Dbt85's Aquarium Log.

[DBT85]

We decided to move the lower Blu-Ray racks in order to put a 4ft Roma 240 tank in the alcove. The tank is 120cm wide and the gap is 127cm. This is my first ever aquarium as I've wanted one for a while but couldn't think of anywhere to put one. The wife suggested that I remove the racks and put one there (something I hadn;t suggested because the Christmas tree usually goes in that corner) and so I set about getting all the bits!

First thing was to get those racks and the speaker off the wall.

Then I needed to trim the bottom of the tank in order for it to all fit better. From the floor to the bottom of those DVD racks is about 3cm less than the height of the tank+stand. Using my router I took 6cm off of the two sides and the rear panel which forms the support there. That all went perfectly and so I could then knock the cabinet together. I liked that it didn't have a back so I could get to the socket easily and it felt very very sturdy once built. The spirit level went on and its all bang on which is nice. Hurrah for concrete floors that are level!

Next up was putting the black sticky backed plastic onto the rear of the tank. I've not used the stuff since covering books at school about 15 years ago so doing it on a 4ft tank was interesting! With that complete the wife helped me lift the tank onto the cabinet.

Next came the joyous task of washing all the sand, Originally I planned on putting about 20kg in (bags are 12.5kg) but ordered another just in case. On Saturday night I got 2 full bags in there as well as enough water to just over it all. The water looked a little cloudy but by Sunday morning that was clear.

On Sunday I decided that I wanted a deeper bed than I currently had in there so in went the third bag of sand. With that complete I started to fill the tank with the hose. About 1/2 of the way through I added the 5-6ml of Seachem Prime to the water. By god the water is cold this time of year!

Once filled I opened the valves on the Tetratec ex 1200 and watched as about 1.5cm of water level vanished in to the canister! Out came the hose again to top it up and then I very tentatively turned the filter on. No leaks after about 90 minutes which bodes well hopefully!

Tomorrow I'm going to pick some mature media up from the LFS so hopefully that'll speed my cycle up a little. For the moment the filter is just running.

I'll update as I put the bogwood in and then it'll be quiet until my cycle is done

 

[njstockley]

Looks great - what are you planning for stocking?
Also what sand did you use in there?

 

[D1s]

I like reading peoples progress logs, keep us posted

 

[Philuk]

looking good man, i like the look of black sand but it made my tank too dark so had to go lighter!

 

[DBT85]

Looks great - what are you planning for stocking?
Also what sand did you use in there?

Stocking looks like its going to be some Gold Laser Corydoras, a Plec of some kind and some Cardinals. Possibly more but id like decent quantities f each rather than 27 different types.

The sand is Unipac Granite Black. It does look nice and dark but i'll get some better pics with SLR which will show it better.

 

[Wills]

Really nice I think I might have to invest in some of that black sand to top up my tank!

Stocking sounds great as well Big schools are always a good thing just get in a few feature fish some dwarf cichlids in there would be great Maybe a nice group of Apistos, A.Panduro are nice and the electric yellow females would really pop against the black

Wills

 

[DBT85]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll be sure to check them out!

Today I've popped to my LFS and picked up a tub of their media to put into my filter. The woman seemed quite impressed that I knew about cycling and stuff and was telling me some of the things she gets asked from customers. I'm not sure how much bacteria is going to be in the containers worth she gave me since they are obviously using absolutely massive tanks filled with the stuff. Hopefully it is enough to give me a boost though.

The Tetratec came out of the cupboard with ease although it was quite heavy and I don't feel confident that the handle can be trusted to take the weight. At first I tried to put this new media in with water still in the canister. I realised fairly fast that that is night on impossible since the bio balls and these white plastic things both want to float everywhere and get lodged in the tube that feeds water to the bottom. Once the canister was emptied into a clean bucket I managed to get it all done nice and quickly and the media is at the bottom of the filter with the white ceramic things. Off it went back into the cupboard and turned on all working fine. Then I went into the kitchen to tidy up and realised I'd left the top most plastic tray/guard on the side . Fortunately that was easy enough to pop back in without moving the filter away from the cupboard.

Also today I've adde my first batch of ammonia. I used the Kleen Off household ammonia that others have mentioned on here. Using my trusty bucket filled with 10l of water I put 10 drops of ammonia in and stirred it up and took a sample to test. Once I'd done the test and it didn't look to be going anywhere I added another 20 drops and took another sample. By the time I had finished taking that sample the first one had turned green to between 4 and 6ppm!

I decided to work on the basis of 5 drops per 10l for the tank to undershoot rather than overshoot so in went 6ml which which has been cycling through for about an hour and I'm about to take a sample to test. If it's lower then I can add a little more rather than having to do a water change to remove some.

 

[Tizer]

nice start mate, tank fits in perfectly, love the black sand, really wish i had done the same. Not sure that mature media is very mature, most of my white media turns brown and nasty onces its been in there a while. Lets hope is capable of doing something

 

[DBT85]

nice start mate, tank fits in perfectly, love the black sand, really wish i had done the same. Not sure that mature media is very mature, most of my white media turns brown and nasty onces its been in there a while. Lets hope is capable of doing something

Indeed! My concerns were simply based on the volume of media they had in there and obviously any bacteria are going to be more spread out if there is more room. Hopefully there will be enough in there to get it started though.

I've just done an ammonia test and its come out bang on 4ppm so I have my start mark.

 

[DBT85]

Yesterday my Ammonia readings were still right on 4ppm from what I could tell (perhaps they were too high to start with) but Nitrite were bright purple as they were the day before. I did about a 40% water change (my first ever, need to find a better way!) to bring the nitrite back down to something I could read. In the process the Ammonia dropped to around 2ppm.

Today my stinking bag of bacterially infested floss arrived from Minnnt and I popped it in the bottom of my filter in order to get things moving along. Before I hooked it up I took another reading and Ammonia was at 0 and Nitrite was at bright purple again and that's about 24 hours since the 2ppm reading .

I wonder if perhaps I did add too much ammonia which made me think that it wasn't changing when it actually was so maybe that media from the shop wasn't duff. Anyway, I've now got a whole bunch add from Minnnt which sure smelled like there was something living in it!

I've added 2ml of ammonia this time, the first time was 6ml. I'm going to sleep now to get ready for my night shift so I'll test again at about 17:00 to see what the stats are by comparison.

Can't help but think I'm going to run out of Ammonia and Nitrite test solution far earlier than the PH and Nitrate test solution.

Also I emptied my bucket which contained one of my bits of bogwood yesterday. The water looked like weak tea. I used an old brush (like a hair brush but for cats that they never liked) to give it a good scrub. Lots of dark material came off and it's now back in it's bucket until I come off nights in a week. It still wants to float a bit as the top 2" stick out of the top of my bucket and I have nothing deeper! I think a water butt might be more suitable considering the other two bits I have are even larger.

 

[Gidge]

What a great start! Love the black sand, the tank fits in perfectly, looks like it was made for that space! Also, just like to say that I love your wallpaper

 

[minnnt]

Nice setup!

The new cabinets from Fluval are beautiful!

 

[DBT85]

What a great start! Love the black sand, the tank fits in perfectly, looks like it was made for that space! Also, just like to say that I love your wallpaper

Yeah it's literally an inch either side! Wallpaper is from B&Q, the big DIY shop in the UK. It's as thin a cigarette paper though so it all shrunk back once applied so there a few gaps that I'm looking forward to rectifying next time out!

Nice setup!

The new cabinets from Fluval are beautiful!

Yeh they are, much nicer looking than the old ones IMO.


Anyway, since recieving my bacteria in the post from Minnnt on Wednesday I've been at work every night for 12 hours. On Thursday morning after getting home from work I did some tests and my Ammonia was at maybe 0.5 but possibly lower and the Nitrite was bright purple again. I didn't add any ammonia then until the Friday before I went to work in the evening (It was at 0ppm in the morning) in a bid to allow the Nitrites to catch up since I had no time to do any water changes. This happened again over the weekend. Despite this the Nitrites were still the same bright purple which suggested to me that they were just above 5ppm which is why it was the same every day.

On Sunday morning when I got home from work I did another battery of tests and once again the ammonia was very low but the Nitrite was still 5+. I left it again to try and clear the little Ammonia and the large quantity of Nitrite. This morning I have come home and done just 2 Nitrite tests (I know the ammonia will be gone since it was nearly gone 24 hours ago). I did one Nitrite with 100% tank water, and one of 50 tank 50 tap to see if that would get me a reading that I could measure to gauge how well it was going.

Lo and behold today my Nitrites have dropped to about 2ppm and about 1ppm in my 50:50 split tube. So in 24 hours they have dropped I'd say at least 2ppm if not a little more. With the Nitrites starting to back down again I've dosed another 2ml of Ammonia and will be doing an ammonia test in a bit before I go to bed once it's had time to circulate.

Nice to see both moving in the right direction though!

EDIT: 2ml of Ammonia took me to what looks very much like 1ppm Ammonia. I'll test it again tomorrow morning which will be 24 hours!

EDIT: about 8 hours after adding the ammonia and it looks like its dropped to 0.5ppm. So about 16 hours to process 1ppm. Will be testing Nitrites in the morning to see if they have managed to keep up at all.

EDIT 3 Tuesday 09:00: I've just done Ammonia and Nitrite tests and got back 0 on both. This took me a little by surprise as I was expecting the 0 on Ammonia but actually expected there to be some Nitrites left. I've dosed to 1ppm again now, will do so again before I leave for work (in about 8 hours) and will then measure again this time tomorrow. After that I'm off for 5 days so hopefully I can keep a closer eye on it.

It looks like it's picked up quite quickly though!

EDIT 4 Tuesday 17:30: I did another series of tests at about 17:30. Ammonia was 0 and Nitrite was about 1ppm. I've doesd another 1ppm Ammonia and we'll see how it looks at about 09:0 on Wednesday. As of Wednesday I can dose ammonia throughout the day if needed. I'd better start looking at plants!

EDIT 5 Wednesday 08:30: Another morning another set of tests and dosing. Nitrite is about 1ppm so it's cleared most of that 2ppm but not quite all. Dosed another 1ppm and will check again in 8 hours.

EDIT 6 Wednesday 16:30 : Well 8 hours later and my Ammonia is at about 0.25ppm and my Nitrite is at about 2-3ppm so I'm going to not dose again until I take a reading tomorrow morning so allow the Nitrite to clear down. Tomorrow I'm going to do a large water change to drop the Nitrate down to prevent a stall and then I'll be back to measuring and dosing.

It seems from googling around that 1ppm of Ammonia converts to 2.7ppm of Nitrite when then converts to about 3.65ppm Nitrate.

Knowing this I know that i have about 3.5-4.5ppm total of Nitrite left to clear down before the tank is completely clear of both Ammonia and Nitrite. Using my earlier tests it seems that the Ammonia is clearing 1ppm in about 8-9 hours, but that the Nitrite is taking about 12 hours to clear roughly 3ppm Nitrite or about 1ppm in 4 hours. On that basis with an approximate 4ppm of Nitrite in the system, it should be clear in 16 hours assuming there is no bacterial growth to increase rate of consumption. 16 hours takes me to 08:30 so lets see what the score is in the morning. If there are still Nitrites present then my estimation of some readings is wrong which would throw off the calculations.

EDIt 7 Thursday 09:30: Success! Both my my Ammonia and Nitrites were at 0 this morning. Meaning my calcs/readings were either over the top or I got them right. Thats fine! Just about to do a water change and then I'll dose again.

 

[DBT85]

Disaster!

I just emptied probably 90% of my tank to drop the Nitrate levels down, popped into the garden to get the hose and its frozen solid Looks like I'm going to be schlepping buckets from the kitchen for a while!

On the plus side, the bit of hose I had previously used to drain the CH system was long enough to drain my tank. So I just popped that in the tank, sucked on the other end a tiny amount (and it really was tiny) and out it all came into the drain. No more syphoning out by bucket for me!

 

[Tizer]

curl up hose in bucket of hot water for 10 mins had to do that myself the other week when cleaning cat litter for the substrate!