Water Question...help!!
- Thread starter ej1698
- Start date
Its going through a cycle. research the many articles on this site on cycling and they will tell you exactly what is going on.
once you have the tank through the cycle process at least once a week. at least 50%.
Here is a cut and paste i use somewhere else.
The "Nitrogen Cycle" is something you need to acquaint yourself with. It constitutes what some refer to as the "break-in" period. The cycle begins as soon as you introduce an ammonia source to your tank. It really is a two-step process of growing the bacteria required to keep your tank balanced for your fish.
• Step 1: Grow nitrosomona. The bacteria that converts ammonia to nitrate. The ammonia is the result of excretions by the fish and dissolving organic compounds. A tank usually tops out at 10-12 ppm of ammonia. Which is a level highly toxic to fish. This process takes around 10-14 days. Then you begin to see the drop in ammonia.
• Step 2: The development of nitrobacter. This is the bacterium that converts the nitrite to nitrate. It is an overlapping phase with the development of nitrosomonas. Sometime around day 7-10 your colony of this bacteria begins to develop. Nitrobacter does not live well in an ammonia environment. That is why the nitrosomonas need to begin to do their work first. You should begin to see the nitrite level begin around day 10-14. The amount of nitrite builds to sometime around day 25. Usually peaks between 20-30ppm. Then it begins the down side of the curve. Depending on variables you should bottom out around day 30-40. At that point you should see 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. It is safe to begin adding fish. Just do it slowly so you don't overload the bio filter. it may need to grow to handle your load.
Now a caution: As the cycle continues you develop nitrates. There are variables to what fish tolerate what levels of nitrate. Depending on the types of fish I suggest you try to manage this level to between 5 and 20 ppm. You can do this by performing weekly, substantial water changes. Something in the 50% water change range usually accomplishes the task. At the same time as water changes you should be vacuuming the gravel. That helps reduce the amount of "stuff" (fish poop, decaying food, plant matter, etc.) that has built up on the substrate. You can keep the nitrate level down by avoiding overfeeding.
Most of the bacteria will be found in the colony that develops in the filter. You will find some of the bacteria in the gravel substrate.
An additional caution: The growth of the colony occurs primarily in the filter. So, if you are using carbon and floss and change that every three or four weeks you throw away the largest parts of the colony. I would suggest you not bother with carbon and just use floss and other materials for the mechanical filtration. At the same time add some “bio media” for the bacteria to inhabit. Then when you do water changes you can rinse the floss, as required, in the water that has been removed from the tank. This is also why I like the bio sponge in the filter. It can hold the colony. This should get rinsed monthly in the removed tank water. Never use tap water for this, because the chemicals in it will kill off most of the good bacteria.
I hope this helps. I believe it is pretty much accurate. You can double-check me by doing a search on "nitrogen cycle". There are a ton of good articles and papers out there that go well beyond this level.
Here are links to a few of them:
http://fish.orbust.net/cycling.html
http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html
http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_ciclo.php
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/start_up/start_up4.html
So if you think about the above you really want ammonia, and not fish—take a look at the following links as well. They explain something called “fishless cycling.” It accomplishes everything I went over above, but it doesn’t involve fish being put through all the stress and possibility of death that comes from a cycle. Here are just a couple of the many articles available out there on this topic:
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article14.html
http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_fishless.php
(somebody else keeps the links updated for me--hope these are good. have not read the links since i posted originals a couple of years back.)
Get a test kit. Test the water. Let some of that information drive the frequency of water changes. Also go to www.thekrib.com . Check out water chemistry and look for the pH and ammonia article. You can learn a lot there as well.
Here is a cut and paste i use somewhere else.
The "Nitrogen Cycle" is something you need to acquaint yourself with. It constitutes what some refer to as the "break-in" period. The cycle begins as soon as you introduce an ammonia source to your tank. It really is a two-step process of growing the bacteria required to keep your tank balanced for your fish.
• Step 1: Grow nitrosomona. The bacteria that converts ammonia to nitrate. The ammonia is the result of excretions by the fish and dissolving organic compounds. A tank usually tops out at 10-12 ppm of ammonia. Which is a level highly toxic to fish. This process takes around 10-14 days. Then you begin to see the drop in ammonia.
• Step 2: The development of nitrobacter. This is the bacterium that converts the nitrite to nitrate. It is an overlapping phase with the development of nitrosomonas. Sometime around day 7-10 your colony of this bacteria begins to develop. Nitrobacter does not live well in an ammonia environment. That is why the nitrosomonas need to begin to do their work first. You should begin to see the nitrite level begin around day 10-14. The amount of nitrite builds to sometime around day 25. Usually peaks between 20-30ppm. Then it begins the down side of the curve. Depending on variables you should bottom out around day 30-40. At that point you should see 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. It is safe to begin adding fish. Just do it slowly so you don't overload the bio filter. it may need to grow to handle your load.
Now a caution: As the cycle continues you develop nitrates. There are variables to what fish tolerate what levels of nitrate. Depending on the types of fish I suggest you try to manage this level to between 5 and 20 ppm. You can do this by performing weekly, substantial water changes. Something in the 50% water change range usually accomplishes the task. At the same time as water changes you should be vacuuming the gravel. That helps reduce the amount of "stuff" (fish poop, decaying food, plant matter, etc.) that has built up on the substrate. You can keep the nitrate level down by avoiding overfeeding.
Most of the bacteria will be found in the colony that develops in the filter. You will find some of the bacteria in the gravel substrate.
An additional caution: The growth of the colony occurs primarily in the filter. So, if you are using carbon and floss and change that every three or four weeks you throw away the largest parts of the colony. I would suggest you not bother with carbon and just use floss and other materials for the mechanical filtration. At the same time add some “bio media” for the bacteria to inhabit. Then when you do water changes you can rinse the floss, as required, in the water that has been removed from the tank. This is also why I like the bio sponge in the filter. It can hold the colony. This should get rinsed monthly in the removed tank water. Never use tap water for this, because the chemicals in it will kill off most of the good bacteria.
I hope this helps. I believe it is pretty much accurate. You can double-check me by doing a search on "nitrogen cycle". There are a ton of good articles and papers out there that go well beyond this level.
Here are links to a few of them:
http://fish.orbust.net/cycling.html
http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html
http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_ciclo.php
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/start_up/start_up4.html
So if you think about the above you really want ammonia, and not fish—take a look at the following links as well. They explain something called “fishless cycling.” It accomplishes everything I went over above, but it doesn’t involve fish being put through all the stress and possibility of death that comes from a cycle. Here are just a couple of the many articles available out there on this topic:
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article14.html
http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_fishless.php
(somebody else keeps the links updated for me--hope these are good. have not read the links since i posted originals a couple of years back.)
Get a test kit. Test the water. Let some of that information drive the frequency of water changes. Also go to www.thekrib.com . Check out water chemistry and look for the pH and ammonia article. You can learn a lot there as well.