Hello and Happy New Year to all you wonderful folks!
This is my first post, so please forgive if I don't have correct font, etc.
My husband got a 29 g tank for Christmas. Because of physical limitations on his part I’m the one who put together the stand & set up the tank & will be doing the maintenance. He had a 110 g tank in the past. I’m a total newbie.
I rinsed all the gravel, decorations, fake plants, etc. really well and put into tank, added some water (treated for chlorine & chloramide) (no leaks!), rinsed filter, cartridge & heater (set for 76 deg F, & positioned them, rinsed & blew out airline, put in check-valve & attached it to the air-stone & air pump, added rest of the water, turned equipment on & let everything run. I then googled & did a crash course on cycling a tank, testing & everything else I could cram into my brain.
Soooooo, 2 days later I’m ready to get test kit, ammonia & to start fish-less cycle when hubby brings home 10 guppies. Yikes! sez I – run out & get test kit. Our water is hard, TH approx. 150 ppm GH, total alkalinity approx. 180 ppm KH (good buffering capacity, yes?), pH 7.4. He’s worried about pH – wants it to be 7.0. I try to explain Nitrogen cycle to him - try to tell him pH is fine its ammonia & nitrite we need to worry about. He grew up in the Bronx & kept fish before – need I say more??? LOL
I did a 10% water change after 24 hours which he told me not to bother with. Again I talked nitrogen cycle & good bacteria. Next day, 6 platies appear. SIGH. So I’m testing, not feeding much, doing water changes, crossing my fingers. Next day “the bloom”! SIGH Lost 3 guppies. Water change – more grief from hubby.
Today, nitrite < 0.5 ppm, nitrate 20 ppm. Tell hubby I will be doing another 10% water change to dilute the “baddies”. He says “Won’t that dilute the barteria?” BREAKTHROUGH! The good guys are NOT free-floating in the water, I explain, but growing as fast as they can on filter media, gravel, ornaments. Oh, he says. So I can now do water changes without grief. But he still doesn’t believe pH 7.4 is OK.
Now, my question. What can I do to keep the fish as comfortable as possible as the tank cycles?
This is my first post, so please forgive if I don't have correct font, etc.
My husband got a 29 g tank for Christmas. Because of physical limitations on his part I’m the one who put together the stand & set up the tank & will be doing the maintenance. He had a 110 g tank in the past. I’m a total newbie.
I rinsed all the gravel, decorations, fake plants, etc. really well and put into tank, added some water (treated for chlorine & chloramide) (no leaks!), rinsed filter, cartridge & heater (set for 76 deg F, & positioned them, rinsed & blew out airline, put in check-valve & attached it to the air-stone & air pump, added rest of the water, turned equipment on & let everything run. I then googled & did a crash course on cycling a tank, testing & everything else I could cram into my brain.
Soooooo, 2 days later I’m ready to get test kit, ammonia & to start fish-less cycle when hubby brings home 10 guppies. Yikes! sez I – run out & get test kit. Our water is hard, TH approx. 150 ppm GH, total alkalinity approx. 180 ppm KH (good buffering capacity, yes?), pH 7.4. He’s worried about pH – wants it to be 7.0. I try to explain Nitrogen cycle to him - try to tell him pH is fine its ammonia & nitrite we need to worry about. He grew up in the Bronx & kept fish before – need I say more??? LOL
I did a 10% water change after 24 hours which he told me not to bother with. Again I talked nitrogen cycle & good bacteria. Next day, 6 platies appear. SIGH. So I’m testing, not feeding much, doing water changes, crossing my fingers. Next day “the bloom”! SIGH Lost 3 guppies. Water change – more grief from hubby.
Today, nitrite < 0.5 ppm, nitrate 20 ppm. Tell hubby I will be doing another 10% water change to dilute the “baddies”. He says “Won’t that dilute the barteria?” BREAKTHROUGH! The good guys are NOT free-floating in the water, I explain, but growing as fast as they can on filter media, gravel, ornaments. Oh, he says. So I can now do water changes without grief. But he still doesn’t believe pH 7.4 is OK.
Now, my question. What can I do to keep the fish as comfortable as possible as the tank cycles?
