Ferg's New Tanks

[Ferg1985]

Rather than clogging up my picture thread I thought it best I log my new tank's stats here.

I will eventually have two tanks (425 litre - 65 litre) it is just the 65 litre running at the moment [dims 50 x 35 x 49]. Filled it with water yesterday (some tankwater from my brother's established tank) along with primarily treated tapwater. The filter spent a night running in his tank too, to get some gunk inside of it . The filter is a Fluval Internal U2 [400 ltr p/h].

At the moment it has 6 live plants in and two rocks, Unipac Limpopo black sand with a layer of JBL Florapol beneath it, the heater and a TMC Aquagro C02 starter kit.

Day 1 test readings:

pH - 7.2
Amonnia - 1.0 mg/l (ppm)
Nitrite - 0.0 mg/l (ppm)
Nitrate - 5.0 mg/l (ppm)

Day 2 test readings:

pH - 7.2
Amonnia - 0.5 mg/l (ppm)
Nitrite - 0.0 mg/l (ppm)
Nitrate - 5.0 mg/l (ppm)

Tomorrow I was thinking of doing a small water change and replacing it with more water from my brother's tank to try and raise the ammonia again. The tank came with a free sample of algae wafers, would it be any help to chuck a couple in to boost ammonia or is it just a waste of good wafers? lol..

 

[Wills]

Hi, just to check how are you cycling? If your adding wafers and relying on that to be the source of ammonia its not really going to do it long term.

Best way to do a proper fishless cycle is to get down to homebase and get some pure household ammonia and then use the calculator at the top of this page to work out the correct dosage you need for the tank.

The way you are testing the water is perfect! Youve got that 100% right just need to get the source of ammonia right now

I think its important to do this cycle thoroughly for this tank because of your plans with the gourami you were talking about in the picture thread as they are quite delicate. You might even want to consider adding some almond leaves to the water to bring the Ph down when the time comes to adding them.

I still think your plans for this tank are going to be awesome cant wait to see it come along now!

Wills

 

[Ferg1985]

Hi Wills, thanks for the response!

I had my filter running in an established tank for a good 20 hours - I know that won't have done much but when I got it home there was some fish poo and other debris in it, that along with the tank water (which like I said I'm hoping to get more of tomorrow, along with some more fish waste etc) I take it that is why the ammonia only peaked at 1.0 mg/l and not a higher reading. I do work nextdoor to a homebase store so I'll try and go in tomorrow after work. The wafers was just me being impatient with staring at a fishless tank I know that would have very little encouragement for the ammonia levels rising.

Regarding the Gouramis, fully understand you on that. The tank won't have the desired stocking until after I've fully stocked the yet to arrive big tank. It could be another 4-5 weeks before that arrives, and then god knows how long to get that up and running, then the fish already in the 65ltr will be transfered down to that and new fish quarantined in it. I imagine that is a process which itself will take a couple of months so overall it might be late summer by the time Gouramis are even a possibility, by which time I'd hope the small tank would be accommodating to them, and almond leaves etc can be added after the last fish destined for the big tank get moved.

Thanks for the help again, you're one hell of an ambassador to fishkeeping and I hope everyone acknowledges how much time and energy you spend helping and responding to everyone's posts

 

[Wills]

Thanks for the help again, you're one hell of an ambassador to fishkeeping and I hope everyone acknowledges how much time and energy you spend helping and responding to everyone's posts

thanks I spend far to much time on it but fish talk chills me out so its all good.

Good idea on the quarantine set up and since your filter is slightly seeded putting the food in to rot is really good to keep doing that until you get your ammonia cos other wise the bacteria could die off from lack of ammonia source.

Wills

 

[waterdrop]

Glad to hear that Wills has got you searching for the right sort of ammonia as that and a good liquid-reagent based test kit are the two most essential tools to getting your fishless cycle started. You can read other fishless cycling threads here in the beginners section to see how people are going about this. Once you have figured out the right dosing amount to bring your tank to 4 or so ppm then you might want to think again about asking for a mature media donation from your brother's established tank. If you could get him a new sponge of the same type as his main biomedia one, you could use scissors to cut and take 1/3 of his mature one and cut 1/3 of the new one to place in with his 2/3 that is left. This should not cause any blips in his biofiltration and when you place that 1/3 sponge inside your new filter next to your biomedia it will hold the possibility of a big boost for you if it "takes."

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Harlequins]

Good luck with your cycles and tanks

 

[Ferg1985]

Thanks again guys, I did today's test when I got in from work.. Before I'd gone to work I did a 15% ish water change (all I had time for) and then my brother came around with 2 more litres of dirty tank water which he'd vacuumed out from the substrate, absolutely full of waste! so that had been churning around for 7 hours. However, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate levels still not rising so I'll start listening to your advice a little more and tomorrow I'll add the ammonia. I was going to buy it today but I was still that little bit unsure of what to do (forgot more than anything with the daily list of chores etc) and was worried it'd damage the plants, but I know it won't.

Cheers again for the help and encouragement!

 

[Wills]

Yeah I know the ammonia stuff seems wierd but it works it really does. If the ammonia solution is 9.5% for your tank to dose it to 5ppm you want to add 3.42 ml each time. The way I did it was to add everytime the ammonia got to 0 it will sit high at around 4/5 for a day or two but it will start to go down then once it hits 0 with the test results add an other 3.42 ml and start again. Then once you get from 5ppm to 0ppm of ammonia and nitrite in 12 hours for a week your done it will take few weeks. The only issue with plants in the cycle is algae but it will most likely be brown algae which will go pretty quick once you are done with the cycle, but that would be present either way of cycling to be fair.

Wills

 

[Ferg1985]

Still not got hold of any bottled ammonia yet, so readings are still fairly muted:

Day 4

pH - 7.6 (presume that's the plants fault)
Amonnia - 0.5 mg/l (ppm) (slight rise)
Nitrite - 0.5 mg/l (ppm) (first recorded readings)
Nitrate - 5.0 mg/l (ppm) closest to 5.0 but much darker than before

 

[Ferg1985]

Just back from work, got a bottle of household ammonia on the way home - I've just added to tank (think I've just lost all my nostril hair in the process! got a bit too close to bottle when I opened it, nasty fumes haha)). Added the correct dosage and think I'll leave it a couple of hours and do my daily water tests. Here's to taking it up a gear!

 

[waterdrop]

Glad to hear you're finally getting started - WD

 

[Ferg1985]

Day 5

pH - 7.8 (from looking at other similiar threads I take it pH rises are common when doing fishless cycles)
Amonnia - 5.0 mg/l (ppm)
Nitrite - 0.25 mg/l (ppm)
Nitrate - 5.0 mg/l (ppm)

 

[Ferg1985]

Day 6

24 hours since first Ammonia was added:


Day 4

pH - 7.6
Amonnia - 0.5 mg/l (ppm) (slight rise)
Nitrite - 0.5 mg/l (ppm) (first recorded readings)
Nitrate - 5.0 mg/l (ppm) closest to 5.0 but much darker than before

no change as yet, other than losing two plants

 

[waterdrop]

pH rises because the ammonia itself is a slight base. Also, CO2 is a slight acid and will be in higher concentration in the water mains, so will come in with a somewhat lower pH at first and then the pH may rise a bit after the excess CO2 gases off. As a fishless cycle progresses, the cycle itself will exert a downward pressure on pH because there is a small nitric acid component to the nitrate(NO3) the cycle is producing.

Its best to remove parts of plants or whole plants as you lose them because of course they will be broken down into still more ammonia by the heterotrophic bacteria in the water.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Ferg1985]

Did a slight water change this morning (say another 15%) tried to get a bit more dead plant matter out but I need do go and buy a gravel cleaner or something.

Readings were done at 9.30pm, ammonia colouration was less green but still within the 4ppm bracket. No change to readings, although pH alike the Ammonia was a less blue colouration but still within the high 7's. I'll go and buy something to clear the remaining plant matter tomorrow, give the tank a good clean (it is looking messy under the filter) and do another part water change.

Day 7

pH - 7.6
Amonnia - 0.5 mg/l (ppm)
Nitrite - 0.5 mg/l (ppm)
Nitrate - 5.0 mg/l (ppm)