IT'S DONE YAY

I have been back for another go and think I may have sorted it I gave my tank the name barbara's tank only put 2 Honey Gouramis and 10 Ember Tetras I think if these work out I will just stay with them for this tank and start work on my big tank once my arm has healed then look to bigger fish then. B xx

Nitrate is very hard to judge - I'm surprised you could make it out as accurately as 4. My tap water is between the 0 and 5 colours so I just call that less than 5.
Nitrate is also the most difficult tester to make for home use, and is not terribly accurate because of this. An increase of 1 ppm is most likely to be due to the nature of the tester, and is still the same as the last test.

The main problem with nitrate testers is that one of the reagents doesn't dissolve. The reason that bottle has to be shaken well is to distribute the solid evenly through the liquid. It just takes one extra large particle to distort the results one way or the other.

My younger son who once worked for a water testing company considered our nitrate testers to be highly amusing 

Wait 3 more days then test again. See what your ammonia reading is then. I know your ammonia has halved but that could be because your plants are using it as you don't have any nitrite yet. If it has dropped further in 3 days and still no nitrite, that will be the obvious conclusion.
But you'd still have to wait to get fish because the tank needs to be able to remove 2 ppm ammonia in 24 hours whether it is used by plants or eaten by bacteria.

Thank You I am a happy chappy     things look on the up. 

Yes, add another dose of ammonia equal to 1 or 2 ppm not as the plants probably won't like it. But test every 2 days rather than every 3.

The nitrate increase form 4 to 7 is too small to measure accurately; I would just ignore it for now.

It is quite likely that the ammonia has gone into the plants. Unlike the ammonia eating bacteria, plants do not turn ammonia into nitrite, they turn in into proteins to make lots of new plant tissue. So don't worry if you never see nitrite; you need to wait until the plants can take up 2 ppm ammonia in 24 hours, that way you'll know that they can take up all the ammonia made by your first batch of fish. I seem to remember that you want to get fish slowly rather than a lot at once?


Since you haven't added any more bicarb, it would be a good idea to check your pH every time you do the other tests. That way you'll pick it up sooner if the pH does start to drop.

In a plantless cycle, ammonia is turned into nitrite as bacteria grow to eat it, then on to nitrate as more bacteria grow to eat nitrite. Both nitrite and nitrate are acidic so they tend to make the pH drop.
Tap water has some carbonate in it; it comes from the rock the water flows over. Some places have a lot of carbonate because the reservoir or river flows over a lot of limestone. Other areas, like Northumbrian Water's Kielder Water doesn't sit on limestone so there is not much carbonate in the water.
Carbonates react with acid. If there is a lot of carbonate in the water, the amount of acidic nitrite and nitrate isn't enough to use up all the carbonate so the pH stays constant. But in places with very little carbonate it can all get used up and then there is nothing to stop the acids dropping the pH.

The problem during cycling is that our filter bacteria need carbonate to grow properly, and they need an alkaline pH. At below pH 6.5 they stop multiplying. And if there is not much carbonate in the water there may not be enough for the bacteria to grow well enough to multiply.

So in places where KH in tap water is low, it is easier to add bicarbonate of soda to artificially boost the amount of carbonate in the water. All the sodium in bicarb (the soda bit) is not very good for fish, but we do a big water change at the end of the cycle to remove all the nitrate the cycle has made and that also removes bicarb.

My KH (carbonate hardness) is 3 degrees. When I did a fishless cycle (no plants) in 2013, my pH dropped from 7.5 to below 6.



But when there are plants in the tank, they use ammonia as fertiliser. They don't turn it into nitrite or nitrate so there won't be as much acid formed. There will be a bit because of plant waste (yes plants do make waste just not on the scale of animals  ) so there is less risk of a pH crash than when there are no plants.
I didn't test my pH in 2013 until I realised that the cycle seemed to have stopped and that's when I found the very low pH. Your cycle with plants may never suffer a pH crash but as pH is the simplest of all the tests (no waiting 5 mins for the colour to develop) testing for pH when you test for all the others will catch the pH starting to fall if the does happen.

It looks like something is happening. You have a tiny amount of nitrite, possibly caused by the plants not using all the ammonia, and bacteria staring to multiply to eat the bit the plants don't use.

You could try adding a tiny bit of food for the snails. But what would be better is some vegetable matter. Depending what you have to hand in the kitchen, a thin slice of courgette or a thin slice of cucumber or a small piece of lettuce leaf. They will like it better if it is soft so blanch whatever you have in a bit of water in the microwave for a few seconds. You will need to weight it down, something like a small stone, or even sacrifice a teaspoon and use the handle to skewer the veg. Remove the veg after 24 hours or it will go off and make a mess of the tank - and confuse the cycle. Doing this once a week will be fine for snails.

Yes, test again in 2 days.
If ammonia is zero but nitrite is not zero, wait another 2 days and test again.
But if both ammonia and nitrite are zero, add another 2 ppm ammonia and test next day.

This is not what I wrote in the 'how to' thread, but it is because you have a lot of plants so the cycle won't be the same as without plants.

[FCMF DELETING LARGE SECTION THAT WAS A COPY & PASTE OF THREAD REPLIES #50 & #51 AND THUS POTENTIALLY CONFUSING. ]

CONTINUATION OF WATER QUALITY RESULTS FROM REPLY #51: 

Fed snails a piece of lettuce not sure if they ate any, but I definitely have baby snails more showing each day.
today's test
16/10/17

PH: 7.4
Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrate: 10
Nitrite: 0

do I wait another 2 days and test again?

But what about the Nitrate it just seems to be getting higher and higher is that not dangerous. I really do not understand about them. I need to re-read it so I can try and get the gist of it all.