Teething Issues With My New Tank

[JoshuaA]

That is exactly the size water change that I was contemplating Joshua. Don't forget the dechlorinator and definitely use enough ammonia to bring the concentrations back up.

Well I did that today as well as introduce some mature filter floss kindly donated by Assaye.

I took the water level down to the gravel so it was pretty much at 99% water change. Kept the filter running in a brand new bucket with the old tank water in so not to contaminate. Placed the mature media between the filter foam and Poly/Carbon inserts.

Topped the tank up and treated it with prime then placed the filter back in and re dosed the ammonia. Left it for an hour and tested it. The results were 4ppm Ammonia... Surprisingly 0.5 Nitrite an undetectable level of Nitrate and a pH of 8.4. I was somewhat shocked though to notice Nitrite still present in the water... Just think of the levels of concentration that must of been in the water.

Anyway my girlfriend messaged me before to say she did another test this evening at the results were

Ammonia 2ppm, Nitrite 5ppm (already), Nitrate 160ppm and pH was at 7.4 again. (Less than 12 hours since we did the water change)

Lets hope this mature media has contributed to the N-bac population. Also I was surprised to find the glass thermometer was coated in a biofilm. They really do adhere to anything!

 

[waterdrop]

The rapid re-occurance of nitrite and nitrate should be a good indicator that there are significant populations of both types of bacteria in your filter. The fact that nitrite has spiked on up probably indicates that the N-Bac population will still need to grow quite a bit before the biofilter achieves balance. Sounds like you did a good job making the changes.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JoshuaA]

Good news so far, told my girlfriend to do another water change of 50% today as the pH dropped dramatically again.

Surprisingly though the Ammonia and Nitrite were 0.25 each. I told her not to do anything for a few hours and then test it 3/4 hours later. She confirmed both Ammonia and Nitrite tests do not change colour at all. Woot... now I know Nitrite Bacs actually exist in the filter time to get to have bacteria sex!

Edit:

Ah well that didn't last long, I just found out after my girlfriend asked how much she needed to add in terms of ammonia and then she said
"Up to this fill level again then yeh?" well... that fill level would equal 8ppm *sigh* she now doesn't know how long she has been doing it...

The tank has been dosed 9 times in total intentionally at 3.16ml. I had done the first 5 or so doses and I told her how to do them, although what I've found out informs me she's been adding nearly double the amount of Ammonia. In between the times I had been dosing the Ammonia the tank was reducing that easily in 12 hours nearly to 0ppm each time. However on the last 4 she has taken over the dosing as I haven't been to her house for some time and this would account for the fact that there wasn't much consistency in the times to process the Ammonia.

If we assume the bacteria (under 8ppm what we want bac) was colonized in sufficient numbers before she started adding overly sized doses of Ammonia, could it be that the Ammonia reducing bacteria that we want has reduced the concentration of ammonia sufficiently to prevent the un wanted bacteria forming? I feel like I've been slapped across the face with a freight train... and I know this may offend some but really some women shouldn't be trusted.

 

[waterdrop]

Well, everyone's level of detail for a given area varies from everyone else's. No big deal, I wouldn't worry about it too much. My hunch would be that overdosing at later stages of a fishless cycle would be less likely to cause a problem than at earlier stages. Your challange now is just to focus on a way to get your dosing level down to 5ppm and to rack up some log entries at that more correct level and see where things stand. If you're lucky you may be pleasantly surprised that no real harm was done.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JoshuaA]

Well there certainly is a big colony of A-Bacs when the proper amount is added it is processed unbelievably fast, I assume the "qualifying week" at the correct dosage will show us whether the A-Bacs will stay around?

I have my log fully updated every 12 hours lol I will post it after the cycle has finished for anyone who wants to examine. I've kept track of the times of water changes/re doses etc.

 

[OldMan47]

If you have been seeing a drop from over 8 ppm to near zero in less than 24 hours, chances are that the bacteria in your tank are the right ones for low ammonia concentrations. What that means to me is that if you back away and only use the right concentration of ammonia, things should recover very quickly. All is not lost in your situation. If you had started with 8 ppm doses and continued with only those doses, things would indeed be a bit grim.

 

[JoshuaA]

If you have been seeing a drop from over 8 ppm to near zero in less than 24 hours, chances are that the bacteria in your tank are the right ones for low ammonia concentrations. What that means to me is that if you back away and only use the right concentration of ammonia, things should recover very quickly. All is not lost in your situation. If you had started with 8 ppm doses and continued with only those doses, things would indeed be a bit grim.

Thanks for the support, I asked my girlfriend to show me how much she was putting in today, and fortunately when I ran to the laptop it came out at around 6/7ppm on the calculator. It appears she only did it for 2/3 doses where as I had dosed it every other time previously and I guess that was the key that the original bacteria colony was started using the correct dosage. Getting double zeros already and its only day 26ish now, Started on the 1st so I think its going quite well!

Just wanting to know what I can do to prevent a pH crash when fish are in the tank, crush coral substrate/or in filter? I heard just placing sea shells across the bottom of your tank can be good also but very slow. I should have a true read out on my water sometime tomorrow *fingers crossed* and well I expect it to be softer than a babies bottom.

I completely want to avoid chemicals, I also don't think I can trust my girlfriend with such responsibilities either lol, not after this Ammonia thing anyway! haha

 

[OldMan47]

You might try leaving some tap water to sit out for 24 hours and then testing the pH. That will tell us where the pH really is starting and may cast a different light on how fast the pH drops in the tank.

 

[JoshuaA]

You might try leaving some tap water to sit out for 24 hours and then testing the pH. That will tell us where the pH really is starting and may cast a different light on how fast the pH drops in the tank.

Will do

According to the data supplied by the water supplier in my area and her area. The minimum recorded pH value of water in the area is 6.59 (eek) up to a Max reading of 7.61 with an Average 7.31 (sounds like what ours reads out)

Apparently there is also an average 7.8 Nitrate in our water in the area however that doesn't show in our area.

Am I right in assuming the dissolved carbon dioxide can severely alter a pH read out if done too soon?

Also with air bubbles for "Oxygenation", I hear a lot of people saying the bubbles aren't in the water long enough to transfer the Oxygen as they are going from the bottom to top within a good second or two. I was watching the air bubble from the venturi valve on our Fluval U2. I noticed the bubbles weren't actually flowing upwards and there were a lot more than I imagined there were millions of little tiny bubbles that were flowing across the tank then sinking I counted one was in the water for 39 seconds before it hit the surface!

 

[JoshuaA]

You might try leaving some tap water to sit out for 24 hours and then testing the pH. That will tell us where the pH really is starting and may cast a different light on how fast the pH drops in the tank.

We've just tested the bucket of tap water we left out over night. (We didn't treat the tank water with a conditioner so I don't know if this will affect pH)

pH - 7.6+
High Range pH - ~7.8

Current tank water stats

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0 (Dodgey test results me thinks) This is just after it has processed 5ppm of Ammonia)
pH - 7.2

Interesting results I think, I once again haven't tested the hardness So I can't give you the facts on that apart from the data sheet from my water supplier. If I nag my friend enough and bother to pick it up from his sometime soon when he's in I will do.

I've got some new fish tank only Bi-Carb ( no cakes being made from this stuff! ) ready however we've just been doing water changes to raise the pH back up.

 

[OldMan47]

The difference between a brand new water change giving you a pH of 8.4 and some tap water that is untreated but allowed to degas being only 7.8 tells me there is some gas in the water that is raising its pH. That would not be CO2 but a total lack of any CO2 in the tap water would mean it would pick up some atmospheric CO2 and have the pH drop. Usually we see it go the other way as CO2 comes out of solution in the water when the pressure is removed, just like soda pop after you open the bottle.
What it does mean to me is that you very likely have quite soft water that is easily affected by environmental conditions. I would definitely keep a close eye on the water for the first few weeks you have the tank running just so that you do not have any undetected changes in water chemistry. Even a routine 30% weekly water change may turn out to be enough to control your chemistry in a desired range but we won't know until you try it.

 

[JoshuaA]

The difference between a brand new water change giving you a pH of 8.4 and some tap water that is untreated but allowed to degas being only 7.8 tells me there is some gas in the water that is raising its pH. That would not be CO2 but a total lack of any CO2 in the tap water would mean it would pick up some atmospheric CO2 and have the pH drop. Usually we see it go the other way as CO2 comes out of solution in the water when the pressure is removed, just like soda pop after you open the bottle.
What it does mean to me is that you very likely have quite soft water that is easily affected by environmental conditions. I would definitely keep a close eye on the water for the first few weeks you have the tank running just so that you do not have any undetected changes in water chemistry. Even a routine 30% weekly water change may turn out to be enough to control your chemistry in a desired range but we won't know until you try it.

Well we have left out a bucket since you said to and well it has tested out the tap and throughout the week 7.8/6 consistently. Our tank water is only as high as 8.4 when Ammonia is added it swings to that really fast and drops low to 6.6 just as fast once its processed. Following some advice given to optimise the bacteria's most likely conditions we added 3/4tblsp of Bi-Car the pH has stayed 8 consistently ever since.

 

[OldMan47]

Ammonia itself will move the pH of very poorly buffered water. In an industrial setting like the place that I work, ammonia is sometimes used to control pH. I have seen it move the pH of very pure water, a kind you will never see in the hobby, from around 7.0 pH to around 9 pH. We seldom see that kind of response in our tanks because our water is not pure enough to be that easily affected. Even in the situation that I was talking about, we use metering pumps to add traces of about 2% ammonium hydroxide, much less than the 9.5% in the cleaning agent bottle, to achieve the pH we want. We do start with 35% ammonium hydroxide but mix it with pure water in the mixing tank before pumping it into the system to make it easier to control our desired final pH.