Hi!

[Shaman]

Hi

Just thought i'd introduce myself on here!

Got my first tank around 3 weeks ago, a Juwel Vision 180. It's been running since then with 6 Silver Tipped Tetras to seed it and things have been going along nicely. (Read up on the internet about fishless cycling after the event!)

Just a couple of questions, firstly the water has gone cloudy (a good sign apparently from various websites) but how long should it remain cloudy for? It's been like this for a week, though this morning it seems slightly clearer. I'm feeding once every two days and they eat all the food. The ammonia is at 0.25ppm, nitrite around 0ppm & nitrate around 0ppm.

Also, I quite fancy getting a bristlenosed pleco or two for my tank and have been told that they like, as part of their diet, to eat algae. Is this true, and how many is a suitable number for a tank this size? Or would a shrimp be better. (I also happen to like the bristlenose so will probably get one anyway!)

Cheers

 

[Carlovel1]

Hi and welcome to the forum
The water should be cleared in a few days, the filter will aid that.
The bristlenose can be kept alone or in pairs or groups. They will eat algae, but its better to get them once the tank has fully cycled and algae has started to grow

 

[Shaman]

Hi and welcome to the forum
The water should be cleared in a few days, the filter will aid that.
The bristlenose can be kept alone or in pairs or groups. They will eat algae, but its better to get them once the tank has fully cycled and algae has started to grow

Cheers.

I'm just a bit perplexed as to why it's taking so long to clear! It's been around a week now. It just looks "uncared for!"

I've also already got algae. Got an algae magnet to clear it off the glass. (I was overfeeding at the start and have reduced lighting from 12 to 9 hours per day). Not going to add any fish 'til the tank is fully cycled.

Cheers

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Shaman and welcome to tff!

I'd say you're just thinking that these things go faster than they do. All new tanks go through several odd looking stages in the first weeks and months but usually by 6 months they look really nice. The milky looking "bacterial bloom" is the most dramatic of these things and you can rest assured that it should clear up on its own and be harmless.

You are of course in the 3rd week of a Fish-In Cycle and those usually take between one and two months to fully complete. (You'll know you're probably at the end when you get two days in a row with zero ppm ammonia and zero ppm nitrite(NO2) without you having changed any water - at which point you can "qualify" the biofilter by verifying that it can keep this up for a week.)

You probably already understand it but to repeat the goal of Fish-In cycling, you need to find a percentage and frequency of water changes (using good technique with conditioner and temp matching) that keeps you in the narrow range of zero ppm ammonia and nitrite and 0.25ppm ammonia and nitrite before you can be home again to re-test and potentially change water. The tests need to be carried out with liquid-reagent based kits if they are to be trusted. (The ammonia above 0.25ppm gives gill damage, the nitrite(NO2) above 0.25ppm gives nerve damage.)

Sounds like you've got things under control though!
~~waterdrop~~

 

[Shaman]

Thanks for that! & thanks for the welcome!

I've sussed (I think!) that 18l a day water change is the right amount! (10%!) I just guess I'm impatient!

**edit** The highest ammonia reading i've had is 0.25ppm and the sample is normally somewhere between the 0ppm and 0.25ppm colour blocks on the chart (it's an API master test kit). Changing the water drops the ammonia right down to nearly 0ppm. I've not detected a Nitrite reading yet (the sample stays blue).

Having had the tank for a few weeks I've decided that I'd prefer a half sand/gravel mix as opposed to full gravel (Norwegian style according to the bag!) am I right in presuming that it'd be better to wait until my tank is cycled before attempting this?

(Sorry for the questions!!)

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, during cycling you want everything you can get and even though 99% of cycling is in the filter there is still a little contribution from the surfaces out in the tank, expecially the substrate surfaces, which represent more surface area than other things out in the tank. So its better to wait until the cycling is definately over before disturbing your substrate. With sand of course you may need to move to a siphon tube with thumb method rather than a gravel-cleaning cylinder approach to your water changes.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Shaman]

Water change done today.

Readings as follows:
Ammonia - less than 0.25ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 0ppm

Not had any Nitrite or Nitrate readings yet (other people report getting nitrates from their tap water) so thought I'd check my tap water. All readings are 0ppm with a pH of 6.8.

Should I have had any Nitrite readings yet (have I missed them?)

Thought I'd also post up a pic of the cloudy water!

and the water before it went cloudy:

 

[waterdrop]

Often you can not see any nitrite during a fish-in cycle, or the cycle might just be going slowly and the nitrite will eventually appear. If the ammonia drops off to zero without you having seen nitrite then you'll need to be suspicious and keep testing for a couple weeks further in case nitrite suddenly appears. Sounds like you're doing a really good job with the fish-in cycle.

Do you have sunlight hitting the tank or are you leaving your tank light on for more than 4 hours or something? Do you have live plants in there? You may need to try a 3-day blackout (you wrap the tank with black plastic garbage bags (careful not to get it on something hot or where it could wick water out or something) and you just keep the tank black for 3 days and then do a massive water change afterward. This might help with the green water.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Shaman]

Often you can not see any nitrite during a fish-in cycle, or the cycle might just be going slowly and the nitrite will eventually appear. If the ammonia drops off to zero without you having seen nitrite then you'll need to be suspicious and keep testing for a couple weeks further in case nitrite suddenly appears. Sounds like you're doing a really good job with the fish-in cycle.

Do you have sunlight hitting the tank or are you leaving your tank light on for more than 4 hours or something? Do you have live plants in there? You may need to try a 3-day blackout (you wrap the tank with black plastic garbage bags (careful not to get it on something hot or where it could wick water out or something) and you just keep the tank black for 3 days and then do a massive water change afterward. This might help with the green water.

~~waterdrop~~

Did a 50% water change last night, water now just "bacterial bloom white." The light has been on for 9hours a day so I've turned that off and put an old sheet over the tank.

There is a window near by, but as the tank is in my cellar the direct light doesn't get as far as the tank (chose the position for this reason).

It's just patience really in getting the tank settled. What do people think is the best water conditioner? I'm currently using API pH6.5 which conditions the water (as the local tap water is pH6.8 as well as being very soft).

Many Thanks

Dan

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Dan, Again, be very careful about the light fixture or any other practical considerations when doing something like draping a sheet over a tank. We wouldn't want any fires or water mishaps! It sounds like it was your 9 hours of light, not the light from the basement window (although any light can be a factor.)

And the fact that we've lessened the green and now are seeing the milky white is more confirmation of the bacterial bloom and the "beginning tank" situation. After the 3 days of blackout I would plan to come back with one 4 hour block of light (assuming you have live plants to light, I forget.) We all use cheap lamp timers for light control.

We never recommend pH-uppers or downers. You aren't using that sort of chemical, are you? About the only chemical most of us use on a regular basis is Seachem Prime, as our conditioner for the fresh tap water that comes in with our weekly water changes.

I forget, where are we on testing and fish-in cycling in your case?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Shaman]

I've placed two cups on top of the hood to raise the sheet off it!

I've no live plants in the tank at the moment (though after reading some of other topics on here, I'm considering getting a bit of Java Fern/Cabomba (sp?) to see if that'll help.

I've got a "cheap" electronic timer (that took about an hour and much confusion to program ) so i'll adjust the light time right down to four hours. It's currently running two T5 "Day" fluorescent tubes.

Checked when I got up 10 minutes ago, ammonia is 0.25ppm and no signs of any Nitrites/ates. Did a 10% water change to get the ammnonia diluted. Water still milky though (10 days so far!!) I'm now around week 4 with the fish-in cylcing. The only park of the filter setup (Juwel Bioflow 3.0) that I've changed/washed so far is the filter wool.

It says on the pot of conditioner "pH leveller and conditioner" though the difference between the pH of the tap water and tank water after I've put the stuff in is identical. I'll ditch this in favour of Seachem prime. (£10 for 500ml on eBay! )

**Just nipped round to the local LFS and bought some Java Fern & bogwood (now soaking!) and within 20minutes of putting the java fern in the tank, the water looks clearer (probably all physchological!) Hopefully the fern will help keep the algae at bay. Reduced the lighting time to 4 hours now for a bit as well.


The Shaman

 

[Shaman]

The water is now cloudy again (not massively, but still annoying as the clear water gave me hope!)

Just a thought, could the water conditioner be causing this?

 

[waterdrop]

The green water is becoming clearer now ( that is, the understanding of it)... You've been shining TWO T5 tubes into a tank with no plants! The algae are saying "Whoopie! Its all for us!"

The trigger for algae spores (no matter which of the many types) is Light + Ammonia. Any tank that is cycling will have excess ammonia, at least some of the time. If you add light to that you can get out of control algae. So you've had a double problem going, ammonia present and not just light, but way too much light (T5 bulbs are even brighter than T8s.)

Don't know if the tubes are full length longwise, one in front of the other, but if that's the case perhaps you could take one of them out. Java ferns are low-light plants and will not need much light, but they will need a stretch of 4 hours.

So I'd try to cut down on the brightness of the light if possible and of course water changes are going to be good. Its a shame you picked up the plants before the blackout but actually they should go through it just fine so perhaps you should proceed with the 3 day blackout and see if it helps the green water. (you understand, no lights on at all during the 3 days, right?)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Shaman]

That explains it!

The lights are 95cm 35w x 2!

Just the matter of the cloudy water now! I'm going to change the water conditioner to Seachem Prime when it arrives.

Thanks for the help.

Shaman Dan!

 

[waterdrop]

So what is your number of lighting watts per US gallon? (I think with the T5s you want to use the lighting output type number, not the efficient electricity number (ie. if they say this is one of those new bulbs that only uses 13 watts but puts out the equivalent of a traditional 60 watt lightbulb, you'd use the 60 watt number, just to use an incandescent example I was thinking of.. know this is not what you have.) For instance, if we have 2 15watt traditional tubes shining over a 28 US gallon tank, we have about 1.07 watts/gallon, which puts us in a safe range for low-light plants. (1 to 2 watts/gallon, 1.5 is a nice level when doing low-light technique)

WD