How Are My Stats Looking?

[joeybear]

Jan 22nd - got fish (6 platys, 3 swordtails)
pH - 8
Ammonia - 0 - 0.6

Jan 23rd - Before water change
pH - 8
Ammonia - 0.6
Nitrite - 0.6
Nitrate - 15

Jan 25th - Before water change
Ammonia - 0.2
Nitrite - 0.3
Nitrate - 12

We are doing a 10 - 20% water change daily, just wondering if things are looking ok? Should I expect the ammonia to go up again and peak? Or has that been done since I now have nitrate?

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

you don't see the big ammonia and nitrite peak so much with fish-in cycling because you're removing it with water changes.

you'll most likely continue to get some results for both for a while then the ammonia will stay at 0 but you'll still ave some nitrite, it's only when that's gone that your done with the cycle and can go to a normal maintenance pattern.

 

[joeybear]

Oh ok thank you very much.
That's good news as I was a bit worried about a peak as I think both the swordtail females are pregnant.

 

[waterdrop]

If its drifting up to those 0.60 results rather than the better 0.20, 0.30 results of your later set, I'd up the percentage to a 30% change. Mostly looking good though.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[joeybear]

If its drifting up to those 0.60 results rather than the better 0.20, 0.30 results of your later set, I'd up the percentage to a 30% change. Mostly looking good though.

~~waterdrop~~

Thank you. Last night was
Jan 26th - before water change
Ammonia - Trace (between 0 and 0.2)
Nitrite - 0.6
Nitrate - 30

So we performed a 40% change to be on the safe side. Hopefully it would have gone down tonight.

 

[waterdrop]

When learning the whole art of water changing in the hobby, its good to be aware that the concept of "smaller percentage" water changes (such as the 15, 20% type ones you are describing) are all about supposedly lowering various "shocks" to fish who are in mature, normally functioning tanks. In those situations, the goal is usually to ensure very gradual changes in hardness (which shows up in pH, but hardness is the underlying more important thing I believe) and in some situations gradual temperature changes, and potentially, gradual changes in various trace metals and organics that we don't measure. Somewhere in these reasons we'd probably find the origin of this type of advice being frequently given in the LFS and books. (Note that rarely there is also the issue of elevated ammonia and/or nitrates in the source water, arguing for smaller, more frequent water changes to increase the dilution effect.)

But a big concept to understand is that ammonia and nitrite(NO2) poisoning, even in small amounts, *trumps* that sort of subtle guideline of small percentage changes. Whenever ammonia and nitrite(NO2) poisoning occurs, whether from the fact that you are cyclng or from an errant spike that occurs, it is much more serious and dangerous to your fish. As such it warrants whatever sort of larger water changes are necessary to quickly dilute the offending substances. The idea is that you want to quickly remove the excess ammonia and/or nitrite and monitor it and get back to a situation where you can afford to behave in a more subtle and stable way, with the smaller changes. Hope this makes sense.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

I thought the advice for small water changes came from the practices we used when I was young. Back then we did very few water changes at all. The water would tend to become concentrated with impurities and the hardness would increase immensely. When we just got desperate enough to try a water change, the tank water was so high in impurities of all kinds that a big water change killed fish. Nowadays it is called old tank syndrome but back then it was called a stable aquarium. What we do these days makes more sense in many ways. We change enough water often enough that the tank water never really gets very bad. By doing that there is no shock to the fish when we do a large water change because the water never got that bad to start with. It also lets us deal with things like ammonia as a simple water change. It sure beats having to worry about killing fish and balancing the harm of a big change with the harm from the ammonia. The water change is safe, the ammonia isn't.

 

[waterdrop]

Good point OM47, it probably came about from that too, maybe even more from that. It was sure more of a tough place you worked yourself into in those days, a tank with "aged" water that had become quite different from the tap water, not allowing for the Rx of large water changes on sudden notice.

~~waterdrop~~