cowgrlw
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hi everyone,
After 5 weeks of fishless cycling, the tank has finally cycled! YAYYY!! For two mornings in a row, Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, and Nitrates are consistently just under 5 ppm. So I will definitely be fish shopping on Saturday -- at last!!
I won't be doing a water change because I did one 7 days ago and the nitrates are not high enough to warrant another one. The pH went up to 8.0 a few days after a 50% water change last Thursday, but it has dropped back to around 7.4 by itself. The fish I want to get (guppies and tetras) need the pH to be between 6.2 and 6.7, so I need to add a little filtered water to fix that. (Our filtered water is acidic.) But I'm wondering how to handle that once I get the fish settled.
I have put salt in the tank water right from the start. Yes, this is a freshwater aquarium but I understand that the salt is good for fish health and it is not in significant enough concentration to bother the fish. I have a US 29 gallon tank and I used 6 tbsps of salt to start, and I would normally top it up proportionally with each water change. (This is what we did with our pearlscale goldfish before, too.) I also use water conditioner even though we don't have chlorinated water (we're on a well), just for the overall fish health part of it.
So three questions:
1) How should I fix the pH level? I'm thinking of adding 2-4 cups of water at a time, then testing the water 20 minutes after each addition until I get to the proper level. Do you think that will work, or will it take ages that way? I haven't a clue how to do this.
2) I have to learn how much of the water I replace with in a pwc should be filtered water (i.e., acidic water) to keep the appropriate pH levels in the tank. That's going to take me a bit of time to do, as I've never had to figure this out before. Would it really bother the fish if the pH was messed up for a little while, but not constantly? I'm a little paranoid that our well water will hurt the little guys if I don't learn how to fix the pH up quickly enough. I have only today and tomorrow to experiment with it before the fish will be in there.
3) Do any/all of you add salt to your freshwater tanks? Is it a good idea, or am I just being overly cautious?
That's all for now. Thanks!
Wendy (excited for fish shopping in two days!)
After 5 weeks of fishless cycling, the tank has finally cycled! YAYYY!! For two mornings in a row, Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, and Nitrates are consistently just under 5 ppm. So I will definitely be fish shopping on Saturday -- at last!!
I won't be doing a water change because I did one 7 days ago and the nitrates are not high enough to warrant another one. The pH went up to 8.0 a few days after a 50% water change last Thursday, but it has dropped back to around 7.4 by itself. The fish I want to get (guppies and tetras) need the pH to be between 6.2 and 6.7, so I need to add a little filtered water to fix that. (Our filtered water is acidic.) But I'm wondering how to handle that once I get the fish settled.
I have put salt in the tank water right from the start. Yes, this is a freshwater aquarium but I understand that the salt is good for fish health and it is not in significant enough concentration to bother the fish. I have a US 29 gallon tank and I used 6 tbsps of salt to start, and I would normally top it up proportionally with each water change. (This is what we did with our pearlscale goldfish before, too.) I also use water conditioner even though we don't have chlorinated water (we're on a well), just for the overall fish health part of it.
So three questions:
1) How should I fix the pH level? I'm thinking of adding 2-4 cups of water at a time, then testing the water 20 minutes after each addition until I get to the proper level. Do you think that will work, or will it take ages that way? I haven't a clue how to do this.
2) I have to learn how much of the water I replace with in a pwc should be filtered water (i.e., acidic water) to keep the appropriate pH levels in the tank. That's going to take me a bit of time to do, as I've never had to figure this out before. Would it really bother the fish if the pH was messed up for a little while, but not constantly? I'm a little paranoid that our well water will hurt the little guys if I don't learn how to fix the pH up quickly enough. I have only today and tomorrow to experiment with it before the fish will be in there.
3) Do any/all of you add salt to your freshwater tanks? Is it a good idea, or am I just being overly cautious?
That's all for now. Thanks!
Wendy (excited for fish shopping in two days!)