Help Planning And Cycling My New Tank...roma 125

[OldMan47]

The effect of Prime or similar products is about the same. When you use them they take the chloramine and break the chemical bonds to produce chlorine and ammonia. In the case of chemical treatments like Prime, or similar products, they result in some neutralized chlorine and a finite amount of ammonia which they deal with by making it less likely to impact the fish. The end result is that the contaminants resulting from dechlorinators means that the dechlorinators cause no real problems with our fish. Where does that leave you? The result is that a true world hobbyist is no more likely to have trouble with shipped fish than with LFS bred fish.

 

[KAISER]

Day 7

ph 6.8
ammonia 0.25 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm

Its been a few days since the last water change, and although the ammonia hasn't gone down, it hasn't gone up either. This is making me think the two platies aren't producing enough waste for the tank to notice. This idea worries me a little because when the tank is capable of dealing with 0.25 ppm ammonia from the tap water, the bacteria won't have any more food and will quickly die. Does that make sense?

 

[OldMan47]

It makes some kind of sense to me Kaiser except that you are overlooking the fact that fish release ammonia constantly at their gills, and decaying fish food and fish waste also constantly produce ammonia. The bacteria have a seemingly endless supply of ammonia at low concentrations in a lightly populated tank.
Where does that leave you once all traces of ammonia and nitrites are gone? You are left with a tank that has a big enough bacterial population to deal with the two fish you have in it. It is fully cycled at that point for the fish biological load that you have. Any increase in fish load will put a bit of stress on the bacteria and they will increase their numbers to cope with the added food supply. They may or may not respond quickly enough that you will never see any ammonia in the water. If you do get a bit of ammonia at that point, it will just be a mini-cycle and things will settle back down.

 

[KAISER]

Thank you Oldman, thats good to hear! When I done my tests this afternoon, ammonia was at 0 ppm, in fact they all were. I carried out a 25% water change. Having not read your reply at that point, I decided to add another platy to the tank, because as I previously stated, I feared the cycle would stall! I will retest the water in another hour or two.
In this situation, with a light stock, do you think I will see nitrites show up in my tests?

Day 8 (afternoon)

ammonia 0 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm
nitrate 0 ppm

and now night...

ammonia 0.25 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm

 

[OldMan47]

Keep an eye on the tank for a few days. The added platy has added 50% to your biological load so it may show a small mini-cycle effect before settling back down.

 

[KAISER]

Thanks Oldman.

Day 9 (afternoon)

ph 6.6
ammonia 0.25 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm

Will recheck levels later on tonight.

...and tonight the readings are:

ammonia 0.25 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm

 

[KAISER]

Day 10

ph 6.6
ammonia 0.25 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm

 

[KAISER]

Day 11

ph 6.6
ammonia 0 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm
nitrate 0 ppm

Carried out 30% water change, which, ironically, will add ammonia back into the tank!

 

[KAISER]

Day 12

ph 6.4
ammonia 0 ppm (might be a trace, hard to tell )
nitrite 0 ppm

Last night the ph in my daughters tank crashed down to 6.0, so I changed 50% of the water. Tonight it was still at 6.0 so I changed 90% of the water, all the time thinking it was due to the cycle. But after last nights water change in my tank I see my ph has also dropped down a bit, so now I'm wondering if the tap water in my area has changed? Got a glass standing by to check tomorrow night.

 

[kaivalagi]

You can test the water straight out of the tap, no need to allow chlorine to escape...I assume that's why you've put it in a glass to stand?

 

[KAISER]

Yes it is mate, but you have to wait 24 hours to check ph, you get a false reading straight from the tap. WD explained it something along the lines of because the water is kept under pressure there is a high co2 build up which gives a false ph reading. Something like that anyway

 

[kaivalagi]

That would have never occurred to me but does make sense, CO2/KH/PH are all inter-connected chemically, hence the PH/KH tables to work out CO2 levels...something else I've learnt today, thanks for that

You can't go wrong with WD's advice, that's for sure, unlike mine

Good job you asked him first!!!

 

[KAISER]

Your help has been ace so far mate
It was in fishywishies cycle thread if you can find it, cant exactly remember the explanation he gave tho.

 

[kaivalagi]

Cheers

Do you think that your water authority may have switched to a new source of water or changed the way they treat it maybe? Seems odd that the water pH in 2 tanks would drop so quickly like that

 

[KAISER]

I know, it does sound a bit coincidental. The other tank is on day 39 of the cycle, and I confess I never checked the ph for about 5 days, until last night. Being a smaller tank, it needs far more frequent (and larger) water changes, so its hard to say when it happend. The ammonia is holding steady at 0.25 ppm for the last five (ish) days, the lowest it has been.