55g 'gradual' build

[The Trooper]

My nice new light blew up. Argh. I'm not a happy bunny, lets hope all pond solutions get this resolved, the unit had to be faulty, has only been on a few times and never for more than a couple of minutes.

Tank now has condensation trays former a cover/lid and i have also removed part of the inlet to raise the strainer off the floor.

 

[The Trooper]

Photos of today's progress. If I can call it that. 1 step forward 2 back I tell ya...

 

[GreenLily]

My nice new light blew up. Argh. I'm not a happy bunny, lets hope all pond solutions get this resolved, the unit had to be faulty, has only been on a few times and never for more than a couple of minutes.

Tank now has condensation trays former a cover/lid and i have also removed part of the inlet to raise the strainer off the floor.

Noooo!! Good thing it blew up with no fish in it, at least!!

 

[The Trooper]

Right, so today i've changed my wiring somewhat, previously i had everything running off 1 socket, that's 2 tanks in total with heater, filters etc. So i simply ran another extension from another socket and now my tanks are powered by 2 seperate sources, must be safer?

I done a test today, ammonia was gone, nitrites still very high, my ammonia seems to be disspearing very quickly, just need to wait for nitrates to show and then i should be good - how long should i be expected to wait for this to happen?

 

[Proflooney]

this is my 6th day since my ammonia first went to 0 and my nitrites are still through the roof. ppl tell me it takes longer almost twice as long for the nitrites to start going away as it does ammonia

 

[The Trooper]

this is my 6th day since my ammonia first went to 0 and my nitrites are still through the roof. ppl tell me it takes longer almost twice as long for the nitrites to start going away as it does ammonia

Just a waiting game then i guess. Should I does with ammonia every day or every second day?

 

[Proflooney]

whenever your ammonia goes to 0 dose with half what you originally started cycle with

if you started at 4 PPM then sb dosing it at at least 2 PPM

 

[The Trooper]

Thanks buddy. I best half my current dosage then. I'm just worried very high trites may stall the cycle

 

[Proflooney]

no you want the super high trites the trites are what the ammonia turns into which then turns into the trates.

you don't want to do anything but add fresh water to top off due to evaporation and make sure it is dechlorinated.

if you took 1 week to get ammonia to zero figure it will take around 2 weeks or little more after that to see any changes in your trites. your trites can drop to zero almost over night from what ppl tell me but they take abt twice as long as the ammonia.

right now I'm on day 12 so abt 6 days since my ammonia went to zero so hopefully by next weekend my trites will drop. I was hoping to have fish in the tank by xmas for grand kids but was told don't expect til abt new years.

this is cool for both of us cause we doing at end of year so our fish etc can officially start around Jan first which makes it cool for tracking and timing purposes its starting at beginning of year

 

[The Trooper]

Looks like ammonia and nitrites are dropping and i am pritty sure i have some 'trates too...

This is how it looks.

 

[Proflooney]

I am so jealous my trites are still out of the ballpark cant wait for them to come down

 

[The Trooper]

trates are still increasing, as are trites, ammonia is going within 24 hours so i'm getting there.

I got my replacement light, this one came with tropical bulbs so no blue one, i think i prefer it.








I've also noticed a problem with circulation, almost exactly half of my tanks has an oily film over the surface, i have another wave maker i could add to alleviate this.




Finally back on track though!

 

[The Trooper]

So in order to deal with the above circulation problem i have added another wave maker i had.




I have also tidied up the wiring and added a new 6 gang extension, looks alot better imo.




I'm a little confused with my test results, the nitrite initally appears to be present but if i leave the mix in the tube for a while, say half an hour-1hour it is reading no nitrites, i am assuming that this means they are present?

 

[Proflooney]

I would shake the heck out of the bottle and then add your drops take and shake the heck out of the tube after adding and read after 5 mins maybe the waiting 30 mins if causing the chems to seperate

 

[The Trooper]

Thanks Prof. That's what i thought.

 

[The Trooper]

No2 still very high and No3 seems to be increasing slowly...

Ammonia still going real quickly.

 

[The Trooper]

Such a nice shade of purple and red.

 

[GreenLily]

Oh, how pretty!

 

[The Trooper]

Shortened my tubing as I had too much excess. Less distance = more flow.

 

[Proflooney]

lol nice I have all tubing came with mine and the fish are fighting the current contunually its like a raging river underwater in there