New Guy - Kind Of !

[johnnyjohnson]

you are right waterdrop. it is a 120 gallon tank so it is not taking the water out as much as putting it back in, 50 % is my limit, lol. I did a 50% last night and checked a hour later and ammonia was down to .25 everything else was at 0,. The conditioner i used said it removed nitrates , nitrites, ammonia as well as chlorine and chlorimine so this may have contributed to the lower reads. I plan on doing water changes daily of at least 50% for the next few weeks. All the fish seem to be doing well and handling the water changes like little champs, they actually come up to wherever i am pouring the water in and hang out in the bubbles it makes. I am having a hard time not feeding the little guys though, they all look so hungry all the time. i am feeding very little and removing what they dont eat after just a few minutes. hope this wont hinder me too much.

 

[waterdrop]

The conditioners just "detoxify" these things (ammonia) rather than remove them. They will still show up in the same quantity on the tests. The tests measure both ammonia and ammonium (the detoxified state) as the same thing. I believe seachem makes a test that differentiates, although this shouldn't be needed by you.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[johnnyjohnson]

readings today as follows;

am - 0.25
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 0
ph - 7.2
should i do anything about the p.h?


i am changing 50% water once a day. trying to find a established filter i can borrow to speed this up a bit.

thanks to all that have helped.

 

[waterdrop]

Your pH is great, why do you ask?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[johnnyjohnson]

waterdrop - i was just curious if a higher ph would help in my cycle.

 

[waterdrop]

For a pH between perhaps 6.7 and 9.0 I probably wouldn't think about altering it and anything between 7.0 and 8.5 would make me feel even more like not touching it. Sometimes I think about it being a difficult thing to describe here in the beginners section that 8.0 to 8.4 is optimal for fastest growth, but then with the next breath to say though that you probably shouldn't try to alter to that optimal range unless things acually stall out and stall out repeatedly.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[johnnyjohnson]

just had a thought, and still trying to wrap my mind around filters and filter media so forgive me if this is a stupid question. since i am changing my water everyday anyway and i have multiple buckets of tank water , should i take my filters out and rinse them off in the buckets everyday or would this be dumb? I am sure this isnt enough info so whatever i may need to add please ask.

 

[waterdrop]

No, during fish-in cycling you never want to clean out your filter unless it completely clogs up and loses flow and even in that case you'd want to be as gentle as possible.

The small number of bacteria and their fragile "in-process" biofilms can get washed away too much when the sponges are squeezed or the trays are dunked in the tank water. Better to just leave things be.

Your first real filter cleaning will come 2 weeks or a month after you've finished your "qualifying week" and proven that your bacterial colonies are robust.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[johnnyjohnson]

very good. thanks