When to start water changes?

[sandersj89]

Tank has now been set up since 6th of December, initially stocked with a pair of platties and 4 danios added as a unexpected Christmas present Christmas Eve!!!

I have not left a tank so long with out a water change for years and it is making me twitchy! All readings are good with Nitrite at or near zero, Hagen test kit does not allow a reading for zero, and ammonia is at zero. Ammonia at zero since 26th December, Nitrite unchanged since the 21st of December. Nitrate at 10mg/l the past few days and pH moved from original reading of 7.5 at the start of December to 6.5 now.

All fish are fine and happy, feeding well and very active. Planted tank with approx. 10 imp gallons of water, under gravel filter driven by two power heads.

As I have never recorded an ammonia or nitrate reading of over 0.2mg/l since the set up of the tank I am unsure if the cycle is finished or not. I was expecting to see higher readings to be honest. I have re used plants, bog wood and gravel from a cold water set up I broke up.

My worry is if I start water changes too early I may delay the cycle if it has not indeed finished and if I start them too late the fish will become stressed. The regime I have followed in the past with my old gold fish tank was 25% changes bi monthy.

What does the board think or am I just worrying too much?

Thanks

Jerry

 

[William]

Sounds perfect,

re, ph, both 7.5 and 6.5 are fine phs you'll find the water will level out at around 6.5 probably you can try and raise it but I would only ever use natural buffers such as, cuttlefish/crushed coral, chemicals only work until you do a water change!

Keep doing the tests for another week every other day as I doubt they are going to change. It appears the tank has cycled with very low spikes which is of course great for you! I take it you found while testing after adding the 2 platies (6th dec) that the cycle went on its course albeit with low readings?

Most people do a water change after finishing cycling but with nitrate levels of just 10mg/l I don't think its neccessary for you just yet.

Keep up the good work and sorry it took 2 days for reply only just saw this post!

 

[sandersj89]

Thanks for the input, things have moved on a little since my post. I took a
sample of tank water to a LFS to corroborate my readings and all was fine
until they got to pH and KH. I had never tested KH in the past. pH had
dropped below 5.5 which was a bit scary and KH was 1. It seems my water has
little or no buffering capacity.

I went straight home and performed a 25% water change that brought the pH
back up to about 7 and then added some KH buffer which has raised the KH to
about 3.

I have continued to test each day for the full spectrum, pH, Nitrate,
Nitrite, ammonia and KH since. pH has stayed at 7 for 4 days and the Nitrate
and ammonia are at or very near zero. Nitrate is 10 after being 20 pre water
change.

However my KH drops back to 1 or 2 over night and I am dosing with KH buffer
from Sera each day. Do I have to keep doing this as it could get
expensive Is there any other way to maintain KH readings at a reasonable
level, and thus protect my pH levels?

Thanks

Jeremy

 

[wetwetwet]

Hi Jeremy,

I think you may have mentioned in another thread but are you using RO water - hence the buffering capacity of your water?

 

[sandersj89]

I think you may have mentioned in another thread but are you using RO water - hence the buffering capacity of your water?

No, using plain old sussex tap water. Maybe not as good as I used to think it was!

Jerry