Looking for compatibility opinions --- community with Angel fish

[mudraker]

Thats great you are going out of town. It will help keep you from obsessing on the cycle, which I always do anyway.

 

[elysekuf]

Alright, well, my cycle's still not doing anything. I just wanted to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong. I formally started my cycle December 20 with a dosing of 4ppm ammonia. It's been 12 days.

Current parameters:
Ammonia: 3ppm (this is actually down 1ppm)
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm
pH: 7.8 (our tap water is around 7.4-7.6)
Temp: 85 degrees F

Other things of note:
- I did seed the tank with about a cup of gravel from the local LFS
- Because I'm impatient/curious, I also used a container of biozyme on the 21st, and tetra safestart on the 28. Obivously, these have failed to do much.
- I also have two anubias of some sort in the tank currently. They actually seem to be looking healthier of late.

The water at the moment is pretty yellowish. I haven't done any PWCs. I haven't really seen much of a bacterial bloom, but the water is a bit yellowish in tone.

We're running a 30gallon aquaclear with sponge > carbon > biomax. (we'll be adding a 70gallon about halfway through the stocking. when it's time to change this carbon, i think i might remove it altogether and do sponge > biomax > sponge). We've also got an airpump going with a long airstone along the back and a second smaller airstone in the corner. The water level has dropped about 1.5" so between the airstones and the filtration, there's plenty of air.

So, that's our whole situation at the moment. On the fishless cycling for dummies article in this forum, I read that I should expect nitrites sometime in the second week. We're two days away from week 3 and still nothing, so I'm starting to get a bit antsy. Is there anything that looks wrong or fishy (hehe)?

 

[elysekuf]

Okay, well, a few interesting things have happened in the last two days.

Yesterday's readings:
Ammonia: 3ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm
pH: 7.6
Temp: 85

Today:
Ammonia: 3ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 7ppm
pH: 7.6
Temp: 85

So the nitrate has started increasing rather abruptly without seeing any increase in nitrites. I'm wondering if I maybe missed the appearance of nitrites because of the plants? They actually seem to have been growing, and their leaves are looking a much healthier green.

Also, I haven't redosed ammonia since day one when I dosed to 4ppm. Should I add more? Also, the water has gone down another .25-.5 inch, so it's about 2 inches down -- should we add some more water/treat it and everything, or leave things be?

And, is the nitrate a sign of the cycle taking hold, or is it something else entirely?

 

[cabezon]

You haven't redosed ammonia? I think your test kit is faulty. I don't see how you could have any ammonia after a month.

 

[elysekuf]

Well, it hasn't been a month, it's been two full weeks. Ammonia took another dive yesterday to 1.5ppm, and nitrites went up some, not to the full .25ppm, but definitely not a 0ppm blue. nitrates are holding at 7ppm.

I think we're actually moving along now. We'll see what happens

 

[mudraker]

Plants can slow down a cycle by eating the ammonia before enough bacteria can form to turn it into nitrite, then into nitrate.

I wonder why you were showing nitrates before nitrites?

According to Floyd, liquid tests can read nitrites as nitrates and shouldn't be trusted during cycling. I wonder if this is an example of that...

 

[elysekuf]

That would be pretty interesting.

And I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the plants were eating some of the ammonia. Should we go ahead and redose?

And perhaps getting test strips is worthwhile, in that case?

 

[mudraker]

For the dosing of more ammonia, I'm not qualified to say, but there are plenty of others on the forum who are.

The test strips are just known to be wildly unreliable. Stick with the liquid, because the nitrite test itself will simply be more accurate. Your nitrate testing will be accurate too, once your cycling is complete.

 

[elysekuf]

Gotcha.

I'll just sit tight then and wait. I was planning on redosing once ammonia dropped below 1ppm, near 0. I'll just wait for that.

 

[CuriousWoRm]

Hello,
I just wanted to give my two cents on my similar experience.
I also have a 29g which I finished setting up about 6months ago. I have a picture in my profile. It's medium planted but will get thicker as the plants continue to grow. I still keep it trimmed to give the fish plenty of space but not to much encase they want a spot to relax in. I have 1 koi angel fish in the tank at medium size for his growth. I have 2 male dwarf neon red gouramis as well. Both were introduced about a week apart from eachother and seem to have gotten along just fine the past several months. I've also have 3 swordtails in the tank which were purchased with the gouramis. You can click 'my tanks' link next to the post and see what else is in there. They all seem to be doing fine along the lines of getting together. Soon as I show them the yellow container of food they all run to the right corner of the tank. Generally just a lot of happy bouncing off eachother. No one has had a nip in the fin yet. The only small problem I see is with the two gouramis which tend to bully one another with a short burst chase in the tank, but still no fin nip marks and they seem to be best buds after sitting next to eachother.

 

[elysekuf]

Thanks! It's good to hear that gouramis and angels are getting along together, but I think hubby and I have decided to air on the side of caution and thus are planning on 12 cardinal tetras, 6 false julii corys, 1 bristlenose pleco and an angel

As for the cycling, we've made some good progress! Though there have been a couple interesting 'crashes'. The nitrates which were reading high out of nowhere crashed from 40ppm on the 8th to 3.0 on the 9th, which was obviously odd. I have no real explanation. They've started to rise slowly since then. The only thing I can figure is that the plants and perhaps some diatom growth consumed it rapidly? Maybe?

The other interesting 'crash' was pH, which went from a steady 7.4 (whose 'reign' ended on the 9th) to 6.8 on the 10th to 6.4 today. Is that a normal change? What could cause a drop in pH like that?

In both cases, are these things I should be concerned with? Is there anything I can do to prevent them, or is this just normal cycling craziness?

Otherwise, things are going well. Nitrites showed up on the 4th and are currently peaked past 5.0ppm somewhere. Ammonia levels drop from 3.0 to 0.0 in just over 24 hours, so I'm redosing ammonia regularly now.

 

[ejaramillo01]

You are almost there, once the Ammonia start to drop to 0 ppm in 24 hours, you will see that soon the Nitrites will suddenly drop to 0 too.

One of this days you will see it, at least that was my experience with my 26G tank, the Ammonia was dropping daily ( I was adding up to 4 ppm), and the Nitrites were out of the chart for about 6 days, and then, one day they just dropped!!

I hope that this is your case also.

 

[elysekuf]

I'm getting pretty excited about it!

But something a bit frightening happened today -- our tank, which we purchased used on craigslist, apparently just cracked. We're looking for a replacement currently, and might just spring for a larger 55 gallon, but in the meantime is there anything we can do to prevent the leak from spreading?

 

[elysekuf]

New tank purchased, husband transfered everything over. I'm stuck on campus for a few more hours, but when I get home I'll be testing parameters. I had him add the recommended dosage of Prime plus some extra. We upgraded to a 36g bowfront, which isn't a huge upgrade, but it's what we could afford.

I'm nervous that our cycle will be damaged and have to start over. :\

But, the good that comes out of this is that we added a nutrient rich substrate beneath the gravel this time for our plants.

 

[elysekuf]

Okay, so operation transfer tank is complete. Now we'll wait and see what it did to the cycle. Last night ammonia was around 1.0ppm, this morning it was at .5ppm and I redosed. Nitrites and nitrates were also still present last night. This morning the tank was still cloudy, but I'm not too worried.

I am a little worried that our AquaClear 30 isn't sufficient even for cycling now with our new 36g? I was already planning on adding an auxiliary 110, but should I add it sooner now?

Finally, with the extra 8 gallons, would it be okay or not to consider adding 4-5 kuhli loaches to the tank plan? My husband really likes the idea of eel-like fish in our aquarium. A concern I have for kuhlis is that they're known to burrow -- how does that work with a Python? And just in general, what happens if a fish somehow ends up in your gravel tube when you're vacuuming?

Overall, hopefully this unexpected upgrade doesn't stall the cycling process too much!!

 

[Deep Seven]

As long as you didn't kill the bacteria on the filter you should be fine.

I'd spring for a new filter as soon as you can, and run the tank with both filters for a month or two. As long as you didn't dry out the filter or wash it in tap water or something you should be fine. Building up bacteria is more about the quantity of fish in the tank then it is about tank size.

 

[ejaramillo01]

+1 to running the two filters at the same time for a month, after that you can decide to keep both or remove the small one

Keep us posted with your readings

 

[elysekuf]

The cycle seems to be fine and unaffected. The filter wasn't dry or washed, so I think we'll be fine.

I intend to run both the 110 and 30 simultaneously for the long term anyway, so it's not a matter of swapping one for the other at least not for a while! But, I'll go for the 110 in a couple of weeks or so.

also, out of antsyness, I'm think of going ahead and planting our tank while we wait beyond the two anubias we have. I was thinking Java Fern, Java Moss, Ruffle Plant, Watersprite and some more various anubias? Are any of those particularly difficult to grow or problematic in some way? I tried to find ones that were rated easier.

New tank specs as far as plants go:
-36g bowfront
- 1.5" nutrient rich substrate
- 1.5" smaller, smooth gravel
- 8,000K, 15w fluorescent light
- a long air stone along the bank, and two smaller air stones.

So are those plants do-able? How many of each should we get?

Also, to reiterate another question I had posted earlier (since the upgrade), would 5 kuhli loaches be acceptable given our new tank size, so that our final, end-goal species mix is:
- 12 cardinals
- 6 false juliis
- 4-5 kuhli loaches
- 1 bristlenose
- 1 angelfish?

If so, since kuhlis are known burrowers, is it a common problem to accidentally start to suck one up when you use your Python? I'm nervous I'd accidentally nab one!

 

[elysekuf]

So here's a fun update:

The last few days I've been very suspicious that our nitrate test has been wrong. That random jump to 30ppm and then sudden drop to 5 was just very, very odd.

So I finally decided tonight to take a sample into our LFS to test it and see if I was crazy or not.

The nitrates were sky high, as suspected. I'm also pretty certain now that my initial rise in nitrates was a signal that the cycle was complete and that my tank was capable of converting nitrites afterall.

After being chastised by the LFS shopkeep for doing a pure ammonia fishless cycle (he said it showed lack of patience. pfft. We've been staring at an empty tank for almost six weeks, I think that shows plenty of patience!). Needless to say I ignored his chastisement. Regardless, we went ahead and did a 70% water change tonight. Our AquaClear 110 filter came in today as well, so we're now using that plus our 30 filter. I'm leaving the tank alone for the next couple of hours to settle, then testing and adding some ammonia. If ammonia and nitrites are 0 tomorrow night, and nitrates are below 20*, I'm going to call it good.

I'm sure now this guy will recognize us and demand a water sample before relinquishing fish to us, which is fine, I suppose.

And I also got a new nitrate and pH test kit, too, since those were the ones that varied the most.

We'll see what happens!
* Edited to add: Lower than 20, but higher than whatever I test the value as tonight in a couple of hours -- this is to show conversion if nitrites are at 0, which should be pretty solid, yes?

* Results an hour and a half after water change / prime / flourish: 1ppm ammonia (I had just redosed four hours prior to around 3-4ppm, so this was expected). What was more odd was that my nitrites, which were reading just under .5ppm before the water change, are now back above 5 somewhere? I'm about to test the tap water, though it's still odd seeing as I didn't have any nitrites at the beginning for sure, so I don't know what would have caused the crazy jump? Nitrate test is now believable and is showing 10ppm. I'll test again tomorrow, do another water change (50% this time, I think?), and then wait and test once more, redose ammonia if necessary (and it should be by then... the ammonia conversion rate has been between 12-16 hours) and then see what happens.

 

[BigJim]

Lack of patience indeed! Tell him you were saving fish from suffering.

Don't worry about what your nitrate levels are as long as you don't see any ammonia or nitrites after 24 hours. You control nitrates with PWCs, not your filter.

If all goes well, do a big PWC and get some fish!