New 47g Tropical Tank Help Cycling

[waterdrop]

Sounds good Iana. Lines in your logbook will usually have date,time,temp, test results, anything added to tank.. but also be sure to simply write comments, anything you observe or are thinking about. You will find this to be invaluable to you later and a great resource.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[lana]

so i think i am on my way to cycling i have ammonia levels today

did a 50% water change

readings

ammonia between 0.25 and0.50 closer to 0.50
everything else good all at 0, ph holding at 7.2

fishing all swimming and looking good the danio is also now swimming with the others

kk post later when and i test again in bout an hour or so


tank also very very very clear today

 

[waterdrop]

 

[lana]

ok so i think i have to do another water change my levels are still high

do i want til morning or do it now did water change about 3 hours ago

 

[lana]

just did another 60% water change ammonia was still very high at 0.50

 

[waterdrop]

Yup, now you're getting first hand experience (lets hope other beginners are reading) for why Fish-In cycling is a pain! Water changes are work!

 

[lana]

Yup, now you're getting first hand experience (lets hope other beginners are reading) for why Fish-In cycling is a pain! Water changes are work!

did another water change this morning 70%

test my tap water and i have ammonia in my tap water what do i do next

 

[waterdrop]

Corleone,MW et.al., have a look, she has 1.0 ammonia in her tap water (I have to run at the mo)

 

[rabbut]

Well, with 1.0 ammonia in the tap, in the UK, I'd get onto the water board, as the legal limit 6months ago when my dad tested water for the Environment Agency was 0.5..... Things may have changed, or your kit could be giving a false high, but a complaint will get someone out to check and they have to do something about it if the reading is true. Hobby kits can be off though....

For the moment you are waterchangeing to remove ammonia. If your ammonia reading in the tank is higher than that of the tap, then waterchange. If the tank level is less than the tap, don't Untill nitrite sets in anyway....

When nitrite begins to spike, you will have to ballence risks a bit. Waterchanging will short-term increase ammonia, but may save your fishes life if nitrite is up. If nitrite is above say 0.5, waterchange. Unless nitrite gets above about 1, I'd avoid waterchanges of more than about 50%. If nitrite is less arround 0.5-1 stick to 25%. Less than 0.5, leave it be...

Marine Aquarium Salt will reduce nitrite's toxidity, and may be worth considering here. Dose to 5ppm (or 1tbs per gal) while cycling, but discontinue used once cycled. For long-term use, salt can be dangerous, but for short-term use it is OK in some cases....

Try to avoid large routien waterchanges with ammonia in the replacement water. Aim for say two 20%'s a week instead of the weekly 30% for example to avoid raising ammonia too much. A cycled filter will remove the added ammonia with-in the hour without problems

HTH
Rabbut

 

[lana]

ok so test a couple times after 70% water change this morning and ammonia is down it is not yellow but it is not at the 0.25 eigher so i think i am ok for now, i also added more plants today read some where that would help.....

 

[lana]

ok so did another wate change this moring , 50 to 60%
1st readings
ammonia 0.50
nitrite 0
nitrate is the weird one it is a yellowish orange so not sure

ph holding at 7.2

have not done secong test yet waiting 1 hour

have not lost anymore fish so fish loss still at 2

post again once i retest

 

[waterdrop]

Iana,

I think it would be good if you took several readings of the tap water ammonia over some days. Re-read your test instructions and make absolutely sure that you feel you are testing correctly. If you continue to see a level of 1.0ppm then I agree that it'd be good to contact your water company for testing and also hopefully in that case we can find some of the other member who have had some experience with what kind of practical measures a fishkeeper can take for this.

With 0.25 or even 0.50, we usually recommend smaller, more frequent water changes rather than larger ones, but with ammonia 1.0 I do not have experience, to be honest and I'd imagine more drastic measures might have to be considered.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes i'd say i'd also surprised that you have tap water that high, we do come across plenty of people with 0.25 or 0.5 but not come across 0.1 so far.

as WD said, take repeated tests to ensure accuracy, also take a sample to the lfs for testing in case the test kit is in accurate, after that if you're still fairly sure the level is that high then contact the water board.

normally when people have ammonia in the tap water we just say the tap water levels are the best you can hope for so you do as many water changes as you need to to keep levels as per the tap water, however i doubt if any fish will get through a cycle with 1.0ppm of ammonia as the minimum levels.

i rarely suggest this but in your case i will, consider getting RO water from the pet shop and re-mineralising it and using that for your water changes while cycling.

it's not something you'll have to do long term, as a long term thing you'll just do smaller but more frequent water changes, you'd basically just do a small 10% change every couple of days and then while you'd be adding ammonia it would only be a small amount and the filter will soak it up in an hour or so, larger changes could build up more ammonia than the filter can process quickly.

If you find a lfs specialising in discus they will be able to sell you RO water and the powder to remineralise it. You can buy a few big drums of it then use it for your water changes every day until the cycle is finished.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, very good observation MW, I hadn't though of that. The use of RO water wouldn't have to be forever, just basically during cycling. After the filter is cycled it will drop the excess ammonia to zero fairly quickly after a water change. Small and frequent water changes then, for maintenance, will keep the ammonia exposure to the fish to a minimum.

How is the re-mineralization of the RO water accomplished? Are there just bottled minerals available for this that have been found to work well?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah, discus keepers often do it, i've never done it myself so can't recommend specific products but I suspect rabbut will be able to step in here.

you basically get either a powder or a liquid which has all the right buffers and minerals and you have a direction which is something like for every 5 litres of water add 2 ml of product, so you mix it up before the change, then take water out and replace it with the re-mineralized water.

Just to explain in case you're not aware of this lana, RO water is reverse osmosis water, this is water that has been filtered through a reverse osmosis filter. Marine keepers and others keeping sensitive fish such as discus use it, likewise people with very poor water quality from their tap can use it. You can either get an RO unit yourself and this plugs into the tap and will produce RO for you at home, or you can take a water container to a fish shop and buy the water from there. I would recommend for you to just buy it from the shop as you would only need it short term.

What the RO filter does is basically takes everything out of the water leaving you with pure H2O. Now it's not technically pure but it's as close as is reasonably possible in the home environment. It's measured via TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) in the water, if you were to test your tap water you would find a tds of 300 or there abouts, once it's been through the filter it's got a TDS of around 5-20.

It's not actually a good idea to use pure RO on your fish tank, basically fish absorb minerals through the water, if you give them water with no minerals in it won't do any harm short term, but their health will deteriorate long term without the right mineral balance. So you get these products which add all the stuff you need to the water and basically make it as near to perfect for the fish as you can get. They are generally aimed at fish like discus so will give those water params which may not be what you are aiming for, however they will give significantly less risk than 1ppm of ammonia would so as a short term measure I would certainly give it some consideration.