Help!

[Tonym]

Hi Everyone

I have gone for a fishless cycle for my new 95l tank which has been cycling for 2 weeks, decided to test the water today everything was fine apart for the PH which is quite alkaline around a PH of 8.0. Tested the water stright from the tap and this is neutral. As most freshwater fish live in slightly acid water around 6.5 have any of you guys got any suggestions on bringing this down. I have plastic plants and a piece of bogwood could this be a part of the problem.

Thanks

Tony

 

[degsod]

I would not worry too much, what are your water stats, you are adding ammonia to your system so the Ph will be above 7 as ammonia is alkali, wait until you ahve finished the cycle and check then.

 

[Tonym]

Thanks for your help there degsod, quite taken aback by the PH level.

Nitrate is 5
Nitrite is 0.1
Ammonia is 0

 

[waterdrop]

Agree! Don't ever bother judging your eventual "fish environment" based on what's going on in your tank during cycling. When you are fishless cycling in particular, you are creating, ideally, a "bacterial growing soup" and it should be optimized for bacteria, not for fish. Then the big day comes, you throw out the bacterial soup, refill with fresh water and stop loading the tank with all that ammonia but instead a set of fishies that produce much less ammonia and things are decidedly different!

Your neutral tap water will probably turn out to be great for lots of types of community tanks, depending on all the species you want. Depending on your family situation you might want to just take your plastic plants out, leave your wood in and keep the tank dark with coverings (be careful re water soaking out or around electricals of course) to avoid algae during the fishless cycling period.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[degsod]

Keep posting your stats, I too am partway through a fishless cycle....

 

[Tonym]

Will pop them down for you, will check them friday.