My girlfriend has a pond that's been running, with fish in it, for a few years. There is a lot of hair algae in it right now, and I was wondering if I can squeeze bacteria from it. Also, I tested the water and, as expected, no ammonia or nitrites and very little nitrates if any (my test strip measured none). Could I use the water for a faster cycling, too?
Cycling short cut?
- Thread starter La Barbe
- Start date
No, not the water but the mud at the bottom would have all of the bacteria you could need. How to keep that from making a mess is another story.
Toss the strips and get a good water test kit like the API freshwater master kit. Strips are not very reliable. How are your fish from last night's escapade? And how's your tap water?
The problem with strips is that they are very sensitive to moisture. If you keep the lids tight and the desiccant fresh they can give good results. I buy them if I am going to test the water every 12 hours. I back it up with liquid tests every few days.
Once the bottle has even a drop of water in it the tests no longer work. They tend to pull humidity from the air every moment the lid is open. I have to do a lot of lab work at my day job so keeping them fresh has been easy for me and I have never had a bad reading. Vague but never bad.
Once the bottle has even a drop of water in it the tests no longer work. They tend to pull humidity from the air every moment the lid is open. I have to do a lot of lab work at my day job so keeping them fresh has been easy for me and I have never had a bad reading. Vague but never bad.
if there are any rocks in there you could try that but i would be careful as rocks could mess with your KH and PH. Perhaps there is some kind of small decoration or object that is porous that will definately contain a ton of bacteria all over it.