Thank you.
 
PS Byron. I superglued java ferns this time around instead of fishing line....and, used bonsai wire (aluminium, not copper) to fasten some java moss I took from pond. I also had a bag of Purigen that I regenerated put in the filter....could the Purigen have done it? maybe there was still bleach in it? no smell I could pick up and it was soaked in strong Prime solution for ages after the processing....
 
Another update....apparently when I took out last shrimp...there was another...took that out....there was another. So a total of 4 were still alive and left 1 that I can see in the tank. Perhaps it was the Hydrogen peroxide on the wood that maybe was toxic? maybe it has now been converted to water and tank is again safe?
Thoughts?
 
In my opinion, you have several possible factors.  The glue, aluminium wire, ammonia added, hydrogen peroxide, wood fungus/slime.  I am not saying any one of these did kill the shrimp, but it is conceivable that any one of them could.  BTW, picking up on Steven's comment on KH...I mentioned back in this or the other thread that a low GH plus the fact that the pH lowers fairly easily from the tap level, that your KH is likely low.  Check with the water authority website, it should give this.  No point in buying a test kit you may only use the once.
 
On a very general note...we must be very careful with anything placed in an aquarium.  Water is one of the, if not the, most solvent liquids on earth.  In other words, it will very readily and quickly "pick up" other substances it comes in contact with.  This is why freshwater can be so varying depending upon what it passes through/over.
 
Byron.
 
Yes, Byron the Kh and Gh are in the low levels here, hard to get an accurate report from the water board but it seems that Gh is around 15-20 mg/l and Kh is 11-16 mg/l...?
From every other forums regarding our water here, most say that tap water comes out of tap at around 7 Ph but quickly drops after standing tpo around 6-6.4. It is a real issue for some SA cichlid growers.
I wonder if my Ph will drop even lower considering the wood and the low hardness of water. Weird though, LFS says that their tanks are kept around 7 Ph and they offered to replace the shrimp when my water conditions improve. As per the fungus/mold on wood, it is all gone.
 
Should I add crushed coral to the tank to try keep some buffering in the water between water changes?
Thank you.
 
MarcoPereira said:
Yes, Byron the Kh and Gh are in the low levels here, hard to get an accurate report from the water board but it seems that Gh is around 15-20 mg/l and Kh is 11-16 mg/l...?
From every other forums regarding our water here, most say that tap water comes out of tap at around 7 Ph but quickly drops after standing tpo around 6-6.4. It is a real issue for some SA cichlid growers.
I wonder if my Ph will drop even lower considering the wood and the low hardness of water. Weird though, LFS says that their tanks are kept around 7 Ph and they offered to replace the shrimp when my water conditions improve. As per the fungus/mold on wood, it is all gone.
 
Should I add crushed coral to the tank to try keep some buffering in the water between water changes?
Thank you.
 
I think that in all of this a few key aspects are being missed, so I will briefly explain about the GH/KH/pH.  The GH and KH are both very low.  The pH is related, but there is another aspect, and that is what if anything the water authority is adding to the water to raise the pH to 7, as I would suspect it may be much lower at source.  If this is something like soda ash (Vancouver adds this) it will raise the pH temporarily but it dissipates out fairly quickly and the pH will lower back to whatever it is at the source.  Then the water gets into the aquarium where organics increase and the pH lowers further.  The extent depends upon the individual aquarium because there are many factors.  Water chemistry is rather complex; I have 7 tanks and the pH varies among them, yet my water is the same.
 
I suspect the store somehow buffers their water, you should ask them.  However, keep in mind that they are handling many different fish with varying requirements, so adjusting their water parameters to accommodate such a differing set of requirements can work, short-term.  But this is not always the best for all fish long-term.
 
I experimented with crushed coral over a period of several months.  The pH went sky-high (from around 6 up to 7.6) with as little as half a cup in the canister filter on a 90g tank.  The GH was not affected, so this is not really buffering.  I do not do any "buffering" now other than the natural buffering that regular water changes achieve, and these function simply by removing organics from the system.  I keep soft water fish.
 
To your low KH and Steven's comments...11 mg/l is the same as ppm, and this is very low.  Steven may be able to suggest something if shrimp are intended, but just keep in mind that this is going to impact fish and if they are wild caught this can have consequences.
 
Byron.
 
Thanks Byron. That all makes sense. I have bonsai stone at work and that seems to make water harder. Do you think using these in hardscape would help? With hardness and KH? At the moment I have basalt boulders...
 
MarcoPereira said:
Thanks Byron. That all makes sense. I have bonsai stone at work and that seems to make water harder. Do you think using these in hardscape would help? With hardness and KH? At the moment I have basalt boulders...
 
Basalt is fairly inert in my experience.  I have some slabs in my 115g.  I don't know the properties of Bonsai stone.  You could do tests in a pail of water but here again it is not easy to know just which reactions may be occurring.  What I mean is, the fact that something raises pH in a pail of water does not mean it will behave the same in the aquarium where other biological factors are involved.
 
It is alkaline as it fizzes with vinegar.... Will try it out... A lot of aquarists use it here.. Guess it counters water softness?
Thanks Byron. I'll continue making more poor choices no doubt..
 
MarcoPereira said:
It is alkaline as it fizzes with vinegar.... Will try it out... A lot of aquarists use it here.. Guess it counters water softness?
Thanks Byron. I'll continue making more poor choices no doubt..
 
The problem with something like this is that it can act very rapidly.  I would seriously doubt it will only raise the pH a bit, plus I've no idea if it will impact the KH.
 
Byron said:
 
Thanks Byron. That all makes sense. I have bonsai stone at work and that seems to make water harder. Do you think using these in hardscape would help? With hardness and KH? At the moment I have basalt boulders...
 
Basalt is fairly inert in my experience.  I have some slabs in my 115g.  I don't know the properties of Bonsai stone.  You could do tests in a pail of water but here again it is not easy to know just which reactions may be occurring.  What I mean is, the fact that something raises pH in a pail of water does not mean it will behave the same in the aquarium where other biological factors are involved.
 
 
Byron said:
 
It is alkaline as it fizzes with vinegar.... Will try it out... A lot of aquarists use it here.. Guess it counters water softness?
Thanks Byron. I'll continue making more poor choices no doubt..
 
The problem with something like this is that it can act very rapidly.  I would seriously doubt it will only raise the pH a bit, plus I've no idea if it will impact the KH.
 
 
 
Ok Byron. I believe I roughly understand the obstacles ahead. But in your opinion what should I do next? should I consider another substrate that will provide more Kh to aid in buffering/stabilising Ph to a desirable level? if so, what is best for the Edge?
Should I not stay with inert basalt rocks (which I love BTW) and change to something more reactive?
As it stands, I would like to have some bacteria in filter to deal with ammonia and such but fear with all this stuffing around the filter will never have bacteria as Ph is so low ( as it stands today it dropped to 6 or even lower). Should I remove wood, as much as I love the look?
If I have to start again it will be horrendous but a task that must be done to keep some nice little fish and shrimp in the tank.
I can't help but hate my water and it's lack of buffering...I want soft water for rasboras etc but the crashing and instability is hindering moving forward in either cycling the tank or even stabilising it enough to enjoy any future thoughts on stocking.
I believe now that the very low Kh is perhaps what killed the shrimp and will eventually kill anything else I put in there....
Perhaps a tad much to ask but would love your thoughts and experienced advice on what to do next, step by step to avoid further disasters.
Thank you.
 
Re the shrimp...as I previously mentioned, I am not the best to advise on shrimp as I have only once had them (and that was accidental, two plain shrimp arrived in with a bag of pygmy corys).  StevenF or others can best advise on shrimp.
 
But as for fish, no soft water fish will have issues with low KH.  The GH and KH in the natural habitats of the species of fish we have been discussing is basically zero.  And given your water parameters, soft water fish is what you want for this tank.  So there is no need for any form of buffering for the fish.  For more than 25 years I have maintained and spawned many of these fish in water with zero GH and KH.  If it turns out that cherry shrimp need higher GH/KH, and you decide to base the tank around them, then you will obviously have to consider methods to achieve this.  Just understand that these will impact your fish; the extent to which this occurs will depend upon how high you raise the GH/KH and the fish species.  But bottom line is, that given the situation, fish will be happy and thus healthy with what you have.
 
I am not at all convinced the issue with the shrimp was GH or KH.  But beyond this, I would only be guessing as to the cause, but I do think it was likely one or more of the items I previously mentioned.
 
Wood.  Again, the fish intended need or should have wood in the tank, both for the physical aspects (artificial wood would achieve this aspect obviously), but also the biological properties (tannins released by wood and leaves do benefit these fish).  You need have no concerns over bacteria.  If any of the necessary bacteria did not live in such conditions, the natural habitats of all these fish would be a wasteland of dead fish.  Aside from this, after my initial comments on bacteria and low pH I went into this further with a friend of mine who has made it more of a study, and some recent work by biologists indicates some of our previous thinking on this may have been a bit off.  Needless to say, as I just mentioned, natural habitats function very well and letting nature do your work is always easier and safer.
 
Byron.
 
Byron, a last very basic question to see if this is a solution to my issues or a further headache....in regard to adding a small amount of crushed coral to my filter to essentially raise Kh and Ph slightly to say...Ph 6.5 (which I would think would be suitable for soft water fish) will the crushed coral continually dissolve and keep making Ph higher and higher or is the amount added to filter going to level out at a certain point closer to my desired Ph? I understand that you are no advocate to allowing nature to be tampered with but I wonder on the actual effect that said CC would have on my mini ecosystem and it's parametres. I thought the more coral you added, the higher Ph and Kh will get...add lesser amount and it will only buffer to a certain level and hold it there?
Not sure if my thoughts are correct and would adding a tad bit of CC benefit the water parameters whilst keeping it at a decent level of Ph and Kh.
I read your last post and understand it perfectly but what worries me is the huge fluctuations in Ph which may occur with water changes etc, in such a small amount of water...
I hope this made sense, kind of getting late here and tired from work so sorry if it sounds more like a ramble than a question....ha ha
Thank you.
 
PS so how does the tank manage waste from the fish in such acidic water, I understood that in such conditions, ammonia is turned into ammonium which is not toxic to fish, but what about nitrites? how are they managed if not by beneficial bacteria? plants in tank maybe? nitrates obviously are taken out with weekly water changes.... If BB are not around in the filter at such low Ph and Kh values, what actually detoxifies the waste from the occupants?
 
Byron, a last very basic question to see if this is a solution to my issues or a further headache....in regard to adding a small amount of crushed coral to my filter to essentially raise Kh and Ph slightly to say...Ph 6.5 (which I would think would be suitable for soft water fish) will the crushed coral continually dissolve and keep making Ph higher and higher or is the amount added to filter going to level out at a certain point closer to my desired Ph? I understand that you are no advocate to allowing nature to be tampered with but I wonder on the actual effect that said CC would have on my mini ecosystem and it's parametres. I thought the more coral you added, the higher Ph and Kh will get...add lesser amount and it will only buffer to a certain level and hold it there?
Not sure if my thoughts are correct and would adding a tad bit of CC benefit the water parameters whilst keeping it at a decent level of Ph and Kh.
 
 
I have "buffered" a couple of times, and over long periods, so I have some experience with doing this.  Back in the late 1990's into the early 2000's, I used dolomite which is calcium and magnesium.  This is similar to aragonite, and both are better "buffers" than coral which is only calcium.  I had 2-3 tablespoons of dolomite in a nylon bag in the canister filter of the two largest tanks, and it maintained a pH around 6.4 when the tap water was pH 5 or lower (the city did not add anything in those days).  So a very little goes a long way.  I experimented with the amount over a period of weeks to get to this stage, and without changing the dolomite at all it went on like this for several years.  The mineral does keep dissolving very slowly, but even when I discontinued this around 2003 or 2004 there was still dolomite in the bags.  The only thing here is that I have no idea what this did to the GH, or KH, as I did not test for these back then.  I had soft water fish so there seemed no reason to worry about GH or KH.  And the plants and fish thrived, so presumably things were fine.
 
Vancouver began using soda ash to raise the pH, and I removed the dolomite.  I tried crushed coral, and it sent the pH soaring overnight, with only a couple tablespoons in the filters (these were 90g and 115g tanks), but the GH which I did measure this time was not raised at all.  I decided this was of no real benefit, as I want acidic water, and the GH wasn't being touched so the plants would not benefit.  One of my reasons for this experiment was the plants, lacking calcium.  I changed to aragonite, but the pH still soared, so in the end I stopped and let things go where they wanted.  I am certain that my significant weekly water changes work to maintain a more stable water chemistry.
 
All you can do is try it, but not with fish or shrimp in the tank as you can easily have massive fluctuations and this is what damages fish.  A stable pH, be it higher or lower than what you might prefer, is generally safe as fish at least will manage provided it is not extreme of course.  Use very, very little.  And remember it takes a couple of days for changes, at least it did in my situation but I may have had a more stable biological system to begin with as the tanks had been running for a few years.
 
I read your last post and understand it perfectly but what worries me is the huge fluctuations in Ph which may occur with water changes etc, in such a small amount of water...
 
 
This is very unlikely to occur, the pH fluctuations I mean.  I use pH 7.0 tap water doing a 50-60% water change on tanks with a pH of 5 (or perhaps below, kit doesn't measure below 5) and the most the pH changes is by two or three decimal points.  I've been doing this for years with no ill effects on the fish.  These tanks range from a 10g, to a 20g, a 29g and a 33g.  My three larger tanks have a higher normal pH, around 6.0 to 6.6 for some reason.  As I think I said earlier, every aquarium will develop its own biological system, and remain relatively stable unless you impact it.  Regular partial water changes are part of the system's stability.
 
PS so how does the tank manage waste from the fish in such acidic water, I understood that in such conditions, ammonia is turned into ammonium which is not toxic to fish, but what about nitrites? how are they managed if not by beneficial bacteria? plants in tank maybe? nitrates obviously are taken out with weekly water changes.... If BB are not around in the filter at such low Ph and Kh values, what actually detoxifies the waste from the occupants?
 
 
I have plants, if only floating, in all my tanks.  Plants readily use ammonia/ammonium, and obviously nitrite is not a by-product when plants take up this ammonia/ammonium.  Some bacteria will establish.  I have never had a tank with very soft acidic water without plants, so I have no personal experience as to what may be different, but I would suspect the nitrifying bacteria are still doing their thing.  However, pH crashes are obviously more of a worry, and if the fish load is beyond the tank's capacity trouble will easily follow.
 
Hi everyone. Well...been a little while and have slightly re-scaped the aquarium and added some new plants and a bit of gravel that was given to me that co ordinates with the colour of the sand, mostly placed on the higher bits of the scape for a bit of texture. Look good and there is an added benefit...Ph is now steady and holding at 6.8-7 for over 4 days. Almost the same Ph as my tap water which is at nearly 7 when I measured it yesterday. As of yet, no ammonia, nitrites and not tested nitrates. Byron, what do you suggest I do next? add some shrimp again and see how they fare? there was a trumpet snail that came in on a plant and he seems happy in there and not dissolving in the acidic water I had prior so perhaps this may be a sign that maybe conditions are right to start adding low bio load critters to get tank started...?
Am yet a tad scared to be adding fish as I know there is going to be an ammonia spike sooner or later.
So? any advice from you all regarding the next steps?
This silent cycling is all good and all but...be nice to look at some living things...lol
Looking forward to your thoughts.
 
As of yet, no ammonia, nitrites and not tested nitrates.
 
 
Provided none of the added ammonia is present, you should not see any ammonia or nitrite (using our basic test kits, like the API).  That is the basis of "silent" cycling.  The bacteria will obviously still establish, but the live plants are doing the work for you with no adverse effects on fish.  Nitrate may eventually show up, but should remain very low when/if it does.
Byron, what do you suggest I do next? add some shrimp again and see how they fare? there was a trumpet snail that came in on a plant and he seems happy in there and not dissolving in the acidic water I had prior so perhaps this may be a sign that maybe conditions are right to start adding low bio load critters to get tank started...?
Am yet a tad scared to be adding fish as I know there is going to be an ammonia spike sooner or later.
 
 
If the trumpet snail is the Malaysian Livebearing Snail, they are fine in acidic water.  I have thousands in my tanks.  A very useful and helpful member of the aquatic system.
 
If ammonia and nitrite is zero over consecutive days, it should be OK to add a few fish, or I guess the shrimp.  As I said above, there should not be any ammonia "spike" unless you add too many fish at one time.  Ammonia and nitrite should remain zero throughout.
 
Byron.
 

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