Substrate

Hardness (GH) and KH are not the same thing. Most water companies, if they give it at all (not many do), call KH alkalinity.

GH is a measure of the amount of calcium and magnesium in the water. This is what fish profiles mean when they say a fish needs hard or soft water. Fish have evolved to cope with a certain level and many will not thrive if kept in water of the 'wrong' hardness.
KH is a measure of carbonate and bicarbonate in the water. Fish keepers like to know it as it is a measure of the amount of buffer in the water; that means how stable the pH is likely to be. With a low KH it is very easy to alter the pH, but with a high KH is it very hard to alter it.

As Steve says, getting the shop to test the KH of your tap water is the best way to start. The critical value is 4 degrees or 70ppm, whichever unit they use. If it is lower than this, get a KH tester and check your pH every time you do the other tests. Up to 6 or 7, don't bother with a tester but check the pH frequently. If it's over 10, you won't have any problems.
But if it is less than 3, you need to take action, I'll tell you what if you find it is that low.

There are 2 concerns with low KH. This is a measure of the amount of carbonate and bicarbonate in the water. The filter bacteria need some in the water to grow, and they use it up as they do so. And both nitrite and nitrate, made by the cycle, are acidic and will react with carbonates, reducing the amount in the water. Once the amount of carbonate has dropped sufficiently low the acidic chemicals then have nothing to stop them dropping the pH - and the bacteria won't multiply below 6.5. And they won't grow anyway if there isn't enough carbonate.

Some areas of the country have a KH well over 10. Here, there is no danger of a pH crash during cycling. However, if you do have lowish KH, there are ways to boost the carbonate during cycling, either water changes to replenish the carbonate or by adding bicarbonate of soda (from the home baking section of the supermarket), I can tell you the dosage. Bicarb is fine to use during cycling but not when you have fish as all the sodium (the soda part) is as bad for fish as it is for us.

The GH and KH  summary is fine. Yes, a lot of fish will be quite happy in that GH and you have a bigger choice than if you had very hard water.
And yes, I would check the pH every few days just to be safe. I got almost to the end of my cycle before my KH of 3 caused a pH crash.

Yes I am Sue, but moving it on a bit quicker due to (I'm hoping) the action of the mature filter media I added yesterday, starting work on the ammonia already!
Nitrites are nothing like that high yet, but it will bear in mind what you say. They have only just started showing up on the test, 0.25 ppm yesterday, maybe I should test again today.

Ok thanks, yes that does make sense, so the fact I have minimal nitrate doesn't necessarily mean it's not being made, just being moved straight on to nitrate.
Is one of the processes faster than the other?

Thanks. I will wait and see!

Thanks Steve
Like this?

What's crucial, is that you get the

Quote

tags to match up properly.

Quote from: Resa on Today at 01:36:27 PM
There's probably an easier way of taking out the majority of what someone has said that is not relevant to your reply, but so far, I do it by just back-spacing through it. Steve will tell you if there is a better method, he probably won't tell me as he enjoys my angst too much...he's sooo funny
As far as I know, there is no easy way to selectively quote a message. You press the "Insert Quote" link and manually edit the text within the quote markers. - See more at: http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,921.msg9141.html#msg9141

Hm sort of!

Ok, I'm continuing this on newbies, as it's no longer got very much to do with substrate. Although I have re read all your advice, especially I've reminded myself of the advice to use charcoal for first six weeks, I have a filter cartridge that contains that, so I'll put it in after the cycle.
Thanks everyone.

i get some soil from time to time work its way threw at first i had a fair bit come threw so  i came to the conclusion that my sand layer was a little thin so i increased the thickness of my sand and this seems to have cleared 90 percent of my soil wash threw problems , most of my fish are bottom dwellers or really like to feed from the bottom and even when the soil has washed threw it dose not cause them problems.

to be honest no i cant say i have noticed it or certainly not on a large scale , i do get like a algae on the sand in areas were there is not  much current ( plan to solve this problem after my vacation ) .
i do tend to get my sand moved around a lot though with my fish constantly disturbing it and also with my cleaning of the tank.
when i have tended to notice areas that seemed to have had food settle in them or areas that have not been disturbed so much i use a plastic fork as a rake and run it threw the sand ( not deep enough to the soil layer) just to make sure that if there is any gasses building up it can release before it builds up.

i have just tried this on my tank and it did release a few bubbles so i guess mine is the same as yours and it dose not seem to have affected my fish in the last two months they have been in the tank , i guess its been releasing over time in small stages