Starting my Cycle

[matthew xia]

Thanks JuiceBox and RV.

Off to do my day 2 measurements.

 

[matthew xia]

Ok - Day 2 water testing. 24 hours since the last test.

Ammonia showing about 0.6ppm
KH 3
Nitrate is either 25 or 10 (those colours on the testing strip are awful close)
Nitrite 0
Ph 7.6
Gh 14 to 28

Now what do I do?
Add more ammonia?
If so how much? Water change to get Nitrates down?
What do I do about the Gh?

Thanks in advance...

 

[Essjay]

What is your ammonia reading? It is the ammonia reading, in conjunction with nitrite, that dictates when you add more ammonia. The fishless cycling method on here was written to stop nitrite getting high enough to stall the cycle, and ammonia is only added when certain targets of ammonia and nitrite have been reached.

With a fishless cycle, you don't need to get the nitrate down until the big water change at the end of the cycle. How much nitrate is in your tap water?


Are you sure about the GH and KH readings? I know London has hard to very hard water but it also has high KH. And 14 to 28 is a huge range, you need to pin it down more accurately. Have you looked on your water company's website to see what level they give for hardness? They are unlikely to give KH, but if they do they'll call it alkalinity not KH.


As for what to do about it, that depends on which fish you want. If you want hard water fish, you don't need to do anything. But if you want to keep soft water fish you will need to mix your tap water with reverse osmosis (RO) water to get it to the GH needed by the fish.

 

[matthew xia]

The ammonia is 0.6ppm (it was 3.0ppm yesterday around the same time)
Nitrites 0

The Water Board claim the water is:
Hardness (Total) as CaCO3 - 274
Alkalinity as CaCO3 - 201
Nitrate in tap water - 31.7

Looking to get a single male Betta and a few zebra snails.

 

[Essjay]

Thank you for the figures. Your hardness is 274 ppm (that's the same as mg/l CaCO3) which converts to 15 dH (some fish profiles use ppm some use dH so you need to know hardness in both units).
Alkalinity aka KH at 201 is 11 dH. KH does not directly impact fish, but it stabilises pH. With high KH, pH won't alter, and if you add chemicals to change it, it will bounce back as the KH pulls it back.
Your nitrate is a bit of an issue as it needs to be under 20 ppm and the lowest you can get it with water changes is the same as your tap water.


However....
If you want to have a betta in the tank, the GH does need to be lower. The simplest way to do this is to mix it with RO water. Using half and half tap and RO water will halve the GH. It will also halve the nitrate level.
Can I suggest you give some serious thought to using RO. Before getting any fish (or snails) you would just need to mix half and half in the tank. But once there is a fish in the tank, you would need to make up the mixture in a bucket before adding it to the tank.
Yes, you could get hard water fish instead and use 100% tap water, but that would still leave the problem of too much nitrate.
Think about it. Other members use RO water and they can discuss with you the pros and cons.




As for the cycle, since you have used Safe Start you should find the cycle goes quickly. With an ammonia of 0.6, I would add enough Dr Tim's ammonia to get 3 ppm then test again for ammonia and nitrite after 24 hours.
One problem you may face is finding a fish shop that is selling fish during the lockdown. If you can, you can get fish once you've decided on the RO issue and the tank is cycled. if you can't, you'll need to add enough ammonia for 1 ppm every few days to keep the bacteria fed until the shops reopen.

 

[JuiceBox52]

Thank you for the figures. Your hardness is 274 ppm (that's the same as mg/l CaCO3) which converts to 15 dH (some fish profiles use ppm some use dH so you need to know hardness in both units).
Alkalinity aka KH at 201 is 11 dH. KH does not directly impact fish, but it stabilises pH. With high KH, pH won't alter, and if you add chemicals to change it, it will bounce back as the KH pulls it back.
Your nitrate is a bit of an issue as it needs to be under 20 ppm and the lowest you can get it with water changes is the same as your tap water.


However....
If you want to have a betta in the tank, the GH does need to be lower. The simplest way to do this is to mix it with RO water. Using half and half tap and RO water will halve the GH. It will also halve the nitrate level.
Can I suggest you give some serious thought to using RO. Before getting any fish (or snails) you would just need to mix half and half in the tank. But once there is a fish in the tank, you would need to make up the mixture in a bucket before adding it to the tank.
Yes, you could get hard water fish instead and use 100% tap water, but that would still leave the problem of too much nitrate.
Think about it. Other members use RO water and they can discuss with you the pros and cons.




As for the cycle, since you have used Safe Start you should find the cycle goes quickly. With an ammonia of 0.6, I would add enough Dr Tim's ammonia to get 3 ppm then test again for ammonia and nitrite after 24 hours.
One problem you may face is finding a fish shop that is selling fish during the lockdown. If you can, you can get fish once you've decided on the RO issue and the tank is cycled. if you can't, you'll need to add enough ammonia for 1 ppm every few days to keep the bacteria fed until the shops reopen.

I concur

 

[matthew xia]

Thanks for your thoughts on this. I'm not sure I can fork out another £150 on further filtration. So I've been looking around and have found some other suggestions that mean I may not have to go the RO/DI route. (I'd happily buy water but not a system - and I can't seem to find anywhere that sells it in London).

So I'm thinking of things that can naturally lower the hardness of the water like Indian Almond leaves and drift-wood, and similarly hoping to reduce nitrates using plant material (like Pothos).

I have seen from a couple of other sources that nitrates aren't a problem if they're kept below 40ppm (which mine are - without a fish) - and he also suggested that they weren't a major problem until the were up near the 80s - 100.

I also read that the range for domestic Betta fish is 18ppm to 268 ppm (1 to 15 dH) (and I'm only 6ppm over this) - I'm thinking if I buy locally then the fish will have been conditioned in similar water to that I use?

I'd love everyones thinking on this?

 

[Essjay]

We should aim to keep fish with our hardness level in the middle of the species' hardness range rather than at one extreme end.

Anyone can set up a website or make a video without actually knowing anything about the subject.
I refer you to Byron's post #24 in this thread https://www.fishforums.net/threads/gaping-mouth-swimming-oddly.457773/page-2

Nitrates. Scientific studies on the affect of nitrates have largely been concerned with farm food fish. I have read some of these, and the few concerned with aquarium fish. We now know that all fish are poisoned by nitrates; but unlike ammonia and nitrite poisoning which is rapid, nitrates are slower to actually kill the fish. But they continually weaken the fish, affecting its physiology and metabolism, immune system, causing stress...all negative things leading to reduced health and death in time. The level of nitrate, the length of the exposure, and the individual species, all factor in, but one thing is certain: in time nitrate will kill fish. Death may likely come from other things, due to the fish having been weakened by the nitrates.

There are professional ichthyologists and biologists and microbiologists contributing to this hobby. Dr. Neale Monks is one of the most respected, and when he writes about fish everyone should take notice. I know Neale personally online, and have gone to him a few times with my own problems and questions. On nitrates, he told me that 20 ppm was the upper limit, and keeping nitrate as far below this as possible would inevitably improve the fish's health. Cichlids, thought a pretty tough fish, are now known to be seriously impacted by nitrate at 20 ppm; over on the cichlid site they are now suggesting that problems like hole in the head and Malawi bloat may have high nitrates behind them. Much more scientific study is needed, but all now agree that keeping nitrates as low as possible will always improve fish health long-term.

Another thing I have learned is the incredible unique complexity of fish physiology. Fish unlike any terrestrial animals have an incredibly involved physiology that is tied to every aspect of their environment because it is aquatic. Every substance in the water is pulled into the fish's bloodstream; water parameters are in a very narrow range and each freshwater species has evolved to function in this range and experiences varying levels of difficulty if it changes. An aquarium is an artificial environment, but nonetheless every aspect of life within the tank is governed solely by natural processes including fish biology, water chemistry, and aquatic microbiology.

 

[Byron]

So I'm thinking of things that can naturally lower the hardness of the water like Indian Almond leaves and drift-wood, and similarly hoping to reduce nitrates using plant material (like Pothos).

Many aquarists have the same thinking, but this does not really work in water as hard as you have to start with. The GH and KH of the source water will remain basically the same in an aquarium, unless it is being directly targeted. Softening hard water is more challenging than hardening soft water. The only safe way to effectively soften hard water is to dilute it with "pure" water such as RO, distilled or rainwater [ifnoring all other issues for the moment]. Essjay explained this previously. It is a proportional reduction, so for example mixing half source (hard) water with half pure water would result in the GH being reduced by half.

Organics like wood, dried leaves, peat, fish excrement decomposing in the substrate, etc, all work to lower the pH but have very little effect on GH. And when the GH is quite high, the effect will be zero. The buffering capacity of hard water is quite high.

I also read that the range for domestic Betta fish is 18ppm to 268 ppm (1 to 15 dH) (and I'm only 6ppm over this) - I'm thinking if I buy locally then the fish will have been conditioned in similar water to that I use?

This is another myth in this hobby, at least most of the time. I doubt the fish were raised in your water, they probably came from elsewhere. They might (some species) over time have adapted to that water in which they were bred and raised, to some degree (this is not easy to pinpoint), but fish do not acclimate to vastly different water without evolving to do so. This is because of their unique physiology. The third paragraph in my post that essjay cited in post #23 references this. I'm always happy to explain things (hoping I can) so don't hesitate to ask.

On the nitrate issue, I have watched the video. I think I have responded to his points in the passage essjay cited. Aquarists need to think long-term, not short-term which is common with those entering the hobby. Nathan Hill's citation in my signature block is bang on. Understanding fish physiology allows us to see that fish will not be able to live their normal expected lifespan when they are having to fight against all these "little" things like nitrates, lack of numbers of a species, improper tankmates, improper water parameters, and so forth. Stress is caused by all of these, as well as the detrimental effects on the fish's physiology. And stress is the direct cause behind 95% of all aquarium fish disease.

 

[matthew xia]

Thank you very much both - this is really helpful. I'll respond to after the most recent test results:

I tested the water again today (after taking it back up to 3ppm of ammonia on Friday). It had dropped to around 0.7ppm

It would appear I'm getting slightly different results from the Tetra test kits and the ILoveFish kit I originally got from Petsathome.

Results:

Ammonia - 0.7ppm
Kh - (I was unsure of this - it seemed to be around 20)
Nitrate - around 20ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Ph - 7.7
Gh - 8˚
Cl - 0ppm

Which is all feeling a lot better. Why doesn't the ammonia ever drop to 0?

Regarding the Nitrates and hardness - I can access distilled water, but no RO - and if distilled is OK then I'll go with that. I'll also add the leaves. Thanks so much for the very detailed and scientific explanation to the effect of the nitrates on the fish physiology.

When I tested today there seemed to be some sort of transparent slightly gooey film on some bits of the waters surface... Is this OK?

Thanks in advance all.

 

[Essjay]

Distilled water is fine. Deionised is the other option (bedsides RO)

You can try to remove the film. Lay a sheet of kitchen roll on the surface, then lift one side, pull the paper across the tank and carefully lift it out.
Does the filter move the surface of the water across the tank? If not, is the outflow adjustable so it does? That usually breaks up the film.

 

[matthew xia]

Thanks Essjay, I'll do this - I wondered if this was bacterial, and there fore necessary to the tanks health?
Any feedback on my test results?

 

[Byron]

The nitrates will lower to zero or near-zero because this is a cycling matter (at least I hope so--you have zero nitrate in your source water, correct?) so that will solve itself. Once fish are in the tank, not overstocking, not overfeeding, weekly substantial partial water changes all work to keep nitrates low, and the aim is that they absolutely never rise from week to week. Stability.

The surface scum is a protein film. Found more often in planted tanks than non-planted, but not a problem provided it does not get too thick to the point where the oxygen/CO2 exchange at the surface is hindered or even prevented. I used to see this in one of my 8 tanks, and I simply inverted the water changer during the weekly water change to suck off the surface of the water. Tedious but for me it was the only method that worked. I tried the paper towels and used half a roll. A surface skimmer attached to the canister filter can work too, but obviously not in tanks with a different filter without this option. I had one of these in my 5-foot tank but tiny fish (like otos) kept getting caught, and using a net over the intake stopped the benefit of removing the protein film, so I gave up.

 

[matthew xia]

Alas - the tap water is (according to the water board) 31ppm nitrates.

I was hoping to get my daughter a Betta fish - and am now about £250 into this... So the thought of spending another £200 on a R/O system isn't the best news.

So whilst cycling - I'm just trying to find the most sustainable, child pleasing, fish pleasing solution to what I imagined would cost about £100 all in. Now I discover my tap water is liquid rock and has 31ppm nitrate - so looking into distilled, ro, deionised water solutions. I just found this for £34 the vyair Compact Reverse Osmosis 50gpd...

 

[matthew xia]

@essjay @Byron any clues on these latest results with regard to my cycle?

Ammonia - 0.7ppm
Kh - (I was unsure of this - it seemed to be around 20)
Nitrate - around 20ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Ph - 7.7
Gh - 8˚
Cl - 0ppm