My Fishless Cycle

[Rediahs]

So I am doing a fishless cycle and decided to make a log on here about how it's going. So far it all seems to be moot because it's hard to tell the difference between that 2.0 and 4.0 for ammonia on the API scale... but I tried my best, eh, that's all I can do... maybe it will be more interesting in the future, but right now it's just that emerald green colour every day, getting kinda tired of seeing that colour.

I have a real question/problem. I decided to go and buy a KH/GH test, and found that my KH is extremely high and my GH is WAYYYY off the charts! I tested my tank water first, so at first I blamed my "marine sand" that claimed to be suitable for freshwater. But then I decided to test my tap water and got exactly the same results.

As I said, I'm using a "marine sand" that claims it's okay for fresh water. It doesn't say it's made of crushed coral, and it's black in colour. It seems to have buffered the pH somewhat (my tap water was 8.0 and it raised it to 8.3 pH). But holy crap!!!! Is this super high KH and GH good or bad for a) bacteria and/or b) fish?!??! If it's bad for bacteria, what can I do now to lower it? If it's bad for fish, what can I do to lower it later? I plan on using indian almond leaves but that probably won't be enough.... I mean the leaves will lower the pH but probably not the KH or GH.

I assume the marine sand isn't raising my KH/GH because they are the same or lower than the tap water. What made the GH lower? Was it the bacteria? The filtering?

You'll see here, it's a log of my tests.

May 1 (before adding ammonia)
Tap water:
pH: 8.0
NH3 (ammonia): 0.5 ppm
NO2 (nitrite): 0.0 ppm
NO3 (nitrate): 10 ppm

May 2: (started fishless cycle)
Added 2-4 (or so) ppm ammonia
No stats today

May 3:
pH: 8.3 (I believe the "marine sand" raised the pH by 0.3)
NH3: 2-4 ppm (can't decide)
NO2: 0 ppm

May 4:
pH: 8.3
NH3: 2.0 ppm (I'm pretty sure)

May 5: NH3: 2.0 ppm

May 6: NH3: 2.0 ppm

May 7: NH3: 2.0 ppm

May 8 (marks 1 week since added ammonia):
Tank water:
NH3: 2.0 ppm
NO2: 0ppm
KH: 11dKH (approx 190 ppm)
GH: 20 drops (scale ends at 12) I figure this is approx 400 ppm
Tap water:
pH: 7.8
KH: 11dKH
GH: 21 drops (!!!!)

May 9:
pH: 8.3
NH3: 2.0 ppm

May 10: NH3: 2.0 ppm

May 11: NH3: 2.0 ppm

May 12:
pH: 8.3
NH3: 2.0 ppm
NO2: 0ppm
NO3: 8 ppm

May 13: NH3: 1-2 ppm

May 14 NH3: 1-2 ppm

May 15 NH3: 1-2 ppm

May 16 NH3: 1-2 ppm

May 17: Added AquaClear 70 filter alongside old Whisper Ex30
NH3: 1-2 ppm

May 18
pH: 8.2
NH3: 1-2 ppm
NO2: 0ppm

May 19 NH3: 1.0 ppm

May 20 NH3: 1.0 ppm

May 21 NH3: 1.0 ppm

May 22
pH: 8.3
NH3: 1.0 ppm
NO2: 0.25 ppm

May 23
NH3: 1.0 ppm
NO2: 0.25 ppm

May 24
NH3: 1.0 ppm
NO2: 0.25 ppm
After this I did a 50% water change... was trying to clean some stuff off my sand. I did not top the ammonia back up.

May 25
NH3: 0.5 ppm
NO2: 0.25 ppm

May 26
NH3: 0.25-0.5 ppm
NO2: 0.5-1.0 ppm

May 27
NH3: 0.5 ppm
NO2: 0.5-1.0 ppm

May 28
pH: 8.2
NH3: 0.25 ppm
NO2: 1.0 ppm

May 29

NH3: 0.15 ppm
NO2: 1.5 ppm
NO3: 15 ppm

May 30

NH3: 0 , added 2 ppm NH3
NO2: 1.5 ppm
NO3: 15 ppm

May 31

NH3: 0.75
NO2: 1.5 ppm

June 1

NH3: 0, added 2-4 ppm NH3
NO2: 1.5 ppm

evening
NH3: 0.25

June 2

NH3: 0, added 4 ppm NH3
NO2: 2.0 ppm
pH: 8.4

evening
NH3: 0
NO2: 2.0 ppm

June 3

NH3: 0 added 2 ppm NH3
NO2: 2.0 ppm

 

[waterdrop]

..quick look here.. Hard water will not bother the bacteria and in fact should be good. Marine sand however is not advised for a freshwater tank I believe...

~wd~

 

[Rediahs]

Well, the thing is that this "marine sand" doesn't seem very mariney. It didn't cause the high KH/GH (tap water already had high levels) and while it may have raised the pH of the water a little, this stuff doesn't seem to dissolve and is not made of coral and the bag says it is fine for freshwater. It is "Estes' Ultra reef marine sand", I bought it because it is a pretty black colour which is what I wanted.

I tested it by putting a handful of it in a bowl and pouring vinegar on. I've heard that if it is a buffering or crushed coral sand, it will fizz and bubble. But I had absolutely no reaction. I poured lots of vinegar on it too and nothing happened. So I assume it's just fine for freshwater.

But if someone has a reason why I shouldn't use it! I'm open to reasoning but not pure speculation, since, as I haven't seen a reason not to use it, I'd need a practical reason why I can't use it to go and switch it out.

Waterdrop, thanks so much for the reply, but you didn't mention if the hard water is bad for fish or not? Especially since I am hoping to keep fish who enjoy soft water, like cardinals.

As a side note, I have a betta, and he seems perfectly fine with the water. I hope this is a good indicator?

 

[ChiNA MaN]

not really cause betta's live in ponds of dirty filthy water but u can buy ph lowering kits from api

 

[drobbyb]

not really cause betta's live in ponds of dirty filthy water but u can buy ph lowering kits from api

I wouldn't recommend using a pH adjuster like pH up or pH down. They will only alter the pH for a little while and are far too fast acting.

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah Chrissi, I think you're thinking is good. Your vinegar test was a good thing to do. There are all sorts of labels that little companies put on plasic bags of things they sell in retail stores and someone might has felt that from a marketing standpoint "marine sand" would just sound good and sell the product. I think you're smart to just take your time and assume its ok until someone comes along and gives you better reasons why it might not be. I'm not a a salt/marine experienced person, so maybe a more experienced person will happen along here in your thread.

The "rock water" is a different thing! Perhaps OM47 will happen along. He's got really hard water and enjoys working with a lot of livebearers and other fish that don't mind being in hard water like that. He should be able to give you a better starting perspective on how to go about seeing the big picture for your future fishkeeping with hard water.

The general outline that is often read here on the forums is that its first very important to stop and consider how much easier it will be to adjust the types of species you keep to the reality of your local water situation. The problem with fighting your local water situation is not that it can't be done, its just that the reality of keeping up with the regular work involved week after week, weekend after weekend, over many years can be near impossible for some people, many people.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Tolak]

I'm assuming you have the liquid test kit that uses little tubes, with a mark for 5ml. Do your hardness tests with 10ml, and double the resulting number.

It's much easier to adjust the species you keep to the water you have than to try adjusting water. Reverse osmosis water is the only safe method of doing this, but causes a lot of waste water, and their is some money involved in buying the ro unit. You also need something to mix the water in, then a way of getting it to the tank.

Forget adding chemicals to water that hard, you will be fighting a loosing battle. Hardness stabilizes pH, and is minerals in the water. Ro removes these minerals, adding something to the tank will not remove them.

 

[Rediahs]

Hmmm, okay. So I believe (not sure?) that they sell large (5g or so) jugs of RO water at the grocery store. I think, after you buy a jug, it is only a couple dollars a jug. If I dilute my water with the RO water, it will lower the hardness, right? And I wouldn't be adding any chemicals. Do you think this would be a good way to go? Or would the fish not enjoy what may be an inconsistent hardness (since it will be hard to always have the same amount?) I was thinking maybe if I use half RO water and half tap water, that would reduce the hardness to a reasonable level. But it won't always be perfect.. just roughly half, since I'd probably fill a 5g bucket halfway with tap water, dechlor it, then fill it the rest of the way with the RO water, that might be a good way to go....? I don't plan to add chemicals to my water, I think that would be silly, it doesn't make much sense to add a chemical to remove something (aside from chlorine/chloramines, I have a feeling that the minerals that make water hard are a lot different and don't simply "evaporate" like those)

Because I think fish like cardinals don't like so much hardness in their water do they?

I really really want cardinals, and otos, they are one of the reasons I decided to buy a tank, so that I could keep cardinals and otos. So, I mean I could start getting into cichlids from lake malawi or something but they never appealed to me as much, and I know nothing about cichlids, don't know their care...

What other fish like hard water?

Yes I'm using the API liquid test with the 5mL tubes, for all of my tests including the KH/GH.

Thanks for your replies so far guys.

 

[OldMan47]

Cardinals like their water very soft. If you are willing to spend the money every week to pick up enough RO to do a large water change, it is no problem. I have kept fish on occasion that like their water soft but as WD and Tolak said, it can be a chore to keep the water at a specific softness for fish that like their water soft. I do have an RO unit in my home and use RO water when I need to top off the water in my tanks because they are low. That way I don't concentrate the already high solids content of the water in my tanks. When I keep soft water fish, like the cories I was trying to breed, I figure out a mix that will give me the desired hardness in the tank and then mix the water a bucket at a time before adding it. For my cories that was 4 parts RO to 1 part tap water. That reduced my TDS to about 100 ppm or a bit over 5 german degrees of hardness. I find that I can also collect rain water during a good heavy storm and mix it in as if it was RO. The first few minutes pretty will rinse off the roof and the water that comes after that first part tends to run at less than 10 ppm TDS. If the rain is not coming down hard, I don't try to collect it because it is always much higher in unwanted chemicals. You can even see the dust in the water when it is a gentle rain. I only have one tank left that I even try to reduce the hardness. That one tank has lots of soft water fish in it. Most of the fish that I keep now are matched to my water rather than trying to match the water to the fish. There are many dozens of different fish that do fine in hard water with a pH of 7.8, which is what I have.

 

[Rediahs]

If you look at the log, you can see that in around 2 weeks, there has only just begun to be a bit of a drop in ammonia. This is a bit of a long time... right? (When I say 1-2 ppm on May 13 and 14, it's really a lot closer to 2, but the colour is somewhere between them so I put 1-2).

I'm wondering if it's because of my filter? Is it underpowered? It says it does 160 gph (Tetra Whisper Ex30) but should I not trust that? The tank is 29 gallons. I've been considering adding in a AquaClear 50.... or should I do 70? That seems a bit too overpowered for my tank but I'm new to this so I'm not sure.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Chrissi,

You appear to be on day 12 of your fishless cycle as I write this. That's nothing! You've hardly started! There are simply not enough A-Bacs in there yet to eat enough ammonia for your ammonia kit to detect much activity. That's totally normal. Sometimes people can't get that first dosing of ammonia to drop to zero ppm for 3 whole weeks. The beneficial bacteria, the two species of autotrophs we want, are very slow growers. This is nothing related to your equipment or how you're doing carrying out the process.

Not sure if some of the descriptions of the process made you feel you should expect it to be quicker or made you feel yours was slow? I'm sorta interested because we do seem to get a lot of people getting into the process and something about our documents or generalizations in the threads makes them feel it should be faster... and maybe we could figure out wording that would help.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Rediahs]

Well, it seemed from a lot of peoples' diaries that they had 0 ammonia by 2 weeks in. Also I forget who it was that was saying it, but I remember seeing someone say something along the lines of "For the first drop to zero, we generally expect it to take between one and two weeks" and that "two weeks would be considered a long time".

It's the 14th day now (May 15th) and my ammonia is still between 1-2 ppm (closer to 2). So that's 2 weeks dead on. So is that normal?

To be honest I don't like my filter much so if I had an excuse to go buy a new one I wouldn't be terribly upset hahahaha....

 

[waterdrop]

Gee, so I thought I'd see if I could see what filter you had so I thought "wonder if chrissi has any other posts"... big mistake, you've got a zillion, lol. Made me tired just looking and started thinking maybe "lana" was your neighbor (an earlier newbie who was also from Canada I believe...) now I think her cycling took much longer than yours! you could read her thread for fun.

About whether taking 2 weeks for the first drop to zero is normal: well, sometimes the way I think about that is that the tanks being reported on here are being filled up by tapwater that's coming out of thousands of completely different water systems in water districts all over the world. I imagine some of them to have millions of our autotrophs happening to be in the water on that first fill, and others to have only a very few cells. You might just be living somewhere with a "cleaner" water supply, lol. (I guess I should say that I don't mean that in a serious sense because all of the minute "ppms" and "few cells" we talk about here are generally "healthy" in the human sense.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Rediahs]

Well, I mentioned earlier which filter I have, a Tetra Whisper Ex30. No time for the rest of my post right now, just wanted to say that.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I wonder if I'm remembering others complaining of the tetra whisper series not having much media volume. Perhaps someone who knows them can comment...

~~waterdrop~~
ps. I remember chuckling during yesterdays post thinking I was sounding funny but reading it this morning it looks like it falls into one of those categories where any funnyness doesn't come across in words, sorry!