Hello! Newbie post here so please be gentle. 
First of all I’d like to thank everyone for all their informative posts!
I’m currently doing a fishless cycle and all the posts here have been extremely helpful.
So basically I had a ph crash and I did a 80% change last night. I actually had to dose the ammonia back up to about 4ppm and now the nitrites are readable, around 5.0 on the API chart. I don’t have a GH/TH test kit (planning to get one today, I need one right???) but my TH looks like close to 0 according to my swimming pool test strip when I tested this morning, sorry I did not think of using my pool test strip so I do not know what the TH is before the crash but I’m assuming its low.
My normal water ph is about 7.5 and it dropped to like a 6.0-6.4 during the crash. My ammonia was slightly darker than a 8.0 green, but before the crash I was actually going from 4 to 0 in about 12 hrs. And I think I was in the point on my cycle when my nitrites spiked and dropped to 0 or unless I was mistaken that what I thought was a darker shade of the 0 ppm API blue was actually a blue/green color which meant it was off the charts. It only became obvious when the green became more prominent and started looking up this blue green nitrite test result. I'm about 2wks in the fishless cycle with some boimax from an established tank.
Am I assuming correctly that since I am using a potassium chloride water softener that I will need to add some buffers (either sodium bicarb(arm and hammer ok?), seachem alkaline buffer, crushed coral, etc…) depending on the pH that I want to keep?
From what I’ve read I will have to add some baking soda while I’m cycling but the other big question really is what is the best thing to do just before and while I have my fish in the tank.
I am planning to have about 5-7 glo-lite danios, a couple of corys, maybe 2-3 khuli loaches, a few mystery snails, and fill it up with cardinal tetras (7-11) in a 29 gallon tank. It will be a planted tank.
OR should I tap into my sprinkler system which would not have softened water. This means I’d have to haul some buckets instead of using a hose directly connected to a nearby faucet. Not a big deal specially if this is best thing to do.
Thanks in advance!
First of all I’d like to thank everyone for all their informative posts!I’m currently doing a fishless cycle and all the posts here have been extremely helpful.
So basically I had a ph crash and I did a 80% change last night. I actually had to dose the ammonia back up to about 4ppm and now the nitrites are readable, around 5.0 on the API chart. I don’t have a GH/TH test kit (planning to get one today, I need one right???) but my TH looks like close to 0 according to my swimming pool test strip when I tested this morning, sorry I did not think of using my pool test strip so I do not know what the TH is before the crash but I’m assuming its low.
My normal water ph is about 7.5 and it dropped to like a 6.0-6.4 during the crash. My ammonia was slightly darker than a 8.0 green, but before the crash I was actually going from 4 to 0 in about 12 hrs. And I think I was in the point on my cycle when my nitrites spiked and dropped to 0 or unless I was mistaken that what I thought was a darker shade of the 0 ppm API blue was actually a blue/green color which meant it was off the charts. It only became obvious when the green became more prominent and started looking up this blue green nitrite test result. I'm about 2wks in the fishless cycle with some boimax from an established tank.
Am I assuming correctly that since I am using a potassium chloride water softener that I will need to add some buffers (either sodium bicarb(arm and hammer ok?), seachem alkaline buffer, crushed coral, etc…) depending on the pH that I want to keep?
From what I’ve read I will have to add some baking soda while I’m cycling but the other big question really is what is the best thing to do just before and while I have my fish in the tank.
I am planning to have about 5-7 glo-lite danios, a couple of corys, maybe 2-3 khuli loaches, a few mystery snails, and fill it up with cardinal tetras (7-11) in a 29 gallon tank. It will be a planted tank.
OR should I tap into my sprinkler system which would not have softened water. This means I’d have to haul some buckets instead of using a hose directly connected to a nearby faucet. Not a big deal specially if this is best thing to do.
Thanks in advance!
