Cycle

[the_lock_man]

I had added something to my post but I understand completely. And I am not dense. I gathered I had those two options from an earlier post.

Sorry, didn't see that edit, and I also apologise for upsetting you.

Ace Hardware sell ammonia (I'm assuming from the dollar sign that you're in the US or Canada, rather than Australia, or anywhere else that has dollars as a currency!) for somewhat less than $60.

 

[ShyKitty91]

500ml of ammonia costs £1.79 from boots. If you cant afford that, and I'm not being cruel or poking fun at you here, i know exactly what it feels like to be told you need to buy something and you cant afford it, but what if you cant afford food for the fish, or if something breaks, like the heater, what do you do then?

Honestly, cycle doesnt work! And although you might have a filter sitting in a bucket, there is no food source, as previously mentioned, and without food, the bacteria will die, fact.

Put the filter in the tank, dose with 4ppm of ammonia and if thefilter processes that ammonia into nitrite then nitrate, in 12 hours, then you can say cycle works and ill hold my hands up.

You will also need to continue dosing until you get new fish.

You should really get your water checked if its that disgusting that it makes you sick, it is the landlord or councils resposibility to make sure your house is liveable, that includes good water.


Also, you never need to change the filter sponges, unless they fall apart, and you dont need carbon unless youre removing medications/tannins etc from the water.

Like I mentioned before. $60. HUGE bottle that will never be fully used.
Also mentioned, my father is buying the food (kind of makes me feel pathetic to be honest.)
If something breaks, I imagine I'd have to pawn my DVDs and video games that I dislike/don't play.
There is a reason I live at home. Economy sucks, there are no jobs, especially in the village I live.

You live on a different continent it might be different there. My mom has brought it up to the mayor a few times. All he keeps telling her is that they can put pipes in, attaching the house to the rest of the town, but she will have to pay to have all the digging and installation done. The pipes themselves they would pay for. Great eh? We buy bottled water.. (Does it say anything that a village of 1000 people has 2 places to get water?)

And I've always changed the filter sponge every 2 months and the charcoal every month (but not at the same time.) Thanks for that tip though, saves alot of my dads money since they are $8 and $10 a piece.

 

[The Taffy Apple]

Would you mind me asking what state/territory you live in?

Best of luck with your water issues though.

Terry.

 

[hanny93]

Economy sucks over here too, its taken me close to two years to get a job that is only part time.

I didnt actually see those other comments, so i apologise for that. In that case, you can still drop some fish food in to keep the bacteria alive, if there is any left after a week.

I live at home aswell, youre lucky to have someone willing to pay for it all really, although what happens if he suddenly decides he doesnt want to pay for it anymore?

I'm not trying to be horrible or anything like that, just making sure you know that this hobby is a long one and there are lots of little things that can trip you up along the way, and if you arent expecting them, it can be quite upsetting.


And nope, every time you change those sponges you are removing all the good bacteria, you never need to change them better still, why dont you replace the sponges over time with cewramic media? Muich better for bacteria and quite cheap/.

 

[Miles_hot]

you don't want to remove all the sponges as some will be there for mechanical filtration (getting the "bits" out)....

 

[ShyKitty91]

Can you clarity if you have fish in the tank?
If not have you been adding ammonia to the tank?
What is the difference between town and country water (in chemical terms rather than taste)?
Thanks

I do not have any fish.
I have been using cycle unfortunately (mentioned in another post.)
The water my moms house uses is well water. It has extrememly high levels of sulfur, iron, and calcium.
Needless to say.. My family only uses it to cook with and, unfortunately, to shower with, gives you a slimy feeling, ick. Cannot drink it without getting sick for weeks on end. Can't say what it would do to a fish, but it would probably be very bad.

The reason I asked about the water at the house was the concern that if you need to do a water change the logistics of it might either make it much harder to do or cause you to put it off for a day etc which could be detremental to your fish / cycle depending on which road you go down.
Is the town water meterred? If not you could look at the RO route where you filter all the bad stuff out (either cheap one stage - lots of waste water or more expensive 3 stage with much less waste as I understand it). You might also want to look at what PRIME does - I understand that it locks away heavy metals etc however I don't know if that would apply to sulphur and the sort of quantities that you hvae - maybe an email to them would help?
Out of interested why do you cook with it if you can't drink it - surely it would taint your food unless the major contaminant is biological (bugs and hormones etc)?

If you can't get the bottled ammonia look at the fish flake / prawn decomposing in the tank method. These have their advocates (not least in terms of the greater complexity of items released) however the smell / uncontrolled nature of them put me off...
Regards
Miles

I am not worried about getting water too much, if I really have to I can use the bottled water my mom buys to drink. But my dad is home after 6PM 99.9% of the time so I could easily just go get more. He doesn't even have to be home since I use the outside tap.

We have a giant RO filter (kind of) attached to our well. Even with regular maintence it doesn't do much. The issue with that too is they are doing alot of construction down the road and turn the whole electrical grid off OFTEN. Our well can't pump without electricity.

I have looked into prime. It doesn't do much for sulphur. (Another reason why I was originally waiting. 5G of clean water is $10.)

We can cook with the filtered well water (water for the shower isn't filtered) because we boil it (we only use it when its a large amount needed to cook with.) There isn't any bugs in it (if there is they are caught in the well filter I'm sure.)

I forgot about the shrimp in a sock method. I'm allergic to shrimp but I know ground beef works too. Maybe I'll grab a raw chunk next time my mom cooks hamburgers or something. I think she's intending to soon, she has some defrosting.. I'm not sure how much the smell would bug me considering what our water smells like. *ponders

I had added something to my post but I understand completely. And I am not dense. I gathered I had those two options from an earlier post.

Sorry, didn't see that edit, and I also apologise for upsetting you.

Ace Hardware sell ammonia (I'm assuming from the dollar sign that you're in the US or Canada, rather than Australia, or anywhere else that has dollars as a currency!) for somewhat less than $60.

I'll look into it, thank you.

It wasn't you. I'm just generally frustrated..

Would you mind me asking what state/territory you live in?

Best of luck with your water issues though.

Terry.

I live in a province.
Alberta.

It's not so much a water issue, you adapt to where you live.
Suppose that's true for everything living, to an extent.

 

[ShyKitty91]

Economy sucks over here too, its taken me close to two years to get a job that is only part time.

I didnt actually see those other comments, so i apologise for that. In that case, you can still drop some fish food in to keep the bacteria alive, if there is any left after a week.

I live at home aswell, youre lucky to have someone willing to pay for it all really, although what happens if he suddenly decides he doesnt want to pay for it anymore?

I'm not trying to be horrible or anything like that, just making sure you know that this hobby is a long one and there are lots of little things that can trip you up along the way, and if you arent expecting them, it can be quite upsetting.


And nope, every time you change those sponges you are removing all the good bacteria, you never need to change them better still, why dont you replace the sponges over time with cewramic media? Muich better for bacteria and quite cheap/.

The agreement my dad and I came up with is that once I start making enough money (since I'm only selling art right now, because economy sucks and I'm in crazy debt, with my mom no less) I'll take over paying for everything. Not replacing the filter every month only leaves him with food to pay for really. Occasional med/filter stuff. So I don't know if he will have an issue with it.

Was going to pick up some food when I get my NO3 test when I see him on Wednesday. Tomorrow now I suppose.

And yes I know, fish are alot like people. They get stressed, tempermental, territorial, possesive, sick. Their own personailities. Everything.

Ceramic media like.. Crushed planter pots in a bag?

you don't want to remove all the sponges as some will be there for mechanical filtration (getting the "bits" out)....

I see. Well I feel a little dim for not clueing into that years ago when I had fish before.

 

[Miles_hot]

Ceramic media = special stuff from Eheim etc which has millions of tiny holes / voids in which gives a simply massive surface area. Crushed pots will not cut it

If you're suffering from frequent power outages I would investigate a UPS to keep the filter running and a duvet to keep the heat in the tank

Miles

 

[hanny93]

Oops forgot about the mech filtration! Thanks miles

And Op, dont feel dim, everyone has to learn!

 

[coldcazzie]

Nitrate doesn't kill fish. Even the most sensitive fish don't show symptoms of being adversely affected by nitrate until it's at several hundred ppm. If you want to keep your nitrate below 50 then that's fine, but it won't make much difference to the fish, and it certainly will not "control algae". Nitrate does not cause algae.

Without an ammonia source or oxygen flow the vast majority of the bacteria in the filter you were given will have died. You might have kept 10%, perhaps.

Cycle products are pretty much ineffective. The only way to cycle is to have a source of ammonia, either naturally provided (via fish poo) or unnaturally provided (via household ammonia). Other methods are handfuls of fishfood or prawns as mentioned.

It's either that, or you need to do a fish in cycle. But you've already said you're not happy with that. I don't see what options you have really...

 

[ShyKitty91]

Well.. When I tested this morning ammonia dropped to almost nothing.. and NO2 shot up to 3.3..
I'm getting a NO3 test today and some ammonia if I can find a small bottle when in the big city. But I'll be gone for 4 days.. My as well just restart I guess.

 

[ShyKitty91]

Got my ammonia. My mom bought it for me. It's a 2L bottle. Haha
I did the shake test and it seems fine.

I'm bringing it up to 5ppm now. Using a big spoon to stir the tank.