50 gallon rebuild

[aoessand]

I got 1 in their right now I'm working on getting the other 1 in there in the next day or two

 

[aoessand]

Day 16
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 80-160
ph 8.2

DW has been in the tank for about 5-6 hours now ph has not changed yet i still have another piece to get in, its soaking in the boiling water in the ice chest now, im really surprised how well ice chests hold eat btw lol it will still burn you in the morning from sitting over night lol

 

[jlk]

Sounds good!

 

[aoessand]

missed day 17

Day 18
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 80-160
ph 8.2

have been soaking the other dw piece for 2 days now, i think tomorrow will do it the water is just a very light yellow color so i hope after tomorrow it will be good. going to do a 50% water change as well tomorrow.

 

[aoessand]

Day 19

Ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 80-160
ph 8.2

 

[jlk]

How are you coming along with the dw?

 

[aoessand]

Last piece going in today hopefully

 

[aoessand]

Day 20
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 80-160
ph 7.8 the second piece of DW must have lowered it? or maybe its just because there is soo much in there now? im not really sure.

Here's some pictures of the tank it's not setup exactly how its going to be but it gives you some ideas what the driftwood looks like. also the DW with the pots in it wont sink yet thats why they are on there lol. it did soak in boiling hot water for 4 days of probably 2-3x change daily in an ice chest so i think it should be clean it just doesnt want to sink i guess.

 

[aoessand]

here are the pictures haha thought they sent with last one, sorry using cell phone so not best pix

 

[aoessand]

Day21
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 80-160
Ph 7.8

 

[aoessand]

well tests have been the same except ph is back at 8 im doing a couple of water changes over the next two days to get the nirtates down and then will be getting fish on friday/saturday

 

[jlk]

Sounds great!!!

 

[aoessand]

so ive done a 20gallon, a 35ish gallon,roughly, PWC and im still off the charts (nitrates) so i will be trying to take out as much water as i can tomorrow and hopefully i will at least be back on the chart haha. i also "rinsed" the filter media in the tank water, in the bucket, boy was that GREEN afterwards, scrubbed off all the algae i could find and visually the tank looks very clean lol just have to get those nitrates in check and then set up my aqua-scape figure no point doing that yet since i have to do the bucket method till my python gets here some time next week, **** amazon took 6 days just to ship!! also ive been fighting a snail infestation, showed up about a week ago guess i didnt rinse those petsmart plants off good enough so im wondering if there is anything i can add to the water while im doing these PWCs to get rid of them? and lastly is it safe to do water changes everyday and maybe even 2 a day till i get the nitrates in order? sorry for the length been a busy day.

edit also once i get the nitrates in order i will be putting my Red Ramshorn snails in and i need to get rid of the lil black nastys before hand because i read that they will mate with my red rams and i wont have reds anymore? if that happens i will def be getting a clown loach or something that eats them because while i find the reds appealing the browns just annoy me lol... im going to soak a piece of lettuce untill i find a better solution to getting rid of the brown/black nastys

 

[jlk]

One or two 100% water changes with conditioned, temperature-matched water should drop your nitrates down to tap level. It may even take three. I honestly dont know if ramshorns can breed with pond snails-you may want to ask in the invert section. If you dont want the pond snails, just keep manually removing them & their eggs & disposing of them. Anything that you could try & add to kill them may also affect your good bacteria as well as kill the the ramshorns. Good luck!

 

[aoessand]

well i got all the water down to like 1/2 inch left in the tank out and now im back on the CHART! lol im at 80 nitrates so another 100% water change and i should be ready for fish im hopping.

 

[aoessand]

Well its been a couple days still working on nitrates I've got them between 20-40 so tomorrow will be the day even if I have to do two pwc, I did two today one in the morning and just finished second one about 40 minutes ago. Python didn't get here till late or I would have done three lol.

 

[jlk]

Good luck!

 

[aoessand]

OK so I'm not sure what is going on I have done 3 100% pwc and numerous lesser amounts and I'm still between 20-40 I never bothered to measure my tap water is it possible that my tap water is that high? I'm doing another 100 pwc as I type its draining...

 

[jlk]

You don't know what your tap is? It's very possible it's in 20-40range! Check it & see how it looks!

 

[aoessand]

So I tested the tap and a bottle of water the tap looks like it is 10-20 bottle is 0 so I guess the test works right... should I be emptying the water out of the filters? I haven't ever taken the water out of the filters... I don't want to have to get 50 gallons of bottle water in fact that's not going to happen so am I screwed?