Whitey's Fishless Cycle Log

[Whitey_144]

Well! Only time to read up a little but I see we're having fun here!

lol, we are indeed! very interesting reading!

...I'm cycled!! been a few days and dosing around 4ppm with 0 for ammonia and nitrite after 12hrs...of course i'll keep checking the next week anyway.

I've ordered my plants online which should arrive next Thursday 17th Feb and i have installed the RO unit!

I'm am pleased with the RO unit, after some plumbing help from my dad, it's setup to fill up a 25 litre food grade container (i have 2 containers in case), im fillngone up now so that i can start doing water changes and test mixes. But from my first scientific tests...the results are in!

the RO unit is inline Meter says it's filtering from 250 TDS to 4 TDS and my portable TDS meter said the finished water was 36, although after testing 24hrs later the portable TDS meter says 12..it could be left over tap water on the portable meter. Either way it's definately working and my API liquid tests have confirmed this, the 1st drop on GH and KH begins to turn the colour and the 2nd drop definately has changed the colour - (although it is not a dark colour).

PH wise which i was secretly hoping would lower was 7.8 straight from the unit, which is about, if not slightly lower than my tap water. But i tested it again today after 24 hours and its 7 (6.8-7.2 - hard to tell), but its definately in the low ph range as i've never ever seen anything but bright blue in the test until now. This is great news for me, now all i have to do is find a mix with tap water and the KH should keep it stable. Anyone know why the PH dropped overnight? tap water contamination in my test tube the first time?

i will try 2/3 RO and 1/3 tap first as my tap water is 250 and i'm aiming for about a TDS of 80-100 (KH of 4-5). hopefully this will work out first time without having to do many permutations!

Everything in my tank is now ready, i've added the last bag of flourite yesterday, soaked some bogwood and the light unit is working now on timers.

...almost time for fish!!

ps, cycle log updated with water test results

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

Fantastic!
Two days of double zeros at 12hrs.

Look forward to the photos!

 

[Skins]

Congrats, your nearly over the finishing line .

Keith.

 

[waterdrop]

 

[Whitey_144]

Hi all,

it's finally complete! ...after a bit of a scare last weekend when my bacteria went dormant for 2days after a 1hr powercut (which Waterdrop knows all about due to my panicking! - thanks WD), i finally have everything working ...and now have plants and fish!!

Plants arrived yesterday and i spent yesterday evening planting them...i think i bought too many, but they all have enough space just, so i'll see which does well and which don't and maybe thin it out a bit. I haven't added wood yet, but i plan to re-plant the tank in a couple of weeks to include the wood and my two new homemade apisto caves (thanks Tony!).

The fish arrived today in healthy condition (Thanks Ste!) I have 5 F1 silver juvenile Angelfish and 20 Cardinal tetras. The Angels already have a leader they follow!

They look absolutely awesome!! the first encounter between the Angels and cardinals was quite amusing...the cardinals obviously stuck together, but the Angels looked confused! The Cardinals are loving the plants too! ...i'm still waiting for them to go through my coconut moss bridge of love though! lol

The past week i have been doing a lot of water changes to prep the tank, after using too much RO water and having 1/2degree of KH my PH was at 6.2, so i upped my tap propotion to 50% tap 50% RO and the water seems to be settling at a PH of around 7, (could be anywhere between 6.8-7.4 difficult to compare to chart),

My current water stats are:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10ppm
PH: 6.8-7.2
KH: 3
GH: 6 (TDS145ppm)
Temp: 26.5C (79F)
would adding bicarbs raise KH without raising GH too much? or is it usually in proportion. If my tanks stays stable i wont bother, but i believe a KH of 4/5 would keep PH more stable, so it's a thing i'm keeping my eye on. however if raising KH always raises GH in same proportion it kind of defeats trying to soften the water and ill have to keep it in a middle ground and weekly water changes should keep it stable enough.
However, i think i have prooved so far that it is possible to lower PH with an RO unit! ...time will tell if this holds true long term i guess...

Thanks everyone for your help! special mention goes to Water Drop who has helped so much, as well as to Ste for helping me with the fish, and also Tony for the Apisto caves.

Also, thanks to AquaTom, Barryand all the other members who have chipped in for the advise in this thread as well as their own thread updates which have helped me on my cycling journey!

Cheers!
Adam

ps...i'm off to fall asleep in front of my tank!

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

Fantastic!

 

[waterdrop]

I'll bet that will look like a fantastic combination. I'm sure we all wish you the best, especially as the RO/mineral work will be a work in progress and I for one will be interested to keep hearing about that on occasion.

I certainly wish for you what has happened for me. There are times when I go in to feed the fish and I marvel that they play like the healthiest of kids, despite the fact that I know some of them are beyond their average lifespan now. This forum and the more experienced members that I learned from on it has helped me have the healthiest behaving fish I've ever had.. when I had lots of tanks as a kid years ago I remember many short-lived fish and many mysteries about why they had disease and trouble. I got better over the years but the sharing of information and knowledge here has really put it all together so that it feels solid and consistent now for the most part and its really gratifying!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Whitey_144]

Hi All,

I've finally got some photos! Had the fish for about 2 weeks now and all is well, water stats have stayed the same throughout ata hardness of 145 TDS and KH 3, PH 6.8-7.2 (hard to tell the difference).

Here's a photo of the setup once planted:

http/s1080.photobucket.com/albums/j323/Whitey_144/Amazon%20Fish%20Tank/?action=view&current=IMG_6312.jpg#!oZZ19QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs1080.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fj323%2FWhitey_144%2FAmazon%2520Fish%2520Tank%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3DIMG_6326.jpg

with fish:

http/s1080.photobucket.com/albums/j323/Whitey_144/Amazon%20Fish%20Tank/?action=view&current=IMG_6312.jpg#!oZZ21QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs1080.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fj323%2FWhitey_144%2FAmazon%2520Fish%2520Tank%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3DIMG_6312.jpg

some attempts to tie plants on to driftwood
http/s1080.photobucket.com/albums/j323/Whitey_144/Amazon%20Fish%20Tank/?action=view&current=IMG_6312.jpg#!oZZ14QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs1080.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fj323%2FWhitey_144%2FAmazon%2520Fish%2520Tank%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3DIMG_6343.jpg

http/s1080.photobucket.com/albums/j323/Whitey_144/Amazon%20Fish%20Tank/?action=view&current=IMG_6312.jpg#!oZZ13QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs1080.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fj323%2FWhitey_144%2FAmazon%2520Fish%2520Tank%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3DIMG_6344.jpg

Angelfish!:

http/s1080.photobucket.com/albums/j323/Whitey_144/Amazon%20Fish%20Tank/?action=view&current=IMG_6312.jpg#!oZZ12QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs1080.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fj323%2FWhitey_144%2FAmazon%2520Fish%2520Tank%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3DIMG_6346.jpg

http/s1080.photobucket.com/albums/j323/Whitey_144/Amazon%20Fish%20Tank/?action=view&current=IMG_6312.jpg#!oZZ1QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs1080.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fj323%2FWhitey_144%2FAmazon%2520Fish%2520Tank%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3DIMG_6409.jpg

Setup currently:

http/s1080.photobucket.com/albums/j323/Whitey_144/Amazon%20Fish%20Tank/?action=view&current=IMG_6312.jpg#!oZZ3QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs1080.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fj323%2FWhitey_144%2FAmazon%2520Fish%2520Tank%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3DIMG_6400.jpg

What do you think? any advice?

there's more photos in my link to photobucket...

cheers!
Adam

 

[steve26-2008]

What size tank have you got and how's the Cardinals ?

 

[Whitey_144]

What size tank have you got and how's the Cardinals ?

It's a 30G tank, about 3ft wide and quite tall for a three footer.

The Cardinals are fine! The first 2 days they stayed on the floor moving to various areas of the tank together, especially with the lights on. But then one day they suddenly started to get confident and look lovely shoaling together! i like it at feeding times, because they split up and there's neon everywhere! They also don't seem bothered by the Angels and compete with them for food.