Water Treatment

[steve01]

Hi All, I am prety sure that my tank is now cycled and I was wondering if I still need to add the Nitrivec Bio culture to the water when I do water changes, I am showing no Ammonia very slight Nitrate and no Nitrite, sorry I can not be more precise but I hate the test kit that I have to judge the colour of the water in a tube I wish there was a test that said what your water was like, what happens if you are colour blind, LOl LOl.

Thanks.

Steve.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi steve, yeah the test kit colours can be infuriating can't they, best tip to get a good reading, stand in a bright room that's painted white, if this isn't possible then stand outside, have your back to the light source. Hold the test tube against the colour chart and take the reading from there.

what make/model of test kit are you using?

No, no need to add the bio culture stuff, tbh probably no need to add it in the first place, most of these products are just snake oil and don't actually do what they say they will.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Steve,

Knowing when your filter has "qualified" as being cycled can be reasonably reliable if you are specific about the details. If you are Fishless Cycling then you should be at the stage (usually at least several weeks out) where you have been adding the pure household ammonia at 5ppm each day and the filter is removing all the ammonia and nitrite down to Zero ppm within 12 hours after it was added. Then you keep doing this for one week to be sure its really stable.

Is this the stage of fishless cycling you've reached?

(If you are "Fish-In" cycling, with fish in the tank, its an entirely different story and you'll want the filter to have been able to hold zero ammonia and zero nitrite all by itself for two days without you having to do any water changes.)

These two bits are how you know you are cycled. If they don't quite seem to make sense then you may be in the very common situation we see here of having been given completely wrong advice about what "cycling" is and will need to stop and ask questions here!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[steve01]

Thanks for the quick replies, I am using the Nutrafin Mini Master test kit, I did my cycling with fish in, I did not know any better saying that I have been very lucky as I have not lost any fish, I have been doing about a 90 percent water change every day now for three weeks I am glad that is over it was o.k emptying my tank but filling it up again with a three gallon bucket took forever it is a 200 litre tank but it was worth it as my water was allways clear and I have good water stats, my only problen now is I think I might be feeding to much I can not get the hang of how much to feed, the fish just seem to want whatever the amount of food I put in. I forgot to mention that I am using a Fluval 205 Externall filter.

Steve.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

well I'm glad that you seem to have got through it unscathed, well done for your dedication with the daily water changes.

Little tip that I bet you'll wish you had a few weeks ago, use a hosepipe. It'll work the same as a siphon, just hold it over the filter output and water will start to fall through the tube and you can send it down the sink, out into the garden etc, then when it's time to fill it up you hook the hose up to the garden tap, add dechlor directly to the tank and turn the hose on, run it in fairly slowly as it'll be cold, particularly important when doing 90% water changes.

it's better to underfeed than to overfeed, fish can go up to 2 weeks without any food quite happily so don't worry about them not getting enough, worry instead about them having too much. excess food in the tank can foul up the wateer and the water problems are much more serious than the fish being hungry!

 

[steve01]

Thanks Miss Wiggle, I did think of using a hosepipe but as you said the water would be cold so I used the kitchen mixer tap and filled the bucket with hot and cold water until it felt about right it was a pain walking through the house with 10 three gallon buckets of water I can tell you, Lol Lol.

Steve.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

oh yes, been there, got the t-shirt! I always use the hose now and just run the water back in slowly which gives the heater a chance to catch up.

For your normal weekly maintenance (which should be along the lines of a 30% change once a week) just use a hose though, the temp won't drop more than 2oC and unless you have super temp sensitve fish then they will coppe with this fine, some fish will even start to spawn afterwards, the temp drop simulates a change in the seasons in the wild which often triggers spawning.

 

[Cantbesaved]

LOL i do the bucket thing... I have 2x 5 gallon Home Depot buckets. One for dirty, one for clean (and a 15 watt mini pad heater to get the clean water to temp)! LOL but ya, that sounds like a hassle with such a large tank. I was reading on here how to make a custom drain/filler (forgot what it's called). But it is a long ass hose, that runs to your tank and lets you drain into your sink and fill up from the sink. Maybe look up how to make that. It is pretty inexpensive!! I think it was called a python or something...