2. Gallon tank. Salinty, ph, everything.

[Dylan5359]

So it's day one of cycling. My ph is low and my salinity is high. I read I can just buy a buffer so ill do that tomorrow. Fr my salinity can i just do a small water change and replace it with declorinized water? Any tips are helpful. And for regular mantience on the tank, to keep nitrite and ammonia at 0 as well as nitrate, (when my tank is established) will weekly 10% of water changes keep them low? Any tips will help. Thanks guys.

 

[XxVooDooxX]

I'm new to this also but in cycling I don't think you need to worry about ph. It's natural for the ammonia, nitrate and nitrite to spike so I don't think you should be doing any water changes. I'm just about two weeks into my cycle and it's not even close to being done. I've been told, and read through the expert advice on this site that water changes during cycling is not a good idea

 

[JOMA]

i also just started to cycle my 2 gallon saltwater! my readings were:
77*F
ammonia:4ppm
nitrite: .25ppm
nitrate: between 5 and 10 (colors are too close)
Ph: 8.2
salinity: 1.22 (i keep it lower because of evaporation)


i had higher salinity earlier so i just took water out and added fresh water (dechlorinated) do you have any fish in the tank?

 

[Dylan5359]

No. I'm doing fish less cycling. Using a raw piece of shrimp. Lol mine is 76 degrees )! My salinity is at a .026 which is high and considering its going to be a dwarf seahorse tank, i wanna get that salinity between .017-.023. Im also going to just stabilize the PH at a 8.4 because dwarves prefer it at that. So what dish are going to be in your tank?

 

[Dylan5359]

Fish*

 

[JOMA]

probably just inverts, maybe some coral eventually. mini seahorses sound really cool!

 

[XxVooDooxX]

One of the LFS we had a couple years ago here had a mini horse tank. I thought it was the coolest thing ever until he told me that they are as dumb as a box of rox and won't eat on there own. He said you have to hand feed each one to ensure it gets food. Haha I'm not sure if that true or not but it might be worth looking into

 

[Dylan5359]

Let me know how that goes! And yeah I've been reading up on the for about 2 months and made the plunge and bought everything. How much water did you take out when you replaced it with the distilled water?

 

[JOMA]

i just took some out with a cup and added a little bit of dechlorinated water until it was even, just trial and error. idk if thats the best way but it worked for me!

 

[Dylan5359]

Haha. And there not stupid just a little special. you do have to feed them live food, pretty soon I'm going to start culturing Rotifers and copepods. But ive heard of people actually getting them to eat frozen foods. It just take a while. Ill try it on one of their fry. and them being so called ^stupid^ is actually a plus! Because its very humorous watching them swimming around the tank.

 

[Dylan5359]

i just took some out with a cup and added a little bit of dechlorinated water until it was even, just trial and error. idk if thats the best way but it worked for me!

Yeah I'm probably going to do that. Don't have any spare buckets non me right now so I'm just going to do it with some poland spring.

 

[XxVooDooxX]

Ha! That's too funny Dylan!

 

[Dylan5359]

Haha. So how big is that tank your cycling right now? Any idea of what your going to put inside?

 

[XxVooDooxX]

Mine is a 46 gal bow front and I'm going to do corals and some small reef safe fish. I've hot about 40 pounds of live rock on 25 pounds of live sand. That's all I could afford but it should be pretty nice

 

[Dylan5359]

Sounds good!