Fishless Cycle In 35L Tank

[waterdrop]

 

[cybergibbons]

The new light arrived from China today - a 3x8W T5 fixture made by Boyu. Much more even distribution of light, even if the colour temperature is rather curious. We'll see how it goes with this.

 

[waterdrop]

You've had good pics before, perhaps you can capture the new light tint (although how it looks on each persons computer is different...)

 

[cybergibbons]

So this is the new light. The picture is taken with the same white balance setting on the camera so should show fairly accurately what it looks like. The last picture with the Arcadia Arc looks more blue in the photo than in real life, and correspondingly, this latest picture with the Boyu light looks more neutral than in real life - it has a slight green tint.

I think the new one is preferable, both from a colour temperature point of view and shadows. The actual colour gives a much better contrast between the plants and sand. The Arcadia Arc cast it's light from a single point downwards, which caused the middle of the tank to be bright and the edges dark. The Boyu is far more even, and I think replicates the feel of sunlight much better.

Certainly for £9 (+P&P, but it did arrive well packaged in 8 days from China) it's very good value. It's got a metal case, and isn't earthed or water proofed so I'd advise an RCD (ELCB I think they are called in the US).

 

[waterdrop]

Wow, do you really do that? Do you go into that setting in your camera and do the white setting? For some reason I'm remembering that you're supposed to hold a thing that really looks white to you in front of the camera and then do the white setting - is that right? Your pictures are great! There are a lot of people that combine a bit of photography know-how with this hobby. At an aquarium plant conference I went to I experienced this even more intensely. Some of the people I'd been talking to who I thought were totally about plants and dirt would go for days like that and then suddenly "reach into their pockets and pull out two-foot long telephoto lenses they must have weighed 15 pounds and hook them on to multi-thousand dollar Nikon bodies..." I just sat there dumbfounded and they would laugh and say "well you want a good shot of your tank, right mate?"

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

If you are getting off colors, the white balance setting adjustment can be very important to correct them WD.

 

[cybergibbons]

It doesn't have to be so complex - most small cameras can have the white balance set to fluorescent, tungsten, sunshine or cloudy, which gives you quite a lot of control. My DLSR can take a white balance off a neutral coloured surface, but that's far too much effort!

 

[cybergibbons]

pH has dropped from 7.4 to 6.4 overnight. Checked nitrates and they are still sitting at around 10-20ppm. Not sure what has caused the pH to change so drastically so quickly.

I'll get some bicarbonate of soda tonight to bring it back into a better range.

 

[waterdrop]

It just means you've used up all your "buffer" as the tank was going acid from the cycling. Its time for a "down to the gravel" water change with conditioner and temp matching on the return water and then a recharge of the ammonia and then we can discuss whether or not to move to baking soda.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[cybergibbons]

Ok - a 99% water change done (down to the sand... and a bit, oops!). Re-dosed with ammonia - let's see what happens.

 

[cybergibbons]

12 hours later the ammonia had dropped to 0.25ppm and the nitrites were at 2ppm. I should imagine the water change has just given the bacteria a bit of a knock back, so hopefully it will recover by tomorrow.

 

[cybergibbons]

The bacteria seem to have recovered very quickly after the water change and are clearing both nitrites and ammonia in under 24 hours.

The fresh water seems to have set the echinodorus into another growth spurt. It's astounding how they can grow an entire huge leaf in about a day.

I'm going to commence 12 hour testing now, and if things look good (I think ammonia will be clear in 12 hours, and nitrites very low) we might go for a very low stocking level for the last phase.

 

[waterdrop]

The nice google shared spreadsheet and data taking is paying off now. Its pretty to see the nice normal progression of your fishless cycle. Good work!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[cybergibbons]

A quick update after not posting for a while - I had to leave the country and also move house so the tank took a backseat. Finally moved the tank to it's new position Should be able to get some fish tomorrow.

 

[waterdrop]

So you were able to finish up your fishless cycle? Your last spreadsheet entry was in March it looks like. WD