Skai's Re-Build Diary

[Skai]

So, after losing all but one fish to Ich (this fish is now known as Ripley) I've decided to rebuild my main tank as a planted tank. Ripley is in another smaller tank with two new buddies since Ripley is in fact a tetra (a very stubborn tetra it seems) and I didn't want her alone in there. It seemed a bit cruel. And now I've cleaned up the old tank, replaced some things and am restarting it completely.

The tank is a 35 gallon hex with a Aquaclear 50 filter and I just upgraded my light to something a bit better for plants. I'm starting my cycle now with the few plants I already had and no actual fish. I've read some articles to help out with this and I have some ammonia already.

I do wonder if there's a simple way of figuring out about how much ammonia is needed to get the ppm up high enough to start the cycling. Anyone have a nice cheat sheet for that? I've never done a fishless cycle before or a full on planted tank so this should be an interesting learning experience... I'll update with more information in a bit.

 

[Skai]

So, I asked my microbiologist mother to help me figure out about how much ammonia will be needed to add to my tank to get 4ppm and we set about calculating it out. I'm going to put the method I used here in case anyone's curious.

First step is to translate your gallons to litres. So my 35 gal would be 132.489 litres.

Next step is to multiply that by the amount of ppm you want. In this case it's 4 so that's 529.956. I used miligrams per litre for my calculation and this is assuming that you're using pure ammonia.

In order to get that into a more useable number you then have to convert it. I changed it to ounces. Then ounces to tsp. Therefore what I came up with is 0.11216188668 tsp.

Then you have to multiply that by how many litres you have (since the calculation is mg/l singular). So that makes it 14.86 tsp. Or a little under a 1/3 cup for me.

Of course math is hard so first time through this little calculation I came up with half a cup instead and so added that. I redid my math when I went... that doesn't seem right. So I've done a PWC to get the ammonia back down closer to 4ppm.

To those of you out there reading is there any 'oh noes' when you add a bit too much ammonia. Since there's no fish in there I'm not too terribly worried but any thoughts on the subject are welcome.

Ratios for Parts per Million, ppm, doseage and Metric Conversion Tables this website is where I found the ppm calculation we used to help out.

 

[Skai]

Okay, so whilst I'm cycling the tank I've been thinking of the plants and fish I want to go into it. I really was looking to add real wood but I've never used it before. The lady at the aquarium store said that it'll discolor the water and lower the pH slightly. I know it's generally a good idea to boil it to get rid of tannins that'll discolor the water but will that reduce the amount of pH change that happens when adding it?

I don't want a really huge piece as the tank is more vertical and doesn't have a lot of footprint for decorations. About how much would a small piece of wood affect pH? Just a .2-.3 change? My water tends to run about 7.2 anyway so if it's that small of a drop it would actually be perfectly fine. Do different wood types affect the water quality differently or is it pretty much just what happens when using real wood? (I didn't think wood would be so complicated a matter lol)

 

[Skai]

So, just a little update. Pretty much just going through the cycle. The ammonia I've been adding is dropping well and the Nitrites and Nitrates are starting to build up. The Nitrites are already way off the color chart and the Nitrates seem to be in the middle at about 30 ppm. Because the API test kit jumps from 20 to 40 I can only really guestimate at what it actually is since the color seems somewhere between the two.

Just chugging along with everything. I did clean off a bunch of algae today from the glass and several rocks along with a few plant leaves it seemed very fond of. It took a little while to grow in there but if it comes back really fast I might have to adjust my set up to deal with it.

 

[Mebbid]

There are ammonia calculators for figuring out a dosage to get a certain ppm they are plastered all over with a Google search.

Dont worry too much about rhe tannins and ph. It doesn't make a big difference unless you let the water get really dark.

You can also just leave the lights off. This will prevent algae growth.

 

[Skai]

There are ammonia calculators for figuring out a dosage to get a certain ppm they are plastered all over with a Google search.

Dont worry too much about rhe tannins and ph. It doesn't make a big difference unless you let the water get really dark.

You can also just leave the lights off. This will prevent algae growth.

Yes, but the live plants I have sort of need the light. Right now it's on a timer so I might fiddle with how long the lights are on for but removing it entirely seems unwise.

 

[Skai]

Okay, so much sooner than I anticipated the chemistry of my tank is all reading 0 ppm. I'm dosing with more ammonia to double check that it fully cycled though before beginning stocking. I was expecting it to take another week at least so I'm a bit caught off guard and haven't finished my stocking plan. My original intention when I got the tank was for angels but now I'm reading that they would be better in an even larger tank so I'm looking for a fish of a similar look but that doesn't get as big. I might have to scrap the idea entirely but we'll see. I might put a Beta in there to be the sort of centerpiece fish but I wouldn't add him in first at all. Still thinking really. Nothing set in stone so if you guys have any nice stocking ideas let me have 'em. Oh, and if anyone has any experience with Otos I've been thinking about them as well so I'd like to know more about them.

 

[Skai]

So, update. Long overdue but at least it is one?

I ended up going with simple Swordtails in this tank for a while, mostly because my mother loves sword tails. I even had some Green Swords breeding and got a couple living fry that made it to a decent size. Impressive as I had no real intention of raising them.

However, the swords are now gone (all but one baby that is about the size of a neon tetra now). So, I'm using the tank to grow out two yellow Veiled Angels to eventually add to the big tank downstairs. The plants in this tank have really started looking wonderful and I added some nerite snails to handle algae. I have a clown pleco in here but... I almost never see it. It stays hidden in the tree sculpture all the time. It didn't seem to like the sort of algae that was growing in the tank but the snails certainly do. I've toyed with the idea of moving the pleco to the bigger tank but don't know if I will or not.

I also have a small school of cardinal tetras along with 2 neons. The neons were left after their other school died so we've been replacing with cardinals. Hopefully a little more hardy of a species. I'm not sure what I'll do with this tank once I finish growing out the angels. I've toyed with the idea of making it a brackish tank and getting a small puffer of some sort but that's in the future.