I have no idea what my nitrites are after 12 hours..below 5 I think.
Hehe ours has started doing that now! It was getting double zeros and then all of a sudden one day it decides to be at 2-5ppm of Nitrite at the 12 hour mark yet at the ammonia re dose time the Nitrite is all gone! I don't get what has happened haha.
I went to a fish shop today though and had an argument with the woman who owned the store! I informed her I was looking at the available fish to include on our stocking list. She then suggested me taking them so I said can't I'm cycling. I explained what I was doing and half way through she was like NO! Fish should be in water with NO AMMONIA AND NO NITRITE. I obviously tried to inform her that it didn't have any fish in and we were doing it without fish and introducing ammonia artificially. She then claimed it to be an Old time method which is obsolete and the best and current method is with fish and using tetra safe start. This then went onto us arguing about Tetra Safe Start claiming that if it doesn't work the person hasn't done it properly! I asked how can 75-80% of people not do it properly? (Looking at polls on another fish site). She ranted on about her 70 years combined fish experience (obviously not good, there were a few dead'uns who clearly had been there for some time). I mentioned its difficult to maintain a stable pH and requires a lot of water changes as the water is so soft and hten she moaned about how my pH was far too high when I add the Ammonia and that I should have it below 7 and it will create less harmful Ammonium. I tried to reiterate to her that the tank had NO fish and the bacteria growth is best at a higher pH of around 8.
Both myself and my girlfriend took a harsh one to the heart when she accused us of multiple things when it came down to our very amateur start following advice from another mainstream store. She said we were doing it wrong and that the Ammonia killed the first lot of fish we had (before our cycle). I said they also had whitespot that was clearly introduced from the fish we bought. She got rather worked up about that and said its naturally occurring in the water and on the fish and all fish have it. She then used some silly analogy of "Its like us, if we get ill we get a cold" I was flabbergasted she could come up with such a ludicrous and nonsense filled analogy lol. I returned with no... Its more like "You begin to feel ill, start pooping brown gravy and you find out you have intestinal parasites introduced from an outside source". I asked what is the point of white spot treatment and why don't you do it whenever you receive fish if all fish have it... She didn't want to talk about it.
Anyway I mentioned my tank size etc and asked about Panda Corys and she went on to say she didn't have any but might get some in the future however she started suggesting other corys and then she pointed at one and said this would be nice for you. The fish she was pointing at would reach 6/7inches and she suggested 4 or more of them. I was somewhat confused....
Unfortunately that fish store actually had a nice selection and wide variety of fish, however I feel like I won't be going back there as the woman was very arrogant and insulted our methods of cycling! She contradicted herself many times and obviously covered her back with certain topics including white spot and TSS.
So Simon! Where did you find these Bolivians? I'm willing to travel
All I can find around me on the Wirral is Gold Rams, they're just not as cool!
Edit:
The woman in the shop didn't seem to be able to contemplate that once you got 0.0 on a fish in cycle introducing more fish would increase the bioload over what the colony can support and then you would be subjecting the fish to Ammonia and Nitrite. She strongly disagreed and said its only small the fish are fine and you aren't getting anywhere with your fishless cycle.
I asked if I were to be adding from day 1 the amount of Ammonia I can expect the fish to create daily. Therefore the Bacteria colonies will be at a population sufficient to cope with an almost full tank load of fish immediately. If anything it is much better to do it this way as no fish have even swam in ammonia let alone heard of it! That woman... knows how to cheese me off.
crazy lady
