Aquarium cycle

[saiwong]

Update:

Continuing my aquarium cycle.

for the past few days ...

ammonia levels around 0.1 ppm to 02ppm (so getting very close)

nitrite levels have always been around 0.25pppm

nitrate levels between 5ppm to 20ppm (been doing water changes when it gets too high)

odd thing is my tap water PH is 7 but when I test my aquarium water it is down to 6.
Think this is due to my KH being around 1 or 2.
I tried using crushed coral but only raised PH by 0.5 for a day or two before it fell back to 6. Now trying some egg shells to see if it helps.
Since I would like to keep guppies I don't want to get into a "cycled" state and then have to mess around the water parameters to make them suitable for the fish I wish to keep and subsequently "break" the aquarium cycle

Odd thing about the PH test ... NT Labs test results in 6 but using standard
litmus paper give a neutral result of about 7. Has anyone else experienced such differing results ?

Do you think I am close to "cycled" ?

How much egg shell should I use per gallon/liter of water?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Are you still adding 2ppm ammonia everyday?

 

[saiwong]

Are you still adding 2ppm ammonia everyday?

Yes, bottled ammonia to bring back up to 2ppm

 

[Aiken Drum]

I would change half the water get some fish. Those parameters are essentially zero.

What might be happening is the nitrogen cycle is removing KH quicker than the crushed coral is adding it into the water. A moderately stocked tank wont be putting anywhere near 2ppm ammonia in a day, so fish wont deplete the KH as much as your dosing ammonia will. That will give your crushed coral chance to replenish KH and it should stabilse everything. Monitor things though.

The eggshell wont add anywhere near as much KH as the crushed coral. I doubt you will notice any difference. If you really want a quick dose of KH, sodium bicarbonate.

 

[saiwong]

thanks Aiken for your advise. I probability go and get some fish sometime next week.

As previously mentioned I was only planning to get approx 3 guppies and start breeding them to slowly fill my aquarium. However, I understand with the "new" aquarium cycle process you end up with an aquarium that can handle a fully stocked tank as you have built-up sufficient bacteria level.

However, as I plan to only get a low number of fish, would this end up not giving the built-up bacteria sufficient ammonia (from the guppy fish) to consume and thus bacteria will start dying-off ?

Would it be better to change plan and purchase enough fish to 70% stock the aquarium so no bacteria is starved of ammonia and start dying off?

Since I did the aquarium "cycle" with 2 sponge filters I could purchase a new tank for future guppy fry and put one of the sponge filters in the new tank as it should have plenty of bacteria on it.

 

[Aiken Drum]

The bacterial colony will over time die off to the level of ammonia going in. But that wont happen overnight. As long as you keep the filters running so the water is oxygenated you shouldn't see significant die off for 2 or 3 weeks. If you have a few fish providing ammonia, much longer.

And remember as long as there is some bacteria in there your cycle will catch up quite quickly to higher bioload. I understand under ideal circumstances bacteria can double every day. Thats why cycling usually seems to take an age to get started and once you start to see progress it quickly finishes.