Some Guidance

[fishsupper]

Hi everyone, I am nearing the end of my fishless cycle and im off on holiday tomorrow for 10 days the problem that i have is i will not be able to continue adding ammonia as i have moved to a new house in the country and i dont know anyone long enough to trust them to do it for me

been cycling from the 22nd of may
75l tank
tank water stats
ph7.6
ammonia 0ppm topped up to 4ppm
nitrites 0ppm in about 15 hours
nitrates 80-100ppm
kh 9
gh12
What i wanted to know if i got an automatic feeder and got fish tonight say 6 zebra danios and 6 black widow tetras would my fluval 2 plus filter be able to cope with the ammonia and nitrites till i got back because i wouldnt want to spoil my cycle after all the work ive put into it any advice would be very grateful

 

[Miss Wiggle]

phew tricky one considering you're going on holiday tomorrow...... doesn't give enough time to check things are gonna be ok.

what i would say is the speed of processing indicates that the tank is certainly very nearly cycled, if you added just a small amount of fish then you'd probably be ok. That being said, the first few days after a cycle can be very shaky and liable to a mini cycle.

I know this isn't any help to you, but if you'd asked a week ago I'd have said get a small amount of fish, monitor closely over the next week and hope that your ok after the holiday. would probably have been fine. but adding fish today and then going away tomorrow worries me, because you've no way to check how things are over the first week or so which is a really critical time.

i would suggest just getting an autofeeder, set that to drop some fish food in every day, that will produce ammonia which will then feed the bacteria and keep the tank cycled.

now because adding fish food does not give exact amounts like with pure ammonia it's not gonna be perfect. Then when you get back add 5ppm of ammonia as per usual, you may find it's set you back a couple of days in the cycle but it shouldn't be back to square one at least.

 

[fishsupper]

That was going to be my next question about the fishfood so thanks miss wiggle think il go down that road

 

[waterdrop]

I agree with MW, very tricky (and you've probably already driven off, so this advice will go to the wind!) but in other cases like this we've preferred what MW said, to hopefully keep some ammonia forming with the food, rather than involving fish in an unknown situation for the week. The only thing I would add would be to grind the flake food up into a very fine powder before putting it into the little chambers of the automated machine. That way the heterotrophic bacteria can break it down into ammonia a little faster so that you have less of a delay before the autotrophic bacteria see some ammonia to eat.

I completely agree that you will probably return to just a little more messy tank with some possible lessening of the quickness with which your filter can process ammonia and nitrite, but I would just then do a big water change and gravel vac and recharge the ammonia up to a nice 4-5ppm and do another week of qualifying the filter again prior to stocking.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fishsupper]

Hi again came home from my holiday early and yesterday i had to take my filter media out and rinse it out in tank water as it had clogged up on me did my usual tests when i got home and every thing was ok

ph 7.6 tap water 7.8
ammonia 0mg/l topped up to 5mg/l
nitrite 0mg/l after 15 hrs
nitrates 40-80mg/l
kh 10
gh 12

tested today 13.10pm
ph around the 8.2 mark
ammonia 0mg/l processing under 12 hrs topped up to 5mg/l
nitrite 1.0mg/l tested fifteen hrs after adding ammonia before i cleaned the filter media it was processing under 15 hrs
kh 7
gh12
could someone tell me whats up with the ph although i did test the ph right after i had added the ammonia would this effect the ph

 

[Miss Wiggle]

might sound silly, but are you sure that reading for pH is correct, it's easy enough for another drop of solution to get through or something like that. have you tried doing a re-test to confirm if this is correct?

 

[fishsupper]

just did another retest still the same maybe even a little darker on the chart

 

[waterdrop]

Have we been over an inventory of all the stuff in the tank to see if any might have any "limestone" characteristics and be raising pH? Sometimes people have unusual gravel that does this. More often they have corals, rocks or stones or decorations that have a coral/shell/limestone or similar content and are slowly raising pH and KH. Any possibilities of this sort of thing? Are you re-measuring stats on tap water?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fishsupper]

tap water ph is around 7.8
tank water yesterday was a shade lighter but not quite 7.6

sand substrate plastic plants and resin ornaments bogwood i have been cycling four weeks now and has been pretty stable until today i just tested again and it seems to of got a a little lighter [weird]

 

[fishsupper]

Just tested my tank again and its back down to around 7.8 i tested every hour and it has went down gradually. Any ideas anyone

 

[fishsupper]

I figured out the problem with my high ph. I am a duffus.the reason it happened was i had just added ammonia and tested my ph straight after it

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah if you do anything tot he tank, add ammonia, do a water change etc, you need to leave it a while for it all to mix in before you test.

 

[fishsupper]

yeah its the first time i ever done that my head was all over the place

 

[waterdrop]

glad to see this is resolved..

~~waterdrop~~