New Aquarium Questions

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wildgator25

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First off, thank you for allowing me to join these forums. So far, they have been very informative and I believe I will find more than enough information for all my fish needs.
Anyways, to my questions. I have done a few searches, but I want to get some specific answers to my questions. I recently bought an Eclipse 3, 37 gallon aquarium for my wife (birthday present, 6/7 :) ) The instructions that came with the aquarium said that after 24 hours the tank should be ready for fish. Well, we went to the Petsmart this afternoon to get fish, tank would be ready at 6PM according to the 24 hr. instruction, but the guy at Petsmart said that for a 37 gallon tank, we need to wait 3-4 weeks. We carried a sample of water to Petsmart and he tested it and said that the Ammonia levels were high and the pH was 10. However, no chlorine or nitrates were present. One of my questions is how long do we have to wait? We bought a test kit, but I don't want to waste the materials in the kit if the guy is right and we have to wait 3-4 weeks.
Also, when the water is correct, we are thinking of going with tropical fish. What would be the best starters for our tank, how many of each, and when to add more?
Thank you all again and I hope this long message didn't put you to sleep. lol
 
Well first of all, do not follow the instructions on the box that the aquarium came from. They are trying to be "politically correct" so to speak, they are not considering the cycling process. Simply keeping water in an aquarium does nothing in the way of biologically cycling the aquarium. You need a source of ammonia to even start the cycling process. The modern method to do this is by going to your grocery store and buying ammonia in a bottle. Make sure it is pure, and that there are no additional additives... or things like perfum, dyes (coloring), and the like. Below I will attach some links to fishless cycling... and you can find some wonderful threads here at the forums in regards to fishless cycling.

Next, I'd like to talk about those rediculous readings that silly sales clerk gave you. Let me say, in America with fresh water which has been through filtration and such, you will not find a pH of 10. The highest I have heard of in our area of the world is like 8.8 to near 9.0 ...and even that is extremely RARE. ;) I would test that pH again to see the true reading. Your geographical location doesn't match with the false pH reading he supplied you with.

Ammonia really shouldn't be found in your tap water... however nitrates might be detected, but its usually not in any large amounts.

I also wouldn't go back to that fish store... because pH, Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates are very serious when it comes to the biology behind things. To provide you with these false readings concerns me.

Fishless Cycling Info
Fishless Cycling

More Info on Fishless Cycling
 
"safe to add fish after 24 hours" means that the chlorine will have dissapated. If you have chloramine, that is too bad. Chloramine requires water conditoners.

If there were ammonia levels in the tank, I have to wonder where they came from.

Get your own test kit, if the store used those strips, they are frequently off. The Aquarium Pharmacuticals master kit is fine, or Tetra.

If you find ammonia, come back and tell us about it. Meanwhile, call you water department and ask whether they use chlorine or chloramine, and whether there is ammonia in the water, or nitrates, or phosphates.. heck, just ask for the printed report! As a fishkeeper, that is the first thing you need to
know.

Then you will know what sort of water conditioners you need to get. And what sort of fish you may want to keep.

PS - Bravo on getting a larger tank, a very good idea to start with that size!
 
i just tested the water myself with an aquarium pharmaceuticals kit, my readings are:
ammonia .50
ph 7.0
hi level ph 7.4
hardness 4 degrees
nitrite 0
water has been in the aquarium for 29 hours. what do you suggest now?
thanks again
 
It's disconcerting that your tap water has ammonia in it - that's not good for fish (or anything that matter). The 3-4 weeks is to set up a population of bacteria that will convert ammonia (from fish waste) into something less toxic to aquatic critters. However, if you already have ammonia, that does present a problem...
 
Welcome to the forum. If you do a search for 'fishless cycling' you'll find a lot of info.
 
Originally posted by wildgator25
how can i elminate the ammonia with out the fish?
is it possible?
Click to expand...

As said the pount of Cycling an aquarium is to estabish a bio system of bacteria that breaks down different elements to an ultimatly harmless one......

Fish waster(ammonia) -------to-------- Nitirte -------to--------- Nitrate------------to---------Nitrogen------Gassed of surface of water---------------------------------HAPPY FISH :) :) :) :) :)

You can cycle a tank with a hardy tropical fish like danios or even goldfish (I did this once and will never do it again as its not nice watching fishs suffer.) not many people do it this way anymore for that reason.

Do a search on either this forums or google for "fishless cycling", "aquarium cycling", "fish cycling"

Cycling can take any length of time, becuase they are so many facters inluding your local water supply and which hemicals you treat with.

Kudos on the big tank, what it means is "the more water you have, the easier it is to keep your water parameters (amonnia, nitirte, PH etc) stable.
Once cycling you will have tons of room for fish, but without now what sizes/combinations you want to keep its impossible to give you a final stocking level. All you can do is slowly add fish and once the parameters of your water start to rise or you are happy then thats the limit :)

Best thing if you not sure about fish is too either post on here what you are thinkung about buying or indeed ask at the shop (most places can give basic info)

Welcome to the forums and indeed aquatics :)


EDIT: sorry, just relised I didnt really answer your question. As long as there is amonnia in the water the bid system will establish itself so dont wory about try to reduce the amount of ammonia as you need it so bacteria that eats it will grow and so on......
 
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Welcome.

Follow AFG's advice and check out the links. Fishless is definitely the way to go. Keep an eye in your KH & pH during the cycling, they will drop.

I strongly doubt (in agreement with AFG et al.) the readings you were given. Although I am somewhat impressed that the guy turned away your business, even though he didn't tell you the second half of the story.

RobUK, the nitrification process doesn't convert NO3 --> N2. NO3 is the final phase, you need water changes to get the nitrogen out of the tank. Think of nitrification as the process of adding oxygen to nitrogen species. So NH3 -> NO2 -> NO3.

The backwards process, denitrification, does produce N2 from NO3, but you REALLY don't want that in your tank.

edit: to summarize: set up everything, add enough NH3 (pure, from bottle) to get and keep a test kit reading of 5ppm (check once per day is enough). Test NO2 concurrently. If you can, get seed bacteria from filter media from established tank. Continue until no additional NH3 addition show no NH3 or NO2 readings. Test NO3 sporadically to verify.
 
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