Author Topic: Need to buy a new tank - need recommendations (Read 54299 times) 86 replies

Sue · « **Reply #40 on:** May 10, 2019, 02:29:37 PM »

Curious as to how you get 0.5 ppm for nitrate - the colours start at 0 then the next is 5.
Test your tap water for everything as well. For pH, test some freshly run water and some that's been allowed to stand overnight. This will give a base line to compare the tank results to.

Re the nitrate test, did you shake bottle #2 as per the instructions? One of the reagents doesn't actually dissolve so the shaking is necessary to distribute it evenly throughout the liquid. When new, or if it hasn't been used in a while, it can solidify on the bottom of the bottle, so tap it on a worktop several times before shaking to break up any lumps.

The highest the nitrite test can read is 5 ppm. Anything over than still shows as 5 ppm. When nitrite reaches about 15 ppm it inhibits the growth of the bacteria - but we have no idea if that 5 ppm colour is 5 ppm, 7 ppm or 20 ppm.
Dilution tests are not very accurate (we need very accurate measuring equipment), but they still give a ballpark idea. Mix some tank and tap water 50:50 and test nitrite. If the colour is somewhere less that 5 ppm, you are OK. If it still shows the 5 ppm colour, mix tap:tank 75:25. If that still shows the 5 ppm colour, nitrite is above the stall point. A large water change is then need to get nitrite down well below stall point.

Nan · « **Reply #41 on:** May 10, 2019, 09:06:35 PM »

Typo. Should read 5.

Yes, I shook it vigorously and had banged it on the table several times as I'd read that about it.
I also ran the test twice.

Ok, re-tested the nitrite in the tap. None.
Re-tested at 50/50 and honestly can't tell.
Re-tested at 25tank/75tap and I ~think~ it is at 2.0. It seems closest to that, from what I can tell having put it under every different light in the house.

I had been running two small filters in the 5 gallon tank for a month, to collect bacteria to transfer to the big tank. I've moved one of them over.

I'll retest again in the morning when the light is better.

Ran the Ph again and it's at the bottom of the scale. Have some water sitting out overnight and will test it in the morning as well. I assume that a partial water change tomorrow won't actually hurt anything, since the bacteria should be developing in the filter?

Nan · « **Reply #42 on:** May 11, 2019, 09:42:17 AM »

9:00am tests, run in very good light, with everything that should be shaken vigorously done so.

Ph 6.0 It is at the first color on the chart absolutely.
Ammonia .5 to 1.0 (hard to tell, perhaps a bit closer to 1.0)
Nitrite can't tell for sure - could be 2 or 5. It seems lighter than last night, but that could be the daylight.
Nitrate 5

Ran everything twice, same result.

So yesterday morning the Ph was 6.4 to 6.6 and today it's 6.0 (unquestionably).
The ammonia seems about the same.
The nitrite doesn't seem so intensely purple.
The nitrate hasn't changed.

Going to go give it one more Nitrate test, after agitating the second bottle to the extreme, just to make sure of that being accurate.

The only thing that has changed is that I put a dirty filter from the other tank into this tank yesterday afternoon. But I don't see how that would change the Ph. And if the microbes were seeding and gobbling nitrite, I would expect to see the nitrate go up?

Unless the plants were eating it? But how much can the plants actually use that quickly? (The substrate couldn't be bonding to it, could it?)

Hmm, one more question. If I had put Prime or Amquel in the water when I was setting up the tank, to take care of the chlorine to chloramine, it would neutralize any Nitrites/Nitrates in there at that time. Could that be masking the results? Have decided to take a sample to the aquarium shop for the guy to test for me (as he said he would - hopefully not with a test strip). Depending on what he says, I may empty and re-fill the tank today, get it to temperature, and put three of the tiny baby corys in there to start things over. At least the filter should have gotten SOME bacteria going by now. And the "dirty" filter from the other tank is still in there.

Sue · « **Reply #43 on:** May 11, 2019, 12:29:05 PM »

Even when a water conditioner that binds ammonia, nitrite or nitrate is used they still show up in the tests.

Nitrate and nitrite are acidic. As you live in an area with very soft water, there is enough nitrite to use up all the KH and then push the pH lower. This is not a problem as long as you stick with fish which need soft acidic water. Once the tank is cycled and you have fish, your weekly 50% water changes will be enough to replenish the KH in the tank.

However, a very low pH inhibits the bacteria. You could try adding some bicarbonate of soda (aka baking soda) just until the tank is cycled. But you would have to drain the tank right down the substrate and refill before getting fish. Use a level 5ml spoonful per 25 litres water. Dissolve it in a bit of tank water then pour it into the tank. This will increase both KH and pH. The big water change will reset everything to tap level.
6.0 is the lowest the API pH tester can measure so the actual pH could be lower than 6.0.

Plants prefer ammonia as their fertiliser. They will take up nitrate and some nitrite in the absence of ammonia. The reason they prefer ammonia is because they have to convert nitrite & nitrite into ammonia to use it; taking up ammonia saves energy.

Nan · « **Reply #44 on:** May 11, 2019, 03:22:46 PM »

Took the water to the aquarium guy and he was getting the same results as me. He used a different testing kit - I couldn't make out the brand. (I had used the API Master freshwater.) He said I could wait a week and come back and retest, or add cockleshells or crushed coral to the filter (he was out of them, more in next week) to buffer the water a bit so it would be less likely to crash.

He also said adding any sort of additional bacteria from a bottle was pointless and throwing money away, really, as time would sort it out. He thinks that the fact that there is some nitrate in the water probably means that I just missed the ammonia spike, and that it's on the way down, and the nitrite is at it's peak and should start dropping over the next few days as well. Apparently my putting the dirty filter in was a good idea.

He also mentioned the bicarb as a way to buffer the water, but said it would be temporary. He didn't mention having to drain the tank if I used it, though. He did tell me the story of how when he was first starting out in the business he had some fish that liked a less acidic water and he tested the local tap water and it was fine, but when he put it in his tanks during a water change within a day or two he would find badly stressed fish in them. When he'd so a water test he would find the water in the tank had dropped to more acidic than the fish could handle. So now he always has the water aging, and tests it before putting it in. Recommended I do that - which I already had covered for the little tank. I've got a half-dozen 1.5 litre bottles with Amquel already in the water, sitting on a shelf in the kitchen for emergencies. I'll be adding several more.

So, 50%? I had always heard you never should, except for emergencies, change more than 1/4 to 1/3 of the water in a tank at any one change. Do you normally change yours 50% every week?

Well, at least the plants should be happy in there then! (They do look good.)

Sue · « **Reply #45 on:** May 11, 2019, 03:46:49 PM »

I do 50% or more every week. It is safe to change virtually all the water provided you remember to add dechlorinator. The micro-organisms we need in the tank - both the ammonia and nitrite eating bacteria, and hundreds of others - live attached to surfaces not floating in the water. The only micro-organisms floating in the water are things we don't want eg diseases.

Bicarb cannot be used when there are fish in the tank because of the soda part - sodium. There are no soft water fish which have evolved to cope with a lot of sodium in the water. This is why the tank should be drained before putting fish in it.
Provided you have only fish that like soft acidic water you don't need to add anything to 'harden' the tank water. If you want to keep fish that need harder water you would have to add something to increase GH, which would also increase pH and usually KH. Dolomite (chunks or crushed) is better than shells or coral. The latter contain only calcium carbonate while dolomite is calcium-magnesium carbonate.
The fish the chap told you about that did poorly in his water would have been hard water fish.

Nan · « **Reply #46 on:** May 11, 2019, 04:38:01 PM »

Interesting. My little five gallon tank I change 1/3 of the water every other day, simply because there are too many fish in there. Everyone seems fine and the water tests out good, but that tank's been going for almost two years now.

I just did a partial water change - took out 15 litres and put 15 fresh in (treated). Hopefully that will make it a bit less acidic in there and nothing will stall. The tank technically holds 55 litres, but with all the substrate and the bogwood I would assume it's closer to 50-ish litres. So that would have been close to a 1/3 water change. Will be interesting to see how it tests tomorrow.

You were right on the algae, by the way. It was really hard to see it unless there was a white surface behind it. I could barely make it out on the glass when I emptied it a bit. It was just enough to make the water just a tad less than sparkly clear. Thankfully have a scrubber tool on a long handle and was able to get it off most of the tank. I'm sure there are others floating around in there just waiting to take their place. But hopefully the filter will get most of it, and I'll do another scrub before I empty and refill the tank before the fish go in there, eventually, so hopefully most of it will be washed out. The rest will be cory food. (Hopefully they don't do a lot more breeding!)

Sue · « **Reply #47 on:** May 11, 2019, 04:45:45 PM »

With overcrowded tanks it is necessary to do more water changes. Your 1/3 every other day is fine. Fish excrete more than ammonia and secrete other biochemicals. The more fish there are the faster these things build up so the more water changes that need to be done.
I once worked in a hospital lab and we tested urine for all sorts of things. Fish excrete similar if not the same things. And all the things we did not test for.

With new tanks, the bacteria colonies are not fully established. This is why dechlorinator is a must. With tanks that have been running for years it is possible to get away without one but personally I wouldn't risk it.

Nan · « **Reply #48 on:** May 11, 2019, 04:59:45 PM »

Yeah, I would never put fish in water that hadn't been declor'd. They have chloramine in the water here, too.

So. To polish the water. I have a Juwel Bioflow One in there (it came with the tank). It has the little removable pads as filter medium. I don't imagine they are "fine" enough to really get the algae out of the water. Is filter floss readily available in this country? (UK) Or is there some other product you would recommend that I sub for one of the filter blocks in the Bioflow to take care of that problem?

Sue · « **Reply #49 on:** May 11, 2019, 05:16:09 PM »

I looked on Juwel's website and see that this filter has 2 blue sponges as its only media. But it should be easy to add a layer of filter wool.
It is called both filter wool and filter floss in the UK depending on the seller. Many shops sell it from a roll and you buy as much as you want. Those shops that sell pond fish are more likely to sell it. Failing that, there is Ebay/Amazon if you have an account with either of those.

Nan · « **Reply #50 on:** May 11, 2019, 05:45:00 PM »

Thanks, to Amazon it is! (It's a three mile walk each way to the aquarium shop and my arthritis is killing me, so mail-order it is!)

Curiously, I just retested the water after the 15 litre water change, to try to see how much of a difference it made. I only looked at the ammonia and the nitrites. The ammonia has dropped to between 0 and .25, and the nitrite is still .... purple. Seriously, they all look the same to me. Nice to know that in case of an ammonia spike that a less-than-major water change would make that much difference!

I'm about to take the gunky filter pad out of the Whisper filter and put the Whisper back in the little tank with a new filter as I don't like just having the one Eheim filter in there with so many fish in such a small place. I'll put the gunky pad in the big tank and hopefully if some of the bacteria didn't defect overnight while I had it in the big tank in the filter, they will now.

Thanks for all your help, Sue.

Sue · « **Reply #51 on:** May 11, 2019, 06:36:44 PM »

The filter bacteria don't move from one medium to another. As they multiply, the new ones creep into the new media. These bacteria multiply very slowly, doubling in something like 24 to 36 hours. It takes weeks for old media to seed new media, and the old must stay in the new filter for at least 6 weeks. And if there is the same or less ammonia to feed the bacteria their numbers will remain the same or decline rather than growing more of them.

Nan · « **Reply #52 on:** May 11, 2019, 06:41:57 PM »

Ah. So I should probably put at least part of it in the filter itself. The Whisper uses a sort of floss pocket that one puts carbon inside. So I should be able to cut the floss off in a square shape and add it to the new BioFlow filter.

I was rather hoping the microbes would just float free and get sucked up into the new filter to establish. The filter pad is pretty gunky. Do you think rinsing it in the new tank would free up some of the microbes to be sucked into the new filter pads and, hopefully, get stuck there? Or is that a lost cause?

Sue · « **Reply #53 on:** May 11, 2019, 06:52:08 PM »

A lot of people do say that the gunk can seed a new filter but others say it is rubbish. The gunk is mainly fish poo, uneaten food etc so it will contain bacteria and other micro-organisms that break those down, which the tank also needs. The gunk is broken down to ammonia which the filter bacteria then turn into nitrate via nitrite. This is why the gunk is referred to as a nitrate factory and should be washed out of a mature filter on a regular basis.

The best thing to do is put a dirty cartridge pocket into the new filter, first in the direction of water flow so that any loose micro-organisms get washed into the new media. The more beneficial 'bugs' that get into the new tank, the better.

Nan · « **Reply #54 on:** May 11, 2019, 09:11:31 PM »

Sounds like a plan!

jaypeecee · « **Reply #55 on:** May 12, 2019, 10:45:45 AM »

Quote from: Nan on April 27, 2019, 04:35:44 PM

The water is German 0.94. the CaCo3 is 16.85.

Hi Nan,

Welcome to Old Blighty!

This looks like an interesting thread but I have only had a few minutes to cast my eye over it. However, your statement above jumped out at me. That is very soft water indeed. Normally, a KH/Carbonate Hardness/Alkalinity figure would be a minimum of, say, 4dH. And General Hardness (GH) would be largely determined by the fish being kept. Perhaps Sue has said elsewhere but such soft water is very prone to pH crashes. Basically, the pH would not be stable. And at pH6 or below, nitrifying bacteria struggle to survive.

I'll try to return to this thread later today.

JPC

Nan · « **Reply #56 on:** May 12, 2019, 11:25:29 AM »

Hi JPC.

Thanks for mentioning that, as I don't think we'd discussed it. I'll be testing the tank later today, and if there's no change I'll try some bicarb to try to bring it up a bit. I do have aquarium "up" that I bought a year ago for the other tank (and then never used) if that would be better. (?)

Sue · « **Reply #57 on:** May 12, 2019, 11:32:01 AM »

I have KH 3 deg, which is higher than Nan's. But I have found that weekly water changes of at least 50% keeps my pH stable. Many years ago when I was lazy about water changes, I did have a pH crash!

I have suggested artificially boosting KH with bicarbonate of soda during cycling, and suggested dolomite to raise GH and KH once there are fish in the tank. Chunks of dolomite rock could be used as decor. Crushed dolomite or dolomite sand does not seem to be available (since the tank is untended for cories, these should be used in the filter if any can be sourced). Shells, coral or limestone can be used but these are all calcium carbonate. Dolomite is better because it is calcium magnesium carbonate.
The other alternative would be to use remineralisation salts of the kind added to RO water. But only enough to raise GH and KH slightly. The downside to doing this is that all new water at water changes must be treated with exactly the same amount of remin salts before it goes into the tank.

Chemicals that adjust pH are not usually a good idea. they contain all sorts of chemicals, some of which we don't want. Eg a lot contain phosphate.

Nan · « **Reply #58 on:** May 12, 2019, 11:33:55 AM »

Hmmm. I'll try to source some dolomite then. Is it something they might have at a pet store? Would this do, do you think? In a little bag in the filter?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aquarium-Tanganyika-Decoration-Substrate-Tropical/dp/B07C8NF85F/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_10?keywords=dolomite+aquarium&qid=1557657379&s=gateway&sr=8-10-fkmrnull

Sue · « **Reply #59 on:** May 12, 2019, 11:47:51 AM »

They don't say what it is, it could be crushed coral. With cories in the tank you could not use it as the substrate as it is too coarse. It would need to be in a bag in the filter. A couple of 15 ml spoonfuls would be plenty.

Also it is white which is not a good colour as fish have evolved over dark substrates so white is very unnatural for them (Do the Rift Lakes have white floors? I know the water chemistry is unlike any other fresh water so the bottom of the lakes might be unusual as well)

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Need To Buy A New Tank - Need Recommendations

Need To Buy A New Tank - Need Recommendations

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