Setting up a new 55 gallon tank

[Goosegrl2019]

if Your paranoid and have the heating capacity you could crank the tank up to 90..I think I’ve read somewhere that ich stops reproducing at 86 and starts to die at 90? But without a host once the ich tomites or whatever they’re called pop into the free parasites they don’t live for long with no fish to eat on anyway, however I think some strains of ich can incubate As eggs in substrate for a LONG time..someone would have to confirm that. But if you’ve taken an infected tank. And dumped all old substrate and cleaned/boiled equipment and rinsed and cleaned walls of tank either with manual scrubbing and or bleach or vinegar and started new then I’d say you’re likely good. The cloud is a bacteria bloom, just a sudden spike of bacteria colonies in the water column. should be cleared up in a few days.

That's exactly what I did lol I hope it's dead. The water did clear up today it looks really clear. I'm still dropping flaked food in & my ammonia is .5 nitrate 0 & nitrite 0 & my ph is 8.4

 

[Essjay]

The only way you can lower the hardness is by mixing your tap water with pure water such as distilled or reverse osmosis water. You would mix the two at every water change before adding to the tank, and you would need to have dome distilled or RO water on hand at all times in case you ever needed to do a water change.
The easier and cheaper alternative is to keep only fish that like hard water.

Fishless cycling usually uses 3 ppm ammonia, but that's just so that by the end of the cycle there will be enough bacteria to support a tankful of fish. With fish food, you don't know exactly how much ammonia is being produced as the early bacteria will remove some as soon as the food breaks down. With this way of cycling it is better to buy only a few fish after the cycle finishes, and add more fish a few at a time over the next few months and check for ammonia and nitrite every day after each addition till you are sure they are staying at zero before getting the next batch of fish.

 

[Goosegrl2019]

The only way you can lower the hardness is by mixing your tap water with pure water such as distilled or reverse osmosis water. You would mix the two at every water change before adding to the tank, and you would need to have dome distilled or RO water on hand at all times in case you ever needed to do a water change.
The easier and cheaper alternative is to keep only fish that like hard water.

Fishless cycling usually uses 3 ppm ammonia, but that's just so that by the end of the cycle there will be enough bacteria to support a tankful of fish. With fish food, you don't know exactly how much ammonia is being produced as the early bacteria will remove some as soon as the food breaks down. With this way of cycling it is better to buy only a few fish after the cycle finishes, and add more fish a few at a time over the next few months and check for ammonia and nitrite every day after each addition till you are sure they are staying at zero before getting the next batch of fish.

Very informative, thanks. I wondered why I saw ppl using distilled water, u had no idea why

 

[Goosegrl2019]

Day 5 on my fishless cycle w daily fish food, I caved & bought api quick start...it was my only choice of products next to the tetra version, so I picked the api...I added the correct dose & am waiting to c what happens. The shrimp sounded awesome & natural but i passed due to the smell also tank light off & here r my readings 4 hours after @80° : ammonia- .5
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Hardness 300
Chlorine 0
Alkalinity 180
Ph 7.8

 

[Mstansbury0704]

Question for essjay, I always thought hardness and ph weren’t very critical as long as they didn’t shift suddenly kind of like temperatures? Is that right or wrong for most tropical fish?? Obviously letting them swim in acid or bleach is not good but a range of something like 7-8 ph is acceptable? And if you have hard water can you use some peat as substrate to soften it? how long is it useful before it needs replaced?? I too have Slightly hard water and ph of upper 7s

 

[Essjay]

pH should be stable, but the level of hardness, or GH, is more important than pH. We should aim to keep our fish in water with similar hardness as the river or lake where the species originated. This means either choosing fish that come from similar hardness to our tap water, or changing the tap water to suit the hardness needed by a species we want to keep.
The pH can be slightly outside that of the water the fish originated in, as long as hardness is within their range.
Websites such as Seriously Fish give the hardness range that a species should be kept in, with the middle of that range being better that the bottom or top end.

Using peat doesn't affect hardness, though it can lower the pH provided KH is not too high. The only way to reduce hardness is by mixing tap water with pure water such as reverse osmosis or distilled water.


Hardness is the measure of mainly calcium, some magnesium and trace amounts of other metals. Peat will not remove these from the water.
KH is the measure of the amount of buffer in the water, mainly carbonates. KH buffers the water and stops pH changing. When the KH is low, it is easy to alter pH and here peat can be used to lower pH. Where KH is high, it is much harder to change pH, so peat will have little effect.


Words like slightly hard can be misleading. We have had members who said their water company used the term hard when in fish keeping terms, it was borderline at the top end of soft. If you could find a number for your hardness (look on your water provider's website) we would have a better idea.

 

[Mstansbury0704]

Dang I thought I read peat will help lower hardness and ph. I’ll have to get a tester kit. I used to have strips that tested ph and hardness but I no longer have any.