Ph balance issues in kinda fishless cycle (and more...)

[Byky]

To get to the meat of my question please skip to the
"THIS IS MY BIG QUESTION"
and
So heres a bunch more newbie questions:
sections below.

Some people need/want more detail though and I'm a rambler so that's what all the text between here and there is. I think I've covered just about the whole story so I don't have to go back and forth with extra questions (I hope!)

You can read my intro in the new member forum here: It's short compared to this post.
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f59/new-to-the-knowledgeable-fish-keeper-club-251139.html

Basically I've had fish tanks off and on for 20 years and really never looked into what the heck I was doing.
SO...
This winter we had a heater issue and had a total tank wipe out when temps dropped. I decided I wanted some new "exotic" fish and real plants this time and just wanted to really redo the whole thing.

We miss Pleco though.

Anyhoo I actually got off my butt and decided to do things right and READ first. (well okay not FIRST FIRST... but "before fish" first.)

FIRST FIRST:
We did a complete clean out. 30 gallon tank BTW and when I say "complete clean out" I mean we emptied it of water and rocks, rinsed off the rocks and put everything back and filled it up with water again. We installed the new heater, new filter (we had a waterfall one which I hated so we got a canister like the one we use on our patio pond that I love.) We also bought a bunch of plants when we were looking to see what kinds of fish the pet store had because they were "on sale" as they were in tubes and starting to look sad and had to be cleared out ASAP. (Let's call this obvious mistake #1) and then we got some fun looking bamboo too (Let's call this obvious mistake #2) So then we planted all these plants and started up the filter and turned the heater on and then just did some fun web searching of compatible fish and picked out what we wanted and then cut back to what we wanted - what we didn't have space for + some unbeknownst to us snails that hitched a ride on the bamboo.
TO BE CONTINUED...

OBVIOUS MISTAKE #1:
I kind of assumed any plants we bought in the fish section of the pet store would be stuff you bury in the gravel and it'll be good. Turns out the majority of the plants we bought have to have their tops out of the water. *sigh* Anyhow we just through some gravel into a "breeder float divider" thing I had put a couple of hooks to hold it up and voila! we now have a lovely group of plants poking up out of the tank. Not what I wanted but I've got it now!

OM#2 - THE BAMBOO:
Okay so I had a little tiff with the salesgirl at my local petstore that sells fish. (She probably had no idea I was mad at her.)
SIDE QUESTION: Does LFS also cover major chain pet stores that sell fish? or is that just for local aquatics stores?
Anyhoo so I asked salesgirl about the snails. I could tell they had little snails in most of their tanks and since the tanks are connected I was pretty sure bamboo tank had it's share. It also had big ol mystery snails so it was hard to spot any little guys. I wanted to know if the little guys would eat all of my tank plants. (All of which up to this point were guaranteed snail free.) and SHE made a remark about the "OTHER" girls maybe doing something like that but that SHE knew better than to send along snails. - Pet peeves include people who bad mouth their coworkers or other customers to me. It's unprofessional AND as this was my LFS? I had talked to plenty of the "OTHER" girls and never had an issue. Anyway I went ahead an although VERYYYYYY leery went ahead and listened to her (Mistake #3)

CONTINUED:
So we had our tank running, heater on, plants planted etc. We picked out our fish (just on paper), and were reading up on nitrogen cycles, and fish less cycling (which we decided to do.) I read up on doing a fish less with plants (since I kind of got ahead of myself) and found it is wasn't going to be a problem. We were just waiting for our test kit, magnet scrubby, water conditioner stuff, bubbler etc. to arrive. I didn't figure letting the tank run while we waited would hurt (in fact I figured with the plants in there and a pinch of food plus the rocks although rinsed were probably still fairly seeded from the last tank that it might just be beneficial and make our wait time seem less!) and just before everything arrived that's when I finally spotted the snails.
Now what?
So back I come to search the forums trying to find out what I can do about these things, are they going to eat all my plants, what should I do??? It seems pretty POV related. People who don't mind em don't mind em and people who do desperately try to destroy them. I figured well, why not? The more varied the species the merrier in my book. BUT I did decide I didn't want them becoming TOO much so I decided to get an assassin snail. I actually (despite being told they didn't carry them by the website) found them at a Not soLFS (but still within an hours drive) and was able to bring one home! YAY! (Mistake #... what are we up to? right, 4) and I think he might be dying.

COINCIDENCE?
So we arrive home from the NSLFS with Gary in hand (well a bag in the hand) and there on the porch are delivery boxes YAY! So we let Gary's bag float for a bit and after 15 minutes or so we dropped him into the tank (Mistake #5 - you know for trying to do this right this time I still am managing to really screw things up!) I now know about adding water from OUR tank in to help adjust not only the temp but Ph also. Poor thing. Anyway I read up on how to test everything and we test the tank that night. (That was kind of like a fun science experiment!)
MY TANK READINGS
Ph 7.8-8.0 (I couldn't tell which)
0 Ammonia
0 Nitrite
40? Nitrate (again hard to tell)
We also tested the aquaponics experiment and it had a really high Ph too (but it had ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings.)
So out of curiosity (since what I've read about controlling Ph is to do a PWC) I tested our water which... maybe unsurprisingly was also high.

THE BIG QUESTION*
We wondered if there was a way to bring the Ph down without adding chemicals as we'll have to bring the Ph down in the aquaponics experiment and that is going to [hopefully] grow food that we'll be eating. If I can't consume whatever I'm adding to bring down the Ph, I can't use it. Any suggestions/ideas?
I do have a couple more questions though...
Skimmers please skip to "Here's a bunch more newbie questions" below

So the next day [this morning] I started adding ammonia to my tank. But before I did I wondered
Side question
How far before testing should we be adding the PRIME? Can we do it after testing levels? Will it interfere with our readings? Do we really "NEED" it? We ARE NOT ON MUNICIPAL WATER! Our water comes from a well. I read we should even so for heavy metals (which is why we have it in the first place) but I'm wondering how necessary that really is? Especially considering I don't think we can use this in the aquaponics system...

Because I had 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and 40 nitrates on my first reading I figured I already have nitrosomes? (I think that's the right one, I'm not going to check right this second.) and I don't want to add too much ammonia if that's true so I was aiming for ~2ppm. I read an estimate of 2-3 drops of ammonia per 5 gallons. So with a 30 gallon tank I figured 9 drops would be a safe starting place to try to hit 2 (rather than 5ppm). I did the math on my tank vs. GPH filtering for wait time then added my 9 drops waited 15 minutes and tested again. I was at .5ppm so I added another 9 drops, waited 15 minutes and tested again. This time I was at 1.0ppm so now I've established a pretty good drop ratio for my tank... added 18 more waited 15min and sure enough hit my ~2ppm goal. That's when I noticed Gary doesn't look like he has moved.

Which is why I quickly signed up instead of just perusing the forums to ask about bringing down the Ph is a human-consumably safe way. Since the other snails were just appearing and had been in the tank for uhm... a week? I can't remember honestly! but since they appeared while we were just waiting for our test kit and stuff to arrive I kind of figured the tank environment was OKAY for snails. (mistake #6?) So of course I checked, saw assassin snails recommended ph below 7.5 and thought dear lord I've killed Gary!!!
I went and poked him just now though and he's actually cruising around the tank. The associate at the Not soLFS said he's survive the cycle process that they were hardy. (That's why we went ahead and brought him home.) But then again, the associate seemed totally disgusted when I mentioned we were fishless cycling and told me I was still going to lose at least half of my fish and adding ammonia to my tank to "FORCE CYCLE" it wasn't going to make a difference and that I should just buy a couple of cheap fish I didn't care about and "do it right". Then he proceeded to talk about some other customer he had who was doing a fishless cycle but was being a b!&%# about it (and he used the actual word) and that she was an idiot and he's sure she lost 1/4 of her fish AT LEAST anyway and he told her she could buy her fish elsewhere from now on that he wasn't going to sell to her anymore. I couldn't wait to get out of there and am SO glad that's not my LFS! The guy didn't seem to really know or understand how fishless cycling worked and he was so ANGRY I wasn't going to even try to explain that "cheap fish" or drops of ammonia - either way is going to grow the necessary bacteria. But ammonia won't be cruel to "cheap fish" that have often been the bedrock of all my tanks since early childhood. (RIP Big Fish my "feeder" gold fish that lived 5 years!)
Not to mention they are living breathing creatures... how much they cost doesn't change that!

So heres a bunch more newbie questions:
Will Gary be okay? Will the snails eat all my plants. Should I get more Assassins? What kind of plants should I plant in the tank? (I want ones that go under the gravel and don't need leaves poking out at the top. I don't have any idea what the names of the ones we have are (except the water onion bulbs which are actually going to be too big for our tank) Mistake #7 Will the frogs be okay? Is the tank too deep for them? How heavily can we plant the tank? I'd like to have it pretty heavy on the sides and back but clear in the front and middle. Do I talk too much? LOL (I know that's a yes) Did I miss anything else important that I should have asked?

Oh and here's the list of my fish and a photoshop (as close to scale as I could) rendition of our tank (minus the snails as they showed themselves later.) I'm not sure I know how to add the picture here, but I'll try:
Fish:
3 guppies (blue)
5 tiger barbs
2 dwarf frogs (no claws)
3 otocinclus
5 neon tetras

 

[Alyxx]

Whew, that was a novel! Haha, welcome to the forum. Sounds like you're off to a pretty good start with your fishless cycle, and don't worry, most of your mistakes aren't so bad. Now let's see if I can get some of those questions answered!

As for the big question, I think the best course of action is to get your water tested for heavy metals. Honestly I'm not too sure about where you can get that done, but I'm sure someone will be able to chime in on that. If there aren't any dangerous metals in the water I wouldn't really worry about a conditioner for the aquaponics setup at least. Prime would still be beneficial in your aquarium, though, as it does bind ammonia and nitrite long enough for your biological filter to take care of it, so if you end up with a mini-cycle after you add fish it would help to have some on hand. Also, I'm sure there is a dechlorinator product out there made for aquaponics. If not, or if it ends up being too expensive or hard to get, you could always use reverse osmosis water. You could either get your own RO system or get RO water from a LFS or even a grocery store. Lots of grocery stores have machines where you can fill jugs with RO water.

Onto the smaller questions!
Your stock seems ok, but I'm a little worried about the inches listed up in the corner of your picture. The inch per gallon rule doesn't really work. Think about it this way, could you put a 10 inch fish in a 10 gallon? No. But with the fish you have chosen it isn't a big deal, and they will all be fine in a 30 gallon. My only concern is the tiger barbs, because they can be a bit nippy and could go after some of the other fish, especially the guppies since they have such flowy fins. Just be sure to add some nice hiding places and maybe consider adding more than 5 tiger barbs. Larger schools can sometimes curb some of their aggression. I would recommend more than 5 neons as well, simply because you'll get more natural behavior out of them from a larger school. As for the guppies, either get all males if you don't want breeding or two females and a male. The males will hound females to mate and its best to keep more females than males to kind of spread this attention out. The frogs should be ok in the tank, however you need to be careful that they don't get picked on and that they get enough to eat. They don't see very well and can easily get outcompeted for food. You might want to put some takl smooth decoration or some tall plants in so that they can rest near the surface if they want to. And be certain you aren't getting African clawed frogs as they will grow pretty large and eat all your fish. My cousin made that mistake and ended up with a tank with just one big fat frog and no fish. The otos are a good choice for an algae eater, but wait to add them until the tank has been running for at least 6 months or so. They are sensitive and need an established tank. They also can be hard to get to eat prepared foods, so be sure your tank can grow enough algae to sustain them in case you can't get them to take veggies or algae wafers.
Some plants for you to consider are java fern, java moss, and anubius. Any low light plant should work fine.
The snails may try to eat your plants, but hopefully Gary will take care of them before they get a chance to. I wouldn't add any more assassin snails, though. If your snail population isn't too big to begin with, Gary should be able to take care of it by himself. And he should be fine. Just keep an eye on your parameters during your cycle so they don't get too extreme. He may be hardy, but that doesn't mean he's bulletproof. Don't sweat too much over ph requirements. All but the most delicate of species can adapt to ph levels outside of their ideal range. Just be sure to acclimate all of your livestock properly by adding some of your water to their bag. In general, a stable ph is more important than having any specific level. Messing with it by adding chemicals will just cause it to swing as the additives get used up, and that is way worse than your ph being a little high or low. However, while you cycle keep an eye out that your ph doesn't drop drastically. This can happen during a cycle and it will stall the cycle if it drops into the low 6s. If it does, a large water change can usually fix it, but if it persists you can add some crushed coral to your filter to help buffer the water and bring it back up.

Oh! And about you having nitrates already - check your tap water for nitrates. Sometimes there will be some in your water out of the tap. 40 is about the high end of where you ever want your nitrates to be, so if this is the normal for your tap water you may want to look into RO water for your water changes. However, if you get the tank densely planted this won't be a problem as the plants use the nitrates for food. That is the biggest benefit to having a planted aquarium.

I think I covered just about everything you asked, but please feel free to ask anything. Good luck! And look at that, I wrote a novel back...

 

[Byky]

I know I wrote a ton! I tried to cover it all!

Here were this morning's tank readings:
ammonia was down to 1ppm! (from 2)
nitrites were UP to .25ppm! (from 0)
pH was 8 (same)
Nitrates were up? to 80? It is SO hard to read this one!!!
(from a questionable 40.)

Tested the tap water too... and it's Nitrate reading was 30! (Between the 20 and 40 colors) So that explains a bit!

But so far it looks like we at least have some cycling already started I added another 18 drops of ammonia to bring it back to 2ppm.

We actually have an RO in the home (a small one we have hooked to the fridge) so although it would be a HUGE task doing PWC's (it's SMALL!) it should still be helpful if we have any sudden drops or spikes in our tests. We've talked about getting a bigger RO for the whole house, and looks like that should move up our list of things to consider purchasing sooner rather than later.

I'll have to dig up the well water report. That's something we had done to verify it's potability and if I remember right it had heavy metal info too. Even if we have to get it tested again, that's something that's pretty easy to hunt down the info on how/where/who etc. just by calling around and asking. I do know however that there is arsenic in the water. It's at an "acceptable" amount, but what that is I can't remember. It's why we have the small RO and have a big one on our 'to purchase' list. They're just EXPENSIVE! But we'll look into the dechlor thing for the aquaponics for sure, I already have some PRIME since it was highly regarded as far as I could tell.

I know the inch per inch rule is kind of a debated one, but I thought it still was a good general guide to keep me from going too crazy with the fish while in the planning stages. (You should see the first mock-up I made with "ALL" the fish we wanted LOL!) So I'm actually happy with the idea of more neons and more tiger barbs... we limited ourselves to what I posted in the pic for worry of space requirements. But the neons especially I wanted more of (They were my "must have" in the tank.) I'll wait to see what other opinions I get on adding more though (if anyone else makes it through my narrative hehe)

We did plan to get 2 females and 1 male guppy... I read the fry were special treats to the frogs and I want to spoil them since I've never had frogs before! Plus one of the dynamics I was aware of was men only want one thing and it helps to have another woman around for distraction when you need a break. In the fish world of course.

and good news: Gary has been seen cruising around at top speed with his little snorkel thing out (He totally makes me think of the Snorks! anyone remember those?) and although we can't find him right now... he was FINE this morning and looked totally happy! PHEW!!! I put a pinch of fish food in this morning to make sure his food supply gets fed... and him too if he felt like some flakes. I did see at least 1 feeder snail when I was looking for Gary so I know he's got at least one meal left running around haha!

I've been thinking about getting a small tank to actually BREED pond snails for him if he eats them to extinction in this tank. Early symptom of MTS?

I really appreciate the plant ideas! I'm def. going to look into those!

Here was a question I forgot... can I "really" fully stock the tank in one blow doing this fishless cycle? Or should I *still* only add 3-4 fish at a time? Mr. Angry at the not so LFS has me second guessing what I thought I had understood about the benefits (above and beyond not being cruel) this particular method had.

Hard part about having everything on the table at once is not knowing if you've addressed all the bits LOL if I have more questions I'll refer back here and if I can't find it I'll ask for sure though!!! Thanks for your help!

 

[Alyxx]

Ill write more later when im not on my phone, but it sounds like you are off to a good start!

 

[Alyxx]

Ok, on something I can type decently on now!
First off, the nitrate test is tricky. You need to shake the reagent bottles very well, especially the bottle #2. It is kind of a suspension instead of a solution and for an accurate read you need to shake the living crap out of it. Bang it on a nice hard surface a few times for good measure, and shake vigorously for at least a minute or two. Also after doing the first set of drops, stopper the vial and shake it for a minute. Then shake the second bottle a little more and add the drops to the vial. Then shake well for another minute. Read it in the most natural light you can, too, because the colors are really similar for a lot of the chart. If your nitrate readings really have gone up from the tap level, it looks like you already have a little bit of the nitrite to nitrate bacteria. It looks like your cycle is off to a good start. If I were you, I would up the amount of ammonia you add, although for Gary's sake up it slowly and watch his reaction. As for the question of whether or not you can fully stock your aquarium after a fishless cycle, that depends on how much ammonia you cycle with. The reason a fairly large concentration (4 ppm) is used is so that the tank can handle a fairly large bioload directly after cycling. If you cycle to 2 ppm, it will be able to handle at least 2ppm of ammonia a day, if you use 4 ppm, it will be able to handle 4 ppm a day. If you don't feel comfortable using more ammonia, just take care to stock lightly at first and add fish over time, a few fish at a time. This way the bacteria don't have to adjust too much too quickly. If you keep using 2ppm, I would add maybe the guppies and tiger barbs first, then the neons and frogs, and finally the otos after the tank has had a few months to mature. You want to stock the hardiest fish first so that the tank can be a little more stable when you add the more delicate fish. Remember, though, even if you cycle with a "full" dose of ammonia, the otos still shouldn't go into the tank immediately.

The well report should tell you everything you need to know about your water. I would start using at least half RO in your water changes just to solve the nitrate issue with your tap water. Remember, if your tap is at 30, if you mix half and half RO and tap the water you add will have 15 ppm. If your tank really is at 80 ppm (retest to check, it doubling this early in the cycle doesn't sound right, nitrates don't usually go up that quickly even after cycling) I would recommend you do at least a 75% water change with RO water if possible. This would bring you down to 20ppm assuming the tank is at 80. You generally want to keep your nitrates below 20, but until you get a solution to the nitrates in the tap issue (bigger RO setup or get the tank heavily planted) I would shoot to keep it under 40. Snails are pretty hardy so 40 or even higher nitrates shouldn't cause too much damage for now, but you will want the levels under 20 when you have fish. I mean, Gary is doing ok with pretty toxic ammonia levels so moderately high nitrates aren't too much of a worry, but keep in mind he is dealing with all three toxins. We don't want to do any permanent damage to the little guy! Also, remember that when your nitrites spike, they usually go pretty high, often becoming unreadable. If this happens, just do some big water changes until they get back into readable levels. Also be on the lookout for a ph crash, as it can stall the cycle.

OH! Something I forgot to mention about using RO water. If you end up using only RO water or a large percentage of RO water for your water changes, you will need to add minerals back into the water. Kent makes a product called RO Right that I know lots of members here use, and there are other formulations available. Fish need the minerals that are usually present in water for their health as well as to keep ph stable, and RO lacks them. Just add the recommended amount at each water change. Also, I'm not sure about what levels of arsenic may be "safe" for fish. Depending on how low your level is exactly, this could be an issue. I'm thinking it may be more of an issue for the aquaponics system, as there is the chance that the arsenic could end up somewhat more concentrated in the plants you are growing for food.

Neons are kind of one of my must haves, too. I've always loved them, especially in large schools. I have 9 in my 56 gallon right now and I plan on upping the school some more soon. Also, I have a snail breeding tank. It's for my pufferfish, as is my marbled crayfish breeding tank. The snail tank was a major MTS moment for me, too. "Oh, I have a clutch of mystery snail eggs? I think this calls for another tank!" My boyfriend started calling me a mad snail scientist for a while after that. My MTS is currently only kept in check by an absolute lack of space for any other tanks. Which is why I need to clear out our junk room... It has an empty 20 gallon in there (I upgraded that one to a 56 over the summer) that is just itching to be set back up.

Oh, and one more cool plant idea - moss balls! They look really awesome. They don't really use too much nitrate as they are really slow growers, but they are pretty and they are fairly hard to kill. And they are supposed to be good luck. Btw, there are lots of threads on the planted tank section of the forum for recommendations for good low light plants for beginners. Check them out and get a feel for which plants you like.