Second Stage Cycle Started Today Help

[lana]

Seems like you might be right on schedule. Since Bignose has his science experiments in the science section that have made us think of 21 days as somewhat special, we often suspect that things can get interesting after you've passed the 21day/3week mark.

Since your KH is down around 3 or 4 and your pH is not up in the 8.x range, and you are fish-in cycling, not fishless cycling, we'd expect your cycling to go a bit slower than ideal, so we'd not expect much before a month, but once you see that tendency for nitrite to spike then anything can happen!

~~waterdrop~~

good thing i am a patience person NOT

i ran another test on my tap water

ammonia clearly closer to 1.0 but again the PRIME clears this out fast as per my litre test i ran also adding prime to 1 liter of water

nitrite 0
nitrate 0

ph off the high end chart it is more redish purple

gh 4 drops so 71.6
kh took 2 so 35.8
no idea what that means thou

 

[lana]

reading after 50% water change
been 1.5 hours



ammonia 0 to 0.25
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
ph 7.4

temp 80

 

[waterdrop]

hmmm, KH=2, we might have to talk about that. You could start getting up to speed on the topic by hunting down my thread on the topic in the scientific section. Eventually we'll have time to make it simpler over here in this thread, so don't do anything different for now.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[lana]

hmmm, KH=2, we might have to talk about that. You could start getting up to speed on the topic by hunting down my thread on the topic in the scientific section. Eventually we'll have time to make it simpler over here in this thread, so don't do anything different for now.

~~waterdrop~~

that don't sound good

i'll go look it up now

 

[lana]

ummm call me crazy but from what i am reading a low kh causes low and crashing ph my ph holds steady at 7.0 to 7.2

omg now i am so comfused

 

[lana]

6 30 pm readings

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5

ph 7.2

temp hold at 80

alll fish good

let's see if holds the night

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if your pH is holding steady then no need to panic over the KH, yes you should do some research into it (topic WD was referring to is linked in my sig) but don't worry about trying to adjust anything if pH is holding steady.

if it aint broke........

 

[lana]

day 25 fish-in-cycle

8 30 am readings

ammonia big fat 0
nitrite between 0 and 0.25 closer to 0
nitrate 5

ph 7.2

temo 80

alll fish doing good

 

[lana]

on a side note

got this yesterday and i will be doign fishless cycle on it found ammonina at canadian tire just have to hope it is pure i'll go get it later

this will be my sick/ qur tank it is 10 g


yes you see a molly in it but she was preggo and sick i added her to get her away from others with water from other tank and media , sadly she passed bout 2 hours ago i emptied the tank wash everything again and just added tap water/ prime

 

[waterdrop]

ok, Im back. MW is right, the main thing we can pay attention to here is what would be our more final goal anyway, which is to have a steady pH. In your case the KH=2 seems to be just enough, that, combined with your frequent water changes which bring in fresh higher KH water, are giving you just enough KH (carbonate hardness) to keep that nice steady 7.2 or so pH you've got.

Since you are currently still in the fish-in cycle, the cycle is -trying- to push the pH downward a bit harder than it will be later after the cycle finishes, I believe. So it may very well turn out that you have the perfect situation going here, as the water changes are managing to hold the pH during cycling and after the cycle when there is less downward push, the weekly water changes will probably easily be enough that you will not need to resort to crushed coral at all and your softer water may even be better for your live plants and any neon tetras or others that kinda like it!

I very much appreciate your effort getting the KH test kit. It should be a good reassurance for you over time, an extra tool in your aquarium kit, but its also interesting for us here to hear your numbers as it teaches us a bit -- in this case I'd say its a good lesson perhaps that KH can get all the way down to 2 but with water changes that are frequent enough, pH can stay steady.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[lana]

ok, Im back. MW is right, the main thing we can pay attention to here is what would be our more final goal anyway, which is to have a steady pH. In your case the KH=2 seems to be just enough, that, combined with your frequent water changes which bring in fresh higher KH water, are giving you just enough KH (carbonate hardness) to keep that nice steady 7.2 or so pH you've got.

Since you are currently still in the fish-in cycle, the cycle is -trying- to push the pH downward a bit harder than it will be later after the cycle finishes, I believe. So it may very well turn out that you have the perfect situation going here, as the water changes are managing to hold the pH during cycling and after the cycle when there is less downward push, the weekly water changes will probably easily be enough that you will not need to resort to crushed coral at all and your softer water may even be better for your live plants and any neon tetras or others that kinda like it!

I very much appreciate your effort getting the KH test kit. It should be a good reassurance for you over time, an extra tool in your aquarium kit, but its also interesting for us here to hear your numbers as it teaches us a bit -- in this case I'd say its a good lesson perhaps that KH can get all the way down to 2 but with water changes that are frequent enough, pH can stay steady.

~~waterdrop~~

ya we'll see how it goes after the tank is cycled

well off to the lfs i need more ammonia test kits damn went throu a whole set in just under 1 month ,

 

[gladfrog]

wow what an ordeal, just read 3 weeks worth lol your lfs must be rubbing there hands together when you walk in all that med and de chlorinator etc i hope everything works out for you

 

[lana]

ok test again at 2pm just to make sure everything was still ok

so 2 pm readings

ammonia 0
nitrite 0.25
nitrate 0

ph 7.2
temp 30C

all fish good

did a 50% water change

ammonia 0.25 ( that is from the tap water grrrrrrr)it goes away within 2 hours
nitrites 0
nitrates 0

ph 7.4

temp 30C

 

[lana]

wow what an ordeal, just read 3 weeks worth lol your lfs must be rubbing there hands together when you walk in all that med and de chlorinator etc i hope everything works out for you

yup they are lol

but price i have to pay for not finding this forum first and adding this fish when i did

 

[waterdrop]

wow what an ordeal, just read 3 weeks worth lol your lfs must be rubbing there hands together when you walk in all that med and de chlorinator etc i hope everything works out for you

Yes, Lana is one of the few people I've seen that has overcome some difficult beginning and ongoing conditions, has a large tank (with therefor bigger water changes) but has accepted the information and created very good conditions for the fish and stuck with it!

Hopefully this filter will get a large enough NBac population before much longer and Lana can drop back to much more relaxed weekend single water change!

~~waterdrop~~