Cycling and pH Q's

S

Spaceman Spiff

AC Members
Mar 2, 2006
7
0
0
Hi. I'm new here and am starting an Eclipse 6gal. After reading up on fishless cycling on this site, I started the tank with RO DI water and added 3 inches of Flourite substrate. Since I don't have another source of established bacteria, I started the tank with Stability and ammonium hydroxide - I have access to the good (27% ACS) stuff. I started the tank approx. 2 weeks ago but have only added Stability the past weekend as it didn't come on time. I've dosed it approx. 5ppm of ammonia. Currently the tank is reading close to that amount, it's hard to tell with the color chart they include in the kit - but I'm going to set up an acid base titration for pinpoint accuracy. I have not yet tested for nitrites/nitrates as the ammonia is still high.

Since I've added basic ammonium hydroxide to the tank as the ammonia source, the pH of the tank currently is around 8.5 or so. The water is cloudy as well. The flourite substrate, although rinsed many times, still kicks up a lot of small particulates - it happens every time I disturb the substrate bed as well. Hopefully some of the cloudiness is attributed by the growing bacteria colony.
- Should I be concerned about the pH now? I guessing that the pH will drop once nitrites/nitrates are produced correct?

- When can I add live plants? Would the cloudiness of the tank be a concern since I'll be disturbing the bed and kicking a lot of particulates?

Thanks all in advance.


- Spiff
 
I believe its not the best idea to use RO-DI water for freshwater aquaria as it is basically stripped of all minerals and traces - things you need for fish (and plants - as it looks like you want to plant it).
It also has no buffering capacity and the pH could be swinging all over the place.

Is there any reason why you dont want to use tap water ?

And another thing - if you want to plant it then its not necessarily needed to cycle the tank. Of course that depends on what kind of plants and how many you want to use.

So maybe you could provide some more information concerning your lighting, plans for plants and maybe even fish you want to put in there once the cycle is finished.
 
Last edited:
I didn't know that I shouldn't use RO-DI. I figure I start with water that is really clean and dose in whatever I needed. In my case would minerals and such leech back in from the substrate and such?

I have access to the water and didn't think twice not to use it. My tap water is hard, so I'd figure I start clean slate.

Lighting wise, it's whatever the Eclipse has on it, which I believe is an 8 watt fluorescent - which should be enough as it gives 1.3 watts per gallon.

In terms of fish, I'm thinking about either a betta or several neon/cardinal tetras.

Any advise is appreciated. Thank you.

- Spiff
 
I asume that you are reconstituting the RO DI water with salts. Freshwater aquarists use RO DI water for many reasons. I do. And I add salts to establish a proper water chemistry for my freshwater fish. I use RO water because of the phosphates in my tap water.

Ammonia has a high pH, around 11. So ammonia will increase pH. But once the nitrite and nitrate form the pH should drop.

If you wanted a planted tank, you idealy should have planted the tank first. The best way to start a planted tank is simply to add a lot of plants to a tank and add fish.

In a densely planted tank cycling isn't really necessary, contrary to popular belief. Plants take up ammonia more than they do nitrite or nitrate, so cycling just a waste of time.

You should have just planted the tank heavily and added a small population of fish.

If I were you I would stop adding ammonia and start adding plants as soon as the ammonia drops a bit.
 
Rusty,

What kind of salts are you refering to, aquarium salt? I have not yet reconstituted the water, so thanks for the advise. I new to the freshwater scene and am trying to set up a small tank for my son.

When you reconstitute the water, you're simply adding back the metals of importance to the water correct? Stuff like magnesium, calcium, etc. right? Another question would be, how much of the metals is required? And wouldn't some of them be leeched back from the substrate? Thanks.
 
Spaceman Spiff said:
...When you reconstitute the water, you're simply adding back the metals of importance to the water correct? Stuff like magnesium, calcium, etc. right? Another question would be, how much of the metals is required? And wouldn't some of them be leeched back from the substrate? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Using RO/DI water and reconstituting it like rusty suggested is of course possible BUT the big question still remains - why go through all the trouble ?

Unless you have high ammonia (or chloramine), nitrite or nitrate in your tap i'd just use tap water - and mix it with RO/DI (you mentioned you have easy access to it) to desired hardness/ pH level.
Why spend money on things like buffers, calcium, magnesium additives if its already in the water. (aquarium salt is useless for any of this by the way)
Did you test your tap yet to see if besides the hardness it seems unsuitable for aquaria use ?

I also dont think the substrate leeches much into the water to bring the trace elements to desirable levels - if that was the case planted tank enthusiasts could stop dosing micro nutrients (traces) aslong as they have a micro nutrient rich substrate (like flourite) - which they can't.

And coming back to your plan to plant it - i wouldn't even wait for the ammonia to drop (which could take a long time) - just do a large waterchange - 80% and plant it with as many plants as you can/ can afford. Test to make sure the ammonia is 0 - and when it is you can add a few fish.
 
Last edited:
A lot of advanced aquarists use RO DI water for their freshwater fish. The reasons are phosphates, hard water, heavy metals, nitrates and nitrates from farm runoff, well water, etc....

The salts used to reconstitute the RO water are usually a mixture of calcium, magnesium, and a few more elements. There is no need to add them one at a time since there are prepared mixtures sold for this purpose. Here are some name brands:

Kent Marine RO Right

SeaChem Equilibrium

There is an article called "In The Mix: Reconstituing RO Water" in Tropical Fish Hobbyists Magazine / March Issue 2006

The substrate is not going to provide enough minerals to reconstitute RO water.

But I want to make it clear that we are talking about pure RO water. If you are re-mixing RO water with some tap water for the aquarium then you won't need to reconstitute.
 
What's the KH? Make sure it's above 3.

With 1.3 WPG, you're going to be a bit limited in the types of plants you can support--I wouldn't focus on many of the rooted plants other than crypts, but instead focus on the 'clinging' plants like anubias. This means that the substrate won't be critical. Since you've started with the fishless cycle, I would complete it before adding the plants--one less thing to worry about at a time.

In terms of the dust from the substrate--no, it's not really indicative of bacterial activity, nor is any cloudiness currently in the water (more on that later). It will reduce as the bacteria colonize those surfaces, make them 'sticky'. The dust is actually great bio-media, since the smaller particles provide much more surface area for the bacteria to colonize than a similar volume of larger particles.

The reason the water cloudiness is not related to the nitrogen-consuming bacteria colonies is that the bacteria you're working to establish are not free-floating. The bacteria you want grow attached to items within the tank--hence the desire to provide items with high surface area, like sponges and sand and dust. The cloudiness may be bacterial in nature--there are lots of types of bacteria that grow in our tanks, and many of them are in fact, free swimmers. These are not bad bacteria, and really, At the first stages of a new tank, there's no reason to worry about these other bacteria--they are harmless.
 
Thanks guys for the advice. I'll try the reconstitution method first since I've already have the water in there and am in no hurry to set up the tank. With my tap, I have no idea what I'll get in there besides trace metals - so I figure it's better to start off with nothing. I'll look into which plants to buy in the meantime. Would ordering from liveaquaria be a good choice?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom