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Thanks WD.

I have read that while doing nitrite tests, if when the drops are added and it turns dark purple at the bottom of the tube immediately, it means that the nitrites are off the chart. Is this always the case or does this vary?
 
That should always be the case, although I always try to think about my tests in context to the overall days and weeks of cycling and where I expect to be. If the nitrite reagent drops turn dark purple or any wierd shades of of greenish or grayish, all of those mean nitrite that is off the charts or very high. If the drops turn beautiful shiny aqua or sky blue then that's the moment you are probably going to end up with the beautiful sky blue after the 5 minutes, the blue is dramatically different, which is helpful and one of the reasons we like the API test.

~~waterdrop~~
 
waterdrop said:
That should always be the case, although I always try to think about my tests in context to the overall days and weeks of cycling and where I expect to be. If the nitrite reagent drops turn dark purple or any wierd shades of of greenish or grayish, all of those mean nitrite that is off the charts or very high. If the drops turn beautiful shiny aqua or sky blue then that's the moment you are probably going to end up with the beautiful sky blue after the 5 minutes, the blue is dramatically different, which is helpful and one of the reasons we like the API test.

~~waterdrop~~
Click to expand...

Thanks WD. When i put the drops in, it immediately turned dark purple at the bottom and my heart raced thinking that my nitries are off the charts. However, i did shake it and checked it after 5 minutes and it turned into the 5ppm colour range. As you say it depends upon the stage of cycling :), but i'll test again today and see what happens. pH is still at 7.6, so it hasn't fallen yet.
 
Btw, my tank came with a fluval U3 internal filter which has foam + Carbon/poly cartridge + biomax sections. I have read that its better to remove carbon cartridge which i havent done. Do i need to remove it and if yes, could someone please elaborate on it?

Thanks
 
No, you don't particularly need to remove it, at least for now. We just like to catch beginners before they start removing and replacing frequently based on manufacturers instructions that are based on selling a lot of media. The carbon you have will become a home to bacteria and work ok in that capacity for a period of time and can be replaced by some more efficient biomedia at a later point months down the road.

There are 3 main filtration functions in a filter and each type of media is usually especially good at one of them and then happens to sometimes do one more or both of the othre functions to some extent too but is not best at it. The functions are mechanical (debris catching,) biological (serving up surfaces for bacteria,) and chemical (trapping of molecules based on chemical charge.)

Carbon falls in to the chemical filtration class and is excellent at doing that. But chemical media serve highly specific purposes. In the case of carbon, its used for removing medications, removing yellow tannins from wood and removing the occasional organic odor of unknown origin. It does any of these 3 things quite well but is fully used up in about 3 days and ready to be removed and thrown out, never to be used again. Putting carbon to its best purpose then would involve replacing it each week or less and that gets quite expensive, so most experienced aquarists have carbon amongst their supplies but only put it to use for its special purposes.

But let's say you just have carbon because it came with a new filter and you don't care about or need it for tannins or any of those things. Well, once it finishes adsorbing (a word for taking up charged particles) whatever it can for 3 days or so, it will just sit there and at that point it just becomes similar to a tray or bag of gravel in your filter, it provides surfaces for bacteria and does some mechanical trapping of debris. Its not bad at it but its not great. Its not as good as sponges or ceramics partly because it crumbles and breaks down and partly because it doesn't have as much surface area optimized for biofilms. But again, its not bad and is perfectly good to leave in for a first stretch of months in your tank with a plan to gradually take out small fractions of the carbon and replace it with pieces of ceramic or sponge (the fractions are so that you won't lose too much of your hard-won beneficial bacteria at once.)

~~waterdrop~~
 
waterdrop said:
No, you don't particularly need to remove it, at least for now. We just like to catch beginners before they start removing and replacing frequently based on manufacturers instructions that are based on selling a lot of media. The carbon you have will become a home to bacteria and work ok in that capacity for a period of time and can be replaced by some more efficient biomedia at a later point months down the road.

There are 3 main filtration functions in a filter and each type of media is usually especially good at one of them and then happens to sometimes do one more or both of the othre functions to some extent too but is not best at it. The functions are mechanical (debris catching,) biological (serving up surfaces for bacteria,) and chemical (trapping of molecules based on chemical charge.)

Carbon falls in to the chemical filtration class and is excellent at doing that. But chemical media serve highly specific purposes. In the case of carbon, its used for removing medications, removing yellow tannins from wood and removing the occasional organic odor of unknown origin. It does any of these 3 things quite well but is fully used up in about 3 days and ready to be removed and thrown out, never to be used again. Putting carbon to its best purpose then would involve replacing it each week or less and that gets quite expensive, so most experienced aquarists have carbon amongst their supplies but only put it to use for its special purposes.

But let's say you just have carbon because it came with a new filter and you don't care about or need it for tannins or any of those things. Well, once it finishes adsorbing (a word for taking up charged particles) whatever it can for 3 days or so, it will just sit there and at that point it just becomes similar to a tray or bag of gravel in your filter, it provides surfaces for bacteria and does some mechanical trapping of debris. Its not bad at it but its not great. Its not as good as sponges or ceramics partly because it crumbles and breaks down and partly because it doesn't have as much surface area optimized for biofilms. But again, its not bad and is perfectly good to leave in for a first stretch of months in your tank with a plan to gradually take out small fractions of the carbon and replace it with pieces of ceramic or sponge (the fractions are so that you won't lose too much of your hard-won beneficial bacteria at once.)

~~waterdrop~~
Click to expand...

Thanks WD, much appreciated. I'll keep the change of fraction of the carbon material in mind. It's going to be fun when I do my first filter cleaning in the siphoned out tank water, as i'll be so nervous not to kill the bacteria :(.

Also, i have been reading about planted tanks and the need for not doing any cycle if you have a good ratio of live plants to fish stocked. How effective is this as i have read so many aquarists who have never done a fishless cycle but just get along with having a planted tank. Is this to do with the difficulty of identifying the correct plant/stocking balance for beginner?
 
when people talk about planted tanks it's important to make the difference between a tank with plants in and a planted tank.

to qualify as a planted tank you'd need over 50% of the substrate covered with thriving plants. if you have that sort of level of planting and stock lightly the plants will take up any ammonia that the filter can't process and consequently you don't see a blip in your levels, the cycle still happens but you don't see it which is why it's called silent.

the problem with this method (particularly for beginners) is that you have to know what to do if the plants start to die off and are not able to take up the excess ammonia, essentially it puts you straight into a fish-in cycling situation which is far from ideal. if you are experienced with plants and have all the kit to make them thrive then it's probably fine, but if you mess up keeping the plants alive you put the fish at risk too....... and messing up keeping plants alive is surprisingly easy to do! also in most new tanks the level of planting is nowhere near dense enough for the plants to take up the bio-load.
 
Thanks MW, thought you are ignoring this thread for a while :).

Could you suggest some easier to care plants. So far the easier plant list I got is java fern, java moss, amazon swords, Wendti. Also, when i'm checking online on live plants, there are three ways as to how do i want the plants, like individual, potted and leaded. What is the recommended way (if there is) and if one is better than the other?

Thanks
 
you were in good hands with WD ;)

my hubby is the plant geek in our house so my knowledge is a little limited, but all the plants you have now should be quite easy. you could also go for some stem plants like hygrophilia polysperma.

hubby always gets the potted plants, couldn't tell you why but there's probably a reason... :rolleyes:

with the on-line deals the one bit of advice i know is be wary of the package deals, you see advertised sets of (e.g.) 50 plants for a fixed price. in some cases it is specified exactly what you'll get and that's fine, you can do a little research and work out if they are all suitable or not. however in a lot of cases the package doesn't specify what you'll get and you end up with whatever is half dead and they can't sell from the back of the warehouse which is obviously not great.
 
Miss Wiggle said:
you were in good hands with WD ;)

my hubby is the plant geek in our house so my knowledge is a little limited, but all the plants you have now should be quite easy. you could also go for some stem plants like hygrophilia polysperma.

hubby always gets the potted plants, couldn't tell you why but there's probably a reason... :rolleyes:

with the on-line deals the one bit of advice i know is be wary of the package deals, you see advertised sets of (e.g.) 50 plants for a fixed price. in some cases it is specified exactly what you'll get and that's fine, you can do a little research and work out if they are all suitable or not. however in a lot of cases the package doesn't specify what you'll get and you end up with whatever is half dead and they can't sell from the back of the warehouse which is obviously not great.
Click to expand...

Thanks MW. i have found this site which seem to be good. *fingers crossed* they are even offering money back guarantee with paid return postage as well. we'll see. Please do let me know of anymore plants when you speak to your hubby and also the reason for potted plants :)

Thanks
 
hubby just ordered some crypts from them a few weeks ago, they took ages to come but pleased with the quality now they are here :good:
 
Miss Wiggle said:
hubby just ordered some crypts from them a few weeks ago, they took ages to come but pleased with the quality now they are here :good:
Click to expand...

Thanks MW. Any other online aquatic stores recommendations please?
 
Right guys, i need some confirmation from the pictures below. This is doing my head in. The pictures below are the NO2 tests and the thing is, when i drop the solution in the test tube, it turns dark purple at the bottom, but after 5 minutes when I test it, this is what I get.

Does this mean my nitrites are 0ppm? or have i gone completely blind and bonkers :( ?
 

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For the purpose of judging hue (the actual color within the spectrum of colors) I do not consider a digital picture transferred on the internet to be necessarily trustworthy. There are too many places along the way (really at the beginning when picture goes into digital from the camera lens, or at the end when the digital comes out and is displayed on a particular lcd panel or other display device) where the hue might not retain the same value that your eyes would give you if you were actually there looking.

So only you can be the judge of whether that pale liquid we've seeing you hold is actually a baby blue shade, a very pale purple shade or a weird very light greenish-blue or grayish shade. There is a reaction the NO2 API test does where the nitrite level is too high for it to measure and causes it to go dark purple at first but then end up with the pale greenish to grayish endpoint. When I try to judge these things I never go just by pure test results but think hard about where I am day to day in the process and whether I -expect- to be getting a high or low NO2 result. I may need to be reminded of the number of days we've been through for each phase leading up to this test result...

~~waterdrop~~
 
if it's going dark purple when you first put the drops in then it's still off the charts IMHO. I had that, it would go dark purple then gradually fade to light blue. when it finally did hit 0 the drops go blue when you first put them in the test tube.

sorry that's probably not the answer you want, i know how frustrating this stage can be but just stick with it.
 
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