New Tank

[TopChip7]

OMG!!!! - This is what the LFS had to say when I asked "Do you sell pure ammonia"?

**********URINATE IN YOUR TANK***********

Seems viable I suppose!!! Any thoughts?

 

[Schmill]

PLEASE read the cycling thread BEFORE making a trip to the fish shop again.
Mature media from the fish shop would be great, but only if you already have the media you want in your filter, and have a supply of ammonia ready, (which it will be HIGHLY unlikely the fish shop will stock, they'll more than likely try to sell you a couple of 'hardy' fish and some miracle-in-a-bottle-potion).

Correct Steps:

1) See whats in your filter, if your not sure about the media describe it here, (pictures even better!), and people will try to recommend hat might be best for you.
2) Get the media if needed.
3) Get the bottled ammonia, as said by waterdrop this is more likely going to come from a hardware store rather than the LFS. Not sure if you are in the US or UK, but if you are in the UK I've recently seen the ammonia sold just as 'Household Ammonia' in the 'cleaning' sections of both a LARGE local Boots store, and also the local Homebase store.

4) Start fishless cycling, and do not give up, it really is worth it and it will give you a lot less stress and work than doing it fish-in. Also although it takes time it's time that can be well spent choosing what plants / fish you will eventually want, tweaking your layouts, routing electrics etc.
If nothing else it will serve as a reminder to you that your test kit DOES work when in the following months they always seem to report their zero readings for ammonia and nitrIte levels

Good luck!

 

[TopChip7]

Apologies all, I have found the link to the cycling now and read it - you know how it is, sometimes you can't see for looking!!! opening eyes now
Other times you read so fast you miss the point of what is being said (my bad)!

See there were also plenty of mentions too as to why you shouldn't urinate in your tank - lol

Off to boots chemist in the UK !!!

EDIT: Found it at Boots Chemists in tiny cleaning section in white plastic cylindrical bottle with bright red lid - about same size and shape as can of WD40 !!!!

Cost: £1.75

8 Gallon took around 4ml to get test results to 4.9

Thanks guys - will report back with results later in week. Most appreciated to everyone who gave their valuable input !!!

 

[kcharley]

OMG!!!! - This is what the LFS had to say when I asked "Do you sell pure ammonia"?

**********URINATE IN YOUR TANK***********

Seems viable I suppose!!! Any thoughts?

I think they are so ticked that you are asking intelligent questions that they are giving smart aleck answers. I would find another fish store.

Glad to hear you don't have fish yet. WD is right. It is hard on kids when their brand new pet dies.

I found pure ammonia at a smaller hardware store (An Ace Hardware but I don't think they are in the UK). All the big box stores around me sold ammonia with surfuctant added. The quick test is to shake the bottle. If it foams, it has surfactants and isn't pure.

The Nutrafin is supposed to be a good kit. (I haven't tried it but wouldn't hesitate to use it based on what I've heard.)

Lunch is almost over. I have to get back to work.

Greg

 

[waterdrop]

Glad you found the right ammonia TC7. Note that you might want to add your geographic location to your profile as this might help people give better answers tailored for you in future.

The old thing of peeing in the tank to cycle it has been a fun humor topic for years it seems. As a serious suggestion it was tossed out long ago because of concerns about drugs and other protein impurities. The ammonia source level would probably also be less stable, so you'd have to test more.

The precision level of your ammonia adds only needs to be around 1 or 2ppm either side of the 4-5ppm recommendation. You don't want it getting up near 8ppm. As far as lower amounts, the 5ppm level is really the most important way at the end of fishless cycling when you want to be sure your colonies are robust enough. I'd stick with trying to make it close to 5ppm as that's what we're used to helping you with, but if it were to go in at 2ppm or 3ppm it really wouldn't make much difference to your initial A-Bac development and that's even preferable during the second phase we call the "nitrite spike" stage.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[kcharley]

Glad you found the right ammonia TC7. Note that you might want to add your geographic location to your profile as this might help people give better answers tailored for you in future.

The old thing of peeing in the tank to cycle it has been a fun humor topic for years it seems. As a serious suggestion it was tossed out long ago because of concerns about drugs and other protein impurities. The ammonia source level would probably also be less stable, so you'd have to test more.

The precision level of your ammonia adds only needs to be around 1 or 2ppm either side of the 4-5ppm recommendation. You don't want it getting up near 8ppm. As far as lower amounts, the 5ppm level is really the most important way at the end of fishless cycling when you want to be sure your colonies are robust enough. I'd stick with trying to make it close to 5ppm as that's what we're used to helping you with, but if it were to go in at 2ppm or 3ppm it really wouldn't make much difference to your initial A-Bac development and that's even preferable during the second phase we call the "nitrite spike" stage.

~~waterdrop~~

LOL! Maybe they were serious. I figured they just didn't like serious questions.

Thanks for the clarification as to when the 5 ppm is really necessary. So wouldn't it be possible rather than trying to compute how much is needed to get to 5 ppm to put a small measured amount in at first, wait an hour and retest, then add an appropriate amount to raise the ammonia level closer to 5? I suppose the problem would still be how much to start with but it would seem to solve worrying about what concentration is being used. I ask because I think I overdosed my most recent tank at the start and I didn't see any progress until I did a complete water change and started over with a lower dose of ammonia, retested and added a little more to get to 4 ppm.

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, I'd say you've answered your own question kcharlie.. as long as you came from -below- 5ppm, there'd be nothing wrong with experimenting your way up to 5ppm, using tests as feedback to yourself (like.. oh, I'll try 9 squirts of the dropper next time instead of 7.) Clearly, overshooting to 8ppm is what you don't want.

Its not like the tiny initial amount of A-Bacs could use the 5ppm initially anyway. The beauty of the way rdd wrote up our method I think has partly to do with simplicity of communication. In a writeup like that it all starts to sound way too complicated if you put in all the potential little refinements. Better to stick to a simple straight-forward set of instructions and I think he accomplished that.

You'll remember perhaps that another of the little refinements is that you can readily drop back to 2 or 3ppm during the nitrite spike phase so that not so much excess nitrite is produced. But you have to ease back up to 5ppm after the nitrite starts dropping to zero withing 24 hours, so that by the time its dropping to zero within 12 hours, both colonies are back to processing the results of 5ppm being added. I've worked with a number of beginners using this refinement but its a lot of words flying back and forth for something that's probably not much of a difference in the end.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[TopChip7]

Morning all. Really getting into this now - far more interesting and understanding hobby now I am beggining to grasp things!!!

Retested the ammonia level this morning after the filter had circulated the water all night and it was right up. I have done a 50% water change to try to get it down <5 (will retest in an hour or so).

I also took the opportunity to test the tap water - one test with water conditioner and one without - proved really interesting and the results astounded the kids.

With water-conditioner = 0 Ammonia, 0 NitrIte, 0 NitrAte
Without water-conditioner = 0 Ammonia, 0 NitrIte, 110+ NitrAte

Is this why some people use bottled water instead of tap water to fill their tanks?
Should I add the water-conditioner prior to adding the water to the tank or should I simply put it straight in the tank after I have added the water?

As always, appreciated!

 

[kcharley]

WD, while the constant talk about cycling may seem redundant, I keep learning things. As you say there is so much to it that it becomes overwhelming. Thus it is easy to miss a little point and stall the process. To paraphrase what rdd wrote, there are many ways to cycle (although I have no idea what they are) but he presented two very clearly to simplify things. Thank you for your clarification of when to go back up to 5 ppm ammonia if one starts with less.

TC, it does get interesting learning this. I had fish years ago before cycling was known and lost a lot of fish for reasons I didn't understand. My family and I are enjoying the fish much more now that I have a basic understanding of water chemistry. In addition, the fish just seem healthier and more vibrant than I remember.

Your tap water chemistry looks good for fish overall. The nitrate does seem high and it is interesting that it clears with the conditioner. I don't understand how the conditioner drops it, but cool that it does.

I've gone to using primarily RO water from a LFS because my tap PH took a sudden swing up 4 to 6 weeks ago. Had been running 7.6 and then shot to 8.8. Because I didn't want to experiment with chemicals while fish were in the tank I opted for the purchased water. I am considering a home RO unit but don't want to spend the money. I'm in no rush and will live with buying water right now.

I apologize that I jumped to a cynical judgement of your LFS. The thought of peeing in a fish tank just revolted me.

 

[Schmill]

I've gone to using primarily RO water from a LFS because my tap PH took a sudden swing up 4 to 6 weeks ago. Had been running 7.6 and then shot to 8.8. Because I didn't want to experiment with chemicals while fish were in the tank I opted for the purchased water. I am considering a home RO unit but don't want to spend the money. I'm in no rush and will live with buying water right now.

Don't forget that if you are using RO water purely, you may still have to use chemicals, not to couteract anything but actually to add some of the things that RO takes away. RO water is pretty much as pure H2O as you can get, and thats not neccasarily a good thing for a fish tank. Especialyl if you have live plants etc the base minerals etc will need replacing. Not ever having used RO I can't say what you will need to use, but I'm sure someone can tell you

 

[TopChip7]

I can only assume that the PH swings when they add chemicals at the water treatment site. Again, I would be guessing, but perhaps its the chlorine, chloramine and metals that contains the nitrate and by locking these away is also locking away the nitrate - only guessing though, perhaps someone can confirm or argue the case???

As for cynical judgements, I am always open to personal opinions so no worries there KC. The idea of adding urine didnt sound good to me either but I would have considered it if other experts had agreed with it. However, now I have the ammonia it is an option I will not have to worry about LOL.

Could you tell me what RO water & RO unit is please - Sorry, I'm a bit slow on the uptake LOL.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Morning all. Really getting into this now - far more interesting and understanding hobby now I am beggining to grasp things!!!

oh yes, thats the right attitude!

just to say i fully support all of waterdrops comments on cycling there, you're in good hands.

few things

re peeing in the tanks, yes our pee does contain some ammonia, the bacteria can feed off this and grow so in a way it's plauisble, i've known people do it before. however ammonia is not the only thing in our pee and the concentrations will naturally fluctuate so it'as nigh on impossible to measure and you can potentially get god knows what contaminents in the tank as well. so yes possible, plausible even, good idea - no!! academic point now as you have pure ammonia but for those who can't find it just using fish flakes is the next best option, again hard to test and control but no nasty contaminents so an improvement.

as an interesting aside when people first started trying to breed new species adding the pee of a pregnant lady is one of the tried and testing methods to induce a spawn!! get some hormones in the water

RO stands for Reverse Osmosis, this is a method of water puriication/filtration used in some specialist set up's or by people with very poor quality tap water. a 'RO Filter' connects up to your tap, water runs through it and you have a 'waste' and a 'good' water output from there, the 'good' one will produce pure H20 or as close as you can reasonably get in the home environment and everything else goes out as waste. It's not necessary in most cases though and you can't use pure 'RO' water in your tank as the fish absorb minerals from the water around them. having them in pure RO is like feeding your kids off nothing but crisps, for a while they'll be fine but with constant pure nutrition and not the right minerals they will become unwell and susceptible to diseases. So if you do use RO then you need to remineralise it (add back half the stuff you just sucked out ) befopre you add it to the tank. These filters are also very wasteful, for every 1 litre of RO water you get you'll have somewhere around 10 litres + of waste water, now this can be used on your garden and such like but you can see the environmental impact.

 

[kcharley]

Hi Schmill,

I've been adding a little tap water to the RO so I'm not using pure RO. Actually the LFS says it is de-ionized water. Thanks for the reminder about adding some minerals back. I'm in luck there as the LFS I buy it at does add some minerals and buffers to get the PH up to 7.0. Still I wish my tap water didn't have such high Ph. I'd rather not use it all.

Hi TC,

Yes, the local water co does it on purpose. I spoke with them. Supposedly helps keep it good for human consumption.

You're not slow at all. MW explained it well.

Hi MW,

Thanks for the great explanation and the clear statement as to how much is wasted. Can you help me understand my LFS? They said it was actually de-ionized water but they couldn't really tell me what the difference was. As it is a small owner-operated store and their aquariums look great and I needed an alternative, I'm using it till I find an alternative. The fish seem to really like it. Their color is very good for several days after a water change. So what is de-ionized water? Thanks in advance.

 

[Schmill]

Wikipedia holds the answers

Distilled Waters

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes de-ionised water is another method of filtration. it doesn't get you as close to pure H2O as RO does but it's getting in that direction.

pretty much all the info, cautions and details of how to use it are the same, just a bit less if that makes sense!!