Stubedoo's 300litre Tank Log - My First Ever Tank

[Miss Wiggle]

it sounded like you'd read it but thought i'd just make sure!

 

[stubedoo]

hiya stubedoo, just leafed through your whole thread, skimmed through a few early bits so apologies if i repeat anything that's already been said.

you do seem to be in the right track with your cycle even if it is a bit slow, glad the pH is up now as that concerned me in your earlier threads, for the process of cycing you could consider bumping it up a bit if you liked, generally the closer to 8 you get the quicker the cycle (although thats a very general idea and lots of other variables to consider).

another neat little trick which apparently speeds things up is to add some iron, you get plant foods which contain iron so look for one of those and dose as per the pack's instructions.

what you're looking to do is create the ideal 'soup' to grow your bacteria and while there's nothing glaringly wrong with yours like a v low pH you could maybe improve it and get some better results.

Hey Miss Wiggle,

Thanks for taking the time to read through my thread, I understand you're a bit of a cycling guru, so it is nice to get your advice.

I will consider the iron option, as I think a couple of the plants I have in there could do with some anyway.

Hey Stu,

Looks like things are progressing nicely, very similar to mine, although once mine started to drop it did drop quite sharply.
Hows the tank temp? Are you keeping it up around the 29-30 deg C mark, I can't remember?

The tank temperature is a bit of a funny one. This really cold weather has meant my (3rd) heater has started to struggle again. I've got it set at the maximum temperature (34C?), which currently is managing to maintain the water temperature at around 29/30C, but earlier in the week it dropped to as low as just above 26C (when I viewed it in the morning) after one of the coldest nights.

I'm thinking in the long term, once I have fish in it, I will probably run two heaters during the winter months. Although we are looking to improve the insulation of the house this year, and replace the wooden windows, so hopefully by next year the house won't resemble living in an igloo quite as much.

Not sure if you've been popping over to my diary / log at all, but when you get near to the end of the cycle don't be too surprised if your nitrItes refuse to hit 0 in 12 hours.

Yep, I'm being very much keeping up with your log... I'm just waiting for the arrival of the fish, in about another week.

Okay today's test results:

Day 24 (9th Jan) - 09:45am:

Ammonia 1.7
NitrItes 0.25
pH 7.0

 

[Schmill]

The heater issue is truely a strange one, you are using the one that came with the tank?
All I can think is that your tank is somewhere pretty cold! My heater is holding the tank water fine, and nice and stable at 24 degrees now, but the the living room is probably around 20 degrees anyway.
Might be worth you dropping in either a low power heater (50 / 100W) in addition, or changing to us 2 x 200W heaters if you find you keep having problems. If the tank is that much warmer than the house you must get quite a lot of evaporation?

Do you get any drips on the outside of the glass? I didn't for ages, (on the second tank), but have now. I think I'm going to have to cut the whole top cover off at some point, and resilicon it back onto the glass and see if that helps.

 

[stubedoo]

The heater issue is truely a strange one, you are using the one that came with the tank?
All I can think is that your tank is somewhere pretty cold! My heater is holding the tank water fine, and nice and stable at 24 degrees now, but the the living room is probably around 20 degrees anyway.
Might be worth you dropping in either a low power heater (50 / 100W) in addition, or changing to us 2 x 200W heaters if you find you keep having problems. If the tank is that much warmer than the house you must get quite a lot of evaporation?

Do you get any drips on the outside of the glass? I didn't for ages, (on the second tank), but have now. I think I'm going to have to cut the whole top cover off at some point, and resilicon it back onto the glass and see if that helps.

Yes I'm using the one that came with the tank. The tank is a room, which isn't used that often, and is an extension to the house too. It is not ridiculously cold (it has central heating), but it obviously gets colder than say a living room would.

I have a spare heater, as when Aqua One sent me a replacement they didn't ask for the old one back. I've been a but lazy about putting it in because it was coping fine in the milder weather, and I'd need to get an extension lead to add another one.

I get occasional drips down the side of the tank, normally after I've been opening the hood and knocking the tank a bit... nothing too serious though.

 

[Schmill]

I get occasional drips down the side of the tank, normally after I've been opening the hood and knocking the tank a bit... nothing too serious though.

Ok, thats pretty much what I am getting too. Just a tiny trickle, but it leave 'orrible white marks when it dries, it just bugs me!

 

[stubedoo]

I get occasional drips down the side of the tank, normally after I've been opening the hood and knocking the tank a bit... nothing too serious though.

Ok, thats pretty much what I am getting too. Just a tiny trickle, but it leave 'orrible white marks when it dries, it just bugs me!

I'm beginning to learn you're quite the perfectionist... Yeh I get the odd dried water marks too, I always have a towel nearby so a quick rub always gets rid of it.

Well some tank news... Yesterday afternoon I put some old filter media from a mature tank into my filter. I'm not sure how great it will be as most of it had been rinsed in tap water, and the other stuff had been out of a filter for 24 hours. Thought it would be worth a try anyway, as I'm sure it won't do any harm. One of the side effects of the filter shenanigans was that I added 12 litres of fresh (dechlorinated) water into the tank (the water I lost when I emptied the filter). We're are only talking about an approx. 4% water change, but thought I declare it for full disclosure.

Day 25 (10th Jan) - 11:00am:

Ammonia 1.3
NitrItes 0.35
NitrAtes 2.5
pH 6.6

So... ammonia showed a significant drop, nitrItes still slowly growing. But more interestingly a definite sign of NitrAtes, and a rather concerning drop in pH!

I think I'm going to re-test the ammonia and pH this evening to see if they change at all.

 

[Schmill]

Yeah, just ask my other half and she'll soon tell you how annoying my 'perfectionism' is - lol
At the moment I've also removed my lid flaps and turned them over to try and make them 'bend' back the opposite way, I'll let you know how well it works out
I think the white marks I get are so annoying as they don't rub off easily due to the immensily hard water round here!

Tank looking good, it's always worth trying some media, although as you have said I don't imagine there will be much left alive in it after all it's been through.

I can't remember what the Ph of your tap water is, but if it is now significantly higher than the tank I'd be tempted to do a largish water change to get the Ph back up, otherwise the cycle may stall.

EDIT

Just looked back and seen your tap water is at a ph of 8.0, in which case I would reconfirm the ph test of the tank, and if it is still that low then do a largish water change, to bring it back up, (can wait until tomorrow though, no need for tonight - lol)

 

[waterdrop]

If one is going to bother doing a water change for the purpose of altering the water chemistry during fishless cycling(such as this case, raising KH/pH) then there's usually little reason not to make it a large water change. Usually, whatever it convenient down to a point prior to your input pipe sucking air(since its so much easier to just leave your filter running during these). The reason I mention this is that its easy to kind of forget that your water is nothing more than a "bacterial growing soup" during fishless cycling. Your water at this point has nothing to do with your future fish or future aquarium and the practice of smaller percentage water changes is mostly all about those things (most percentages 50% and below are only like that to lessen shock to fish.) Another thing I often think about is how "fish-in cyclers" (not you I know) are often surprised at how much ammonia or nitrite is -still- in the water after a 50% change and they end up doing another change an hour later. Its the same way with moving pH: it takes a lot of water volume changed to make a nice change to your parameters.

Its still usually the case that a water change during fishless cycling will be seen as a "disturbance" by the bacteria somehow and they will seem to "pause" for a day or two and lower or stop their processing, but if the reason for making the water change was valid and improved the growing medium they live in, they will usually respond after this pause with better growth and improved response in the tests. Of course, with the return water one always needs to remember to recharge it back up with the ammonia, ie. anything its had before the change.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[stubedoo]

At the moment I've also removed my lid flaps and turned them over to try and make them 'bend' back the opposite way, I'll let you know how well it works out

I think I mentioned this on the tank thread, but I've just put some pebbles on each corner, which stops them curling at the edges. I wonder if your fighting a losing battle because even if you get them straight again, I imagine they will bend quite quickly again.

I can't remember what the Ph of your tap water is, but if it is now significantly higher than the tank I'd be tempted to do a largish water change to get the Ph back up, otherwise the cycle may stall.

EDIT

Just looked back and seen your tap water is at a ph of 8.0,

That 8.0 pH is actually very misleading. What I have found is that the pH of my tap water is very different to that of the same water left standing over night (I read a thread about this on here a few days ago). I did a couple of tests and found that once left standing over night the pH of my tap water drops to anything from around 6.8 to 7.4 (in the few tests I did anyway)

Given that any water I put in may not be much higher pH, waterdrop's useful comments, and primarily because I'm lazy I'm not intending to do a large water change yet. But I am keeping a very close eye on the pH.

Day 26 (11th Jan) - 09:30am:

Ammonia 1.0
NitrItes 0.6
NitrAtes not tested
pH 6.6

NB: 9ml of ammonia solution added to take ammonia back up to approx. 4ppm

Day 27 (12th Jan) - 13:00:

Ammonia 3.0
NitrItes 1.0
NitrAtes 6.0
pH 6.6

I'm quite happy with these results, I've done my first ammonia top up, and have an increasing nitrItes and nitrAtes population, which must be good, right?

 

[5teady_2012]

cant understand why u binned that plant, it may not be aquatic but they last ages and ages in tanks, mine has been in my tank now for near on 9 months and is still fine.

 

[stubedoo]

cant understand why u binned that plant, it may not be aquatic but they last ages and ages in tanks, mine has been in my tank now for near on 9 months and is still fine.

It was already half dead, the leaves went gooey brown and started falling off... I didn't want it to affect my water quality.

 

[stubedoo]

Day 28 (13th Jan) - 10:00:

Ammonia 2.0
NitrItes >1.0
NitrAtes not tested
pH 6.5

Day 29 (14th Jan) - 10:15

Ammonia 1.0
NitrItes 4.0
NitrAtes 12
pH 6.2

So my pH has officially plummeted. Will do a large (probably 75%) water change this evening. Good to see the ammonia dropping, and the nitrItes and nitrAtes rising though.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup, remember that the reason the pH drops is because the cycle is progressing and you're getting lots of lovely nitrification. so while the effects can be pants in a way it's a good sign that it's happened!

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, looking good. If you do make a water change (and yours is called for since you'll be officially stalled at pH=6.2) then might as well make it as large as possible, since both nitrites and nitrates have a bit of a slowing effect on N-Bac development. I used to base it on how low I could go and still keep my filter running (the intake pipe inlet being down near the bottom.) If you have to turn your filter(s) off then might as well take it down to the substrate (although I realize that time might be an issue with a bigger tank like the 300.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[stubedoo]

Thanks Miss Wiggle, I was wondering if the pH drop might be a good sign, glad to hear it isn't all bad.

Waterdrop, I intend to do a water change down to the filter inlet pipe, based on your previous advice. That will be about a 70/75% water change.