Please Help Me

[sturmae]

Hi i am new to keeping fish and this is all a little overwhelming for me.

I am having 2 main problems that i am hoping someone can please help me with:

1) is that the water looks a little murky and maybe slightly cloudy i have done two lots of around 10L water changes the last two days which hasn't really helped?

2) I brought the API liquid test kit today and have just done my 1st test and i am not sure what i should do next after getting the results.

They are : PH=7.6, Ammonia=between 0 & 0.25, Nitrite=0, Nitrate nearly 20 maybe very slightly higher.

I have detailed below as many details as possible to try and help with my questions,

Thanks very much in advance. Ed.


I purchased the juwel rekord 800 (110L) last weekend and set it up on tuesday as i booked the day off work to do it .

I finally got it all set up and running around 11pm!

When i set my tank up i sponged the inside of the tank first with warm water (only), then i rinsed the gravel under the shower until the water was clear as instructed, i then added my water along with a fake plant, blubbling divers head, a little ornament and a piece of bog wood.

I used Nutrafin Aqua+ when adding my water (this was mixed up in a bucket prior to entering the tank)

Once i had the tank full i switched on the filter and heater.

I then added the stated dose of Nutrafin Cycle and also added this for the next two days as reccomended on the bottle and one lot of Nutrafin Waste control.

Yesterday i went to my local aquatics shop and brought 7 live plants and planted, i also added the stated dose of seachem flourish excel as recommended to help them start.

I removed the bog wood this morning as the tanning was starting to get really bad and also some green string like algae was starting to appear on it.

My heater is now set to 22c as the water temp is still reading 26c with the heater on 22c. The twin lights are on for 10hrs between 12 and 10pm.

The air pump is on 24/7 at the moment for the feature, is that ok to have this running all the time with live plants and so on, are there any drawbacks to it??

Thanks again, just so much to try and learn and don't want to risk harming any fish if the tanks not ready yet.

 

[Zak2401]

Sounds good so far to me, you havnt finished cycling yet, obviously. So i would add fish for a few more weeks, keep testing the water, everything is fine, exept the Nitrate seems a little high, but nothing to worry about just yet. Do you know if you've already had your ammonia/Nitrite spike yet?

And, the Pump + Plant problem, i actually dont know either so that will be interessting.

And your bacteria booster, to help cycle seems as if its working, unless you are just experiencing a late spike.

My 'Tetra Safe Start' doesnt seem to have done much yet. I'm on day 6 and my ammonia is pretty high already.

Anyway, keep it up and waterchange between 10-20% once a week i'd say. I'm not too used to cycles you see, so dont quote me on this. My cycle has been done with fish. i know its a bad idea

Hope i helped in some way, shape or form


Zak

 

[kris2112]

hi there i am also pretty new to the hobby but will help u with what i know sure someone will give bit more advice.

the cloudiness will be coming from 2 things
firslty the chemical exchange that is taking place between the ammonia and nitrite this can last for a few weeks i think
and also the bog wood some people recommend soaking it in hot water for a few days maybe even weeks before putting it in ur tank.
i have added bog wood to my tank which i have it is a 250l been up for about a month now i also added to bristlenose plecs which are already hard at work cleaning my tank of algea im very impressed with there work rate as for the live plants i have know idea i havent ventured into them yet but im sure someone else will be able to help u with that

one more thing the nitrate reading can be false at early stages of cycling (i have been told anyway) i can sometimes be small traces of nitrite being picked up by ur test
i also have a api liquid test kit and had the same problem as u at first.

 

[sturmae]

Hi thanks for getting back so quickly,

Do you know if you've already had your ammonia/Nitrite spike yet?

Ive seen this mentioned on other post buts if i'm honest without sounding to silly i don't actually know what it is and what to look for??

I was only able to start testing the water today when i got the kit.

Ed

 

[kris2112]

like i said i had the same problems as u but 4 weeks ago and my tanks is not that much bigger than urs so hopefully things should sort themselves out soon enough as mine did. i would just test every day or 2 and if ur ammonia goes above 2.0 do a decent water change maybe 30% (more if needed) and it should drop.
u shouldnt get any nitrate reading or atleast not accurate ones till the nitrite has spiked and started to decrease.
as for the bog wood it is up to u but i would leave it in and let ur fillter take care of it either that or put it in a bucket with boiling water and keep changing the water regularly to clean it up for a few days but i have believe that the bogwood is good for ur water and fish as it softens the water so bare that in mind its up 2 urself anyway.
what fish do u have in the tank at the moment?

ur p.h is quite high also which make the ammonia more toxic so u might want to keep the ammonia levels close to 0.25 as possible
my ph has stayed at 7 since the start and i havent lost any fish so i believe it gives me a little more room for ammonia to rise

 

[sturmae]

Thanks Kris,

Yeah i took the bog wood out and changed the white filter pad which was stained to try and get colour out of the water which hopefully will filter out over time after water changes. Its being soaked at the moment and i will probably leave it a couple of weeks to be on the safe side.

Do i need to do anything else at the minute or do i just keep doing the tests and sit tight for a little longer?

I haven't put any fish in yet as wasn't sure if it was wise at this stage.

 

[kris2112]

i would leave ur filter well alone for atleast 2 month to let it get established as good bacteria is growing there and any disturbance will slow down ur cycle

u say u have no fish in at the moment.
have u been adding some kind of ammonia as this is neede to start the cycle

 

[sturmae]

No all that i have used so far is the Nutrafin Cycle which i was told would be all i needed and that would introduce the bacteria needed and speed all the process up.

 

[greenscooby]

Hi Sturmae,


Do you have any fish in your tank yet?

Mark.

 

[kris2112]

i have read about the chemicals u are using and from what i agther they can be a waste of time because they need ammonia water and oxygen to live and multiply which in a bottle is very hard to sustain if u understand what i am saying.
and also the chemical (bacteria) helps turn the ammonia which u dont currently have a source of turn into nitrite faster (that is if the bacteria is not dead in the bottle)

i added 4 glowlight danios to my tank about 5 days after setting it up and thankfully they are all still alive i have added a few more since then but this is not really advisable i have been keeping a very close eye on it and thankfully my tank is near cycle end without any loses

 

[greenscooby]

Just re read the posts,

If you don't have any fish as of yet then DON'T put any in, your tank is nowhere near cycled, your gonna have to do a fishless cycle.

Check out the pinned threads in the begginers section about fishless cycling.
Mark.

 

[sturmae]

hi Greenscooby.

No i don't have any fish in the tank at the moment as 1) i wasn't sure what was good to start with, 2) i was a little worried about my PH reading being 7.6 and 3) i was told i needed to wait until the cycle had completed. is that all true or do i need to add some fish??

Thanks Ed.

 

[greenscooby]

Your Ph isn't anything to worry about yet, it's your ammonia and nitrITES you need to worry about, like i mentioned earlier check out the fishless cycle thread, read it through a couple of times and don't skip bits!!!

This will put you in a good posistion to get your tank up and running.

Mark.

 

[kris2112]

u can do a fishless cycle or a fish in cycle most people do a fish in but i think the right and patiant way would be to do a fishless cycle by adding ammonia urself which u can by from a supermarket.
this is instead of using fish to produce the ammonia required for the cycle from their waste

 

[greenscooby]

The only reason people do a fish in cycle is because they're not infomed by their LFS that a fishless cycle is a better route to go down.

When you do a fish-in cycle you expose your fish to high levels of ammonia and nitrITES even if they survive this they are prone to shortened lives due to being poisened.

As Kris2112 says the right and patient way is to do a fishless cycle.

Mark.