Yet Another Cycling Question

[Daigle107]

So I've been cycling for 3 days now, and I have been adding what I thought was a sufficient amount to my tank, maybe a tablespoon or so a day, I don't have a dropper so it was impossible to do that, and the price of the test strips was so much that I'm trying to conserve them as much as possible... (definitely wish I bought the liquid test kit...) But anyway, I have not gotten a reading for nitrate yet, however I just received a reading of 1.0 ppm for nitrite, is this ok? Could it have anything to do with the nitraban that I put in my aquarium before I cycled it? And what should I do about it? Is a water change mid-cycle an option?? Thank you all for taking the time to help me out.

Justin

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to TFF. You are doing fine, as far as a test strip kit can tell you Daigle.
I am going to move this thread to a place where cycling questions are almost the mainstay of the section.

 

[Daigle107]

Thanks oldman, I keep making that mistake of putting my topics in this section. I'll be more careful next time.

 

[Daigle107]

Ok, so day 5 of cycling, and I have around 3 ppm Ammonia remaining in my tank from yesterday and I have 1 ppm of nitrite still. Before adding more ammonia should I wait for my nitrite to be lower? Also, what's listed as hardness on my test strips is GH and it's at ppm. Wherever I look at fish though, they measure hardness in KH which is alkalinity on my test strips and that is around 120 ppm. When I look at fish that prefer a certain type of water I'm not sure if I should be looking at alkalinity or at softness...

 

[OldMan47]

Wait for the ammonia to drop to near zero. You don't want the levels too high when cycling a tank. That would end up giving you the wrong dominant strain of A-bacs.

 

[basil1]

Wait for the ammonia to drop to near zero. You don't want the levels too high when cycling a tank. That would end up giving you the wrong dominant strain of A-bacs.

Hi, also new, haven't got tank yet but going to start off with a 64litre, anyway regarding cycling, can I set up tank ready for fish, eg substrate, LFS recomended 2cm of tetra something then 2cm of gravel on top, plants, airstone etc also is pump to be left on as well, thanks

 

[OldMan47]

You need to choose your substrate based on the fish you will be keeping and whether or not you intend to use live plants. If you are doing fish only, with no real plants, get a substrate that is suitable for the particular fish and you are done. If you are mixing fish, some like a sandy bottom and others like a larger material for the substrate. I compromise in many of my tanks with a coarse sand / fine gravel. I'm not really sure what to all the stuff. If you are going to do rapid growing plants with extreme lighting, you will want a somewhat fertile substrate, our plant people in the planted section can help you pick one that will work. If you are going with normal aquarium lighting and are not going to go crazy with plant fertilizers, a simple gravel bed will work or you can go with a natural planted tank, NPT, type approach by putting down a layer of the cheapest planting soil you can find covered by coarse gravel to keep the planting soil from muddying the water. The reason for cheap planting soil is simple, the cheap stuff has no added fertilizers, it is the cheap stuff. This tank was done that last way but has fairly intense lighting and no supplemental CO2 or fertilizers.

This one has a simple gravel substrate, nothing to provide fertility really.

 

[basil1]

You need to choose your substrate based on the fish you will be keeping and whether or not you intend to use live plants. If you are doing fish only, with no real plants, get a substrate that is suitable for the particular fish and you are done. If you are mixing fish, some like a sandy bottom and others like a larger material for the substrate. I compromise in many of my tanks with a coarse sand / fine gravel. I'm not really sure what to all the stuff. If you are going to do rapid growing plants with extreme lighting, you will want a somewhat fertile substrate, our plant people in the planted section can help you pick one that will work. If you are going with normal aquarium lighting and are not going to go crazy with plant fertilizers, a simple gravel bed will work or you can go with a natural planted tank, NPT, type approach by putting down a layer of the cheapest planting soil you can find covered by coarse gravel to keep the planting soil from muddying the water. The reason for cheap planting soil is simple, the cheap stuff has no added fertilizers, it is the cheap stuff. This tank was done that last way but has fairly intense lighting and no supplemental CO2 or fertilizers.

This one has a simple gravel substrate, nothing to provide fertility really.

I just want a selection of community fish, tetras, guppys etc, and some live plants, if I use just normal gravel(I have been told black shows off colour of fish better) without substrate will they still grow, or do I add a liquid fertilizer, if so doesn't it feed algae as well, also when you clean gravel ie suction tube, wont substrate be sucked up as well, sorry to seem so dull but I want to get this right, and this forum is the only way to get the right advice, eg, all 3 of my LFS, told me buy tank add bio from sachet come back in 3 day's add fish. 1 was p@h, im sure if I had mentioned cycling, they would have pointed me to halfords.

 

[OldMan47]

The second picture is one of just plain gravel. No special CO2 or fertilizers added. That tank does have good lights but the total cover of duckweed keeps some of it from reaching the plants that are growing at the bottom of the tank. There are both silk plants and real plants in that picture. The floating plants care not at all about substrate since they never touch it anyway. The real plants are the large one on the left and the one with the wrinkled leaves that has grown up the back and is coming back down the front of the tank alo0ng with the duckweed and floating stem plants. The smooth stuff on the bottom right is silk plants.