New Aquarium Owner - Advice Appreciated

[Ryan_W]

On that testing day, I did the WC at 9am and the readings were took at 10pm...

Took some more last night:

pH: 7.2
NH3: Between 0 and 0.25ppm
NO2: Between 0 and 0.25ppm
NO3: 5ppm


My black platy gave birth to about 10-15 fry last night too. They all seemed full of life this morning, so cute!

 

[waterdrop]

Glad you are enjoying the fry. Keep up the water changes. Fry look so small that one assumes they must not be much of a bioload (ie. ammonia producing) factor but in fact fry are very energetic and growing cells at a furious rate, so they are deceptive in the amount of substance processing that they do. WD

 

[Lolly123]

Are you oxygenating your tank at night? I see you have a few plants in there, not many, but they will still be using up oxygen at night. Although a lot of people say that you do not need to run an airstone at night, for assurance I like to and its certainly not doing any harm, as my tank is quite heavily planted.

 

[Ryan_W]

No I'm not... Should I invest in one and if so, which one should I go for?...

 

[OldMan47]

A good water movement to keep the water fully oxygenated is important at all times of day Ryan. Although you can get small traces of oxygen into the water from plants, if the oxygen were not already at saturation levels, the oxygen bubbles from plants would not form and rise to the water's surface. Instead the oxygen being produced would be directly absorbed.

 

[Ryan_W]

I bought a Hagen Elite kit yesterday. It was £40 down to £20 in my LFS. It came with the 802 pump, 6" air stone, 3" air pebble, valves and pipe. Bubbling away nicely in my tank.

I also purchased some plant fertiliser to help with their growth since they've been looking a bit off lately...

I had a Nitrite/NO2 spike up to 5ppm yesterday in my second tank which is cycling... I did a water change and it's back down to:

pH: 8
NH3: 0.25
NO2: 0.25
NO3: 5

What would the spike have indicated, I'm entering the second phase of the cycle?

My first tank is settling down now. pH is lower than the second tank though, sticks around 7.6 opposed to 8... Fish are still healthy and the fry are growing quickly!

 

[Harlequins]

Even with 0.25ppm reading,this is still harmful too fish and needs to be nearer zero,any amount of ammonia & nitrite will shortened the fish's life.

In your second tank with the 5ppm nitrite spike..i assume you are doing a fishless cycle? - if so you don't need to do waterchanges,and should just let the nitrite spike ride itself out,has you have no fish in there..

 

[Ryan_W]

'Tank 1', my Platy tank was reading between 0.25ppm and 0.5ppm this morning, so I did an emergency 90% WC (in a record 15 mins including mopping up!)... Fish are all healthy and playing around. This has been running for 2 weeks now and I'm still cracking along with the WCs... It's a lot of effort, the GF is pi$$ed at me for spending more time with the fish than her, but I know it'll be worth it in the end!

'Tank 2' is my fishless cycle tank, it's coming along nicely but I did do 33% WC yesterday when I saw the NO2 spike.

I'm thinking of looking around for some mature media to help bump along my cycle... Anyone close to Cambridge or Stamford?!

Cheers all,

Ryan

 

[Harlequins]

Has i mentioned,don't worry about doing a waterchange on a fishless cycle,it doesn't need it.

 

[Ryan_W]

Had a swap around with the tank today. Went for half and half sand and gravel. Made a little slate cave for my future fishes too:

Before:

After:

Not very good pics, but it looks much better in real life.

I'm trying to source some grass to plant in the sand, I'll also get a few more plants to do around the tank. Will hopefully finish it off nicely...

What grass should I go for? Don't want one that will get too long, maybe 2" max, don't mind if it spreads outwards though.

Thanks,

Ryan