Somewhat cycling withblack phantom tetras?

[Hholly]

Did you get any fish yet?

 

[CharlieKlein]

No fish, and I have a bubbler

 

[CharlieKlein]

So if after a big wc levels are good, I add fish Tuesday?

 

[Scottyhorse]

What's ph? IMO I would wait for a week or so.

 

[CharlieKlein]

6.8-7. .

 

[Scottyhorse]

PH looks good to me! And when you add a little crushed coral I think 7-7.2 would be a good level. I would wait at least three days so you know for sure the tank is cycled.

 

[librarygirl]

It's hard to say for sure without a log but it's possible your PH fell, which caused the bacteria to lag a bit and then the nitrites spiked again. I wouldn't add fish until you can get this under control. You can keep dosing ammonia and testing the tank daily; if PH keeps dropping to below 7, you might need to add some crushed coral to the filter to try to keep it stable. You want to be able to zero out 4 ppms of ammonia in 24 hours and nitrites to stay at 0 consistently without water changes for at least a week before adding fish.

Also sorry if you mentioned this and I forgot but what's your PH out of the tap? ALso leave a glass of tap water out for 24 hours (stir it occasionally) and then test the PH again; sometimes PH can change after it gasses off and this will give us your "true" PH and what your tank's PH should be normally.

 

[CharlieKlein]

My true ph is 6.8 which I thought is fine? Do I need to raise it?

 

[CharlieKlein]

Did a 50-60 percent pwc and results are

Ammonia .5 nitrites 0 nitrates 40-80
Ph is 7
Why are my levels still like this?

 

[Hholly]

When did you last dose your tank?

 

[CharlieKlein]

Yesterday around 6 to 4 ppm

 

[Hholly]

As long as your pH is remaining stable, I think you're fine. 4ppm is a heavy load of ammonia. The six or so fish you are wanting to start with probably won't produce that much. Just get those nitrates down.

 

[CharlieKlein]

So I tested after I let it settle. Frites are 0 ammonia is .25 and nitrates are 20-40

They are orange when held to the light but are red against white...
But look more like 20. Ill do another large pwc tommorrow

 

[Hholly]

Sounds good. I think you're ready as long as the pH is staying stable. You can handle any spikes in ammo or trites.

 

[CharlieKlein]

In probably gonna wait till te weekend, because its a busy week and I want to have a few days to make sure all is good, so in still not sure what to get! Would searpeas be too nippy? I'm still thinking black phantoms but with black background and substrate I not sure

 

[Hholly]

Have you thought about harlequin rasboras? They look good with black. There are lots of other schoolers too.

 

[CharlieKlein]

I love the haraualins, but I want something a bit different like black phantoms are a cool shape. Also, the phantoms are 1 dollar instead of 3 on the harqualins so 6 instead of 18 bux is a deal breaker

 

[Hholly]

Ah, gotcha. Just go with your gut.

 

[Hholly]

You ought to see if your L FS can get these in! Very cool!
http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?fwcharacins&1361072915

 

[CharlieKlein]

I think they have em! I'll give a call and see how much yommmorr