Using Ammonia to cycle tank

[caudelfin]

Today, July 10, 2005 no NO2 and about 2 ppm of NO3. Hard to tell, the purple color is neither 2 nor 4. Just it's own odd weak purple color. Holding there for the past two days.
So it seems the ammonia which I am adding a little more each day is being converted as it is not there, but then there is not that much NO3 either. Wonder what is going on. None of the bacteria additives have really helped speed things up. I am due to get some Cycle Plus in on Wed which states that it will cycle a tank in two days. We'll see how that goes.

I am adding more ammonia daily to the tanks and both read zero on NO2. How much ammonia does a 2 inch fish put out daily? Any ideas. I would like to have enough bacteria to take care of all the fish that I can dump into the 90 when it fully cycled. I figure on about 10 gal for each fish thus 9 or 10 at the most is what I plan to stock. But that is subject to change, as I figured the same for my 29 gal and now have 7 zebras 1 inch or less, 6 platys 3 @ one inch and 3 @ 2 in. 2 small bodied 1 1/2 in algae eaters.

Most of the fish I am looking at for the 90 require 6 or more of each one and there or at least 5 different tank mates that I want to put in and that means about 30 + fish for the 90 gal But my super soft water will dictate much of what kind I can put in. Unless I can find a way to buffer it so it will not yo-yo and stay put where I want it. Changing GH, KH and ph does not produce a stable tank according to most phish experts.

 

[TankGirl]

Buffering your water will help keep your pH stable, if that is the sort of stability that you are talking about, so that means raising your akalinity (KH). Easy enough to do and for super soft water it is a precaution that I would take.

That is a good question - how much ammonia does it take to equal the amount of waste that your future full bioload?

I think that might be worthy of its own thread to get more responses. I'd love to see a discussion on it.

 

[caudelfin]

Thanks for your reply. Here is where I get bogged down. You buffer ph and it will yo-yo. Evidently then when you buffer the KH to bring it up it will not yo-yo. What do you use to buffer the water to bring the KH up? How often. And as with most things in aquaria I would think that when changing the water parameters it should be done very slowly. I know that when I have tried almost everything sold to raise or lower the ph, the ph would go up and down and really stress the fish then finally wind up at the same point where I started.

 

[Jchillin]

TG/caudefin - We've actually had this discussion several months ago...I will troll around to find it.

 

[Jchillin]

Found it...I believe there is another but this can do for now.

cycling debate

 

[TankGirl]

Thanks, JC - but I can't help myself from rehashing!!


You are right about making changes slowly, and KH is one area where it is easy to gradually raise it with crushed coral in your filter, or calciferous substrate/rocks/decorations in the tank.

Buffering capacity/alkalinity/KH are all terms used interchangeably in our hobby, and "buffering" your water is the same as raising KH, and is done almost always for the purpose of stabilizing pH, as fish don't react too much to KH levels in the tank, in that you can have extremely low KH or high KH and for the most part it won't make much difference to the fish. GH and pH are a little different in this regard, but pH is definitely a water parameter that it is best to leave alone unless you know what you are doing.

I keep crushed coral in media bags in the filters of several of my tanks, and I usually swap it out about every 3-4 months, rinsing the bag in between when I do filter maintenance. This is just my tanks with my own particular water parameters, but the way to tell is the crushed coral will literally dissolve and the contents of the bag will appear to decrease. Measure the KH in your water periodically and if it starts to drop again then give it a fresh supply of CC.

Some people use baking soda to raise their KH at water change time, and if you do that just remember to do your water change and baking soda dose the same way and at the same time intervals. You have to test it by taking a large sample of tank water and dosing small increments of baking soda to measure the increase in KH and calculate how much you need for your tank, but I am sure you can get a guide for that from someone here who uses this method. I am lazy and would rather let a bag sit in my filter, though it is less precise.

Keep in mind, adding a buffering agent, whatever way you go, will very slightly raise your pH, but only by a couple of tenths per dKH, as evidenced by this experiment posted on The Krib:

In order learn something about the relationship between Ph, Kh, and
buffering, I conducted the following experiment.

Using a 5-gallon bucket of water that I removed from my aquarium in the
course of a normal water change, I began adding Baking Soda in 1/4
tablespoon doses, resulting in the following results.

Dose Ph Kh (dH)

0 / 6.5 / 4
1 / 6.6 / 5
2 / 6.7 / 6
3 / 6.8 / 9
4 / 7.0 / 11


In doing the Ph tests, I actually have 5 test tubes, so I can lay them side
by side on white paper, and see straight progression of color from 6.5 to
7.0.

 

[caudelfin]

Now I see I am in some trouble. I wanted to lower the pH and raise the KH. Seems that is impossible. I wanted to have a pH of 6.8 to 7.0 with a KH of about 5. Now is seems if I raise the KH the pH will rise also. So perhaps I will change the type of fish that I was looking it, to some who like a higher pH around 7.6 to 8.0 and a KH of 6.5 to 8.0. I will just have to experiment and see how it ocmes out and look for some fish who are happy with the higher pH and KH. I wanted a few Pelvicachromis pulcher but Baensch says they like 8 - 12 dGH and pH 6.5. Now if only they liked a DH of 8 and pH of 7.8.

I am sure there are those who use baking soda, but in years past that was a no-no. I guess people had not experimented enough to know how to use it properly.

 

[czcz]

GH and KH aren't the same. I believe you can raise GH with MgSO4 (Epsoms Salt) while leaving KH alone.

 

[greenmaji]

I was reading on thekrib.com how to rase KH while leaving PH as it is I just cant find it right now.. it was Calcium Bicarbonate or some other calcium salt.. Im just not sure.. but the information is there to be found... I Hope this Helps..