lifechooser

At the weekend I bought my aquarium, pumps, scenery etc.

On Monday, I found this site and read about cycling. So I put a couple of new rocks and filter material in with my goldfish.

On Tuesday the goldfish were set free into a relative's pond.

On Thursday I took the goldfish tank away, and replaced it with my new tank. I filled it with everything, including a few glass ornaments from my old tank, the new filter material that I had added to it, and another ornament borrowed from a friend with a tank several years old. The substrate is sand, the tank is only 15g (it looks huge to me!), there is one real plant, a bubbler and a sizeable filter which hangs on the back. Rinsing everything took a long time (I should've realised washing sand would be a chore!), so by the time the last bucket was in, I had to go out, no time to test things. I added a couple of fish flakes. There's a small dead pond snail in there too which didn't make the move from one tank to another (it's small and I accidentally washed it with the old gravel).

This morning, I added another couple of fish flakes.

Tonight, I got my test kit out for the first time;

Ph - 7.5
NH3 - scale doesn't go that low. 0.6 x 7.5ph gives less than 0.03ppm.
NO2 - 0.3
NO3 - 10.

If I had this after 2 weeks I'd be pleased and planning on buying fish soon.

After 1 day? I'm confused. Did my filter really get infused with enough bacteria? Could the current past my friend's shipwreck be doing the job?

tzqng8

You still have some Ammonia and Nitrites, so I wouldn't go adding fish just yet, but you are seeing Nitrates, so that is a good thing. You definately will have gotten some good bacteria if you used gravel or decorations from an established tank and you didn't let it get dry or stay out of the water too long.

I'll let others with more experience comment further.

Welcome to FishLore and good luck!

lifechooser

I didn't let anything dry. The borrowed shipwreck came with a small (2g?) bucket of water from their tank, which I added to my tank. It's just occurred to me that this could be my source of nitrates?

tzqng8

It is absolutely and almost definately the source of Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates if the tank it came from was not cycled. If it was cycled, then that is where the Nitrates are coming from and the Ammonia and Nitrites are coming from your fish food inclusion. Let the tank water filter through several more times (will happen naturally based off of the GPH rating of your filter) and continue testing. Patience will be your best bet at this point. You'll be good to go when you have 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites, and some Nitrates (5-20). A better method to fishless-cycle your tank rather than fish food can be found here.

Keep us posted. And we want pics!

COBettaCouple

It sounds like you're at the beginning of the cycle. I'm not sure how long it will take, but I've cycled a tank in a little under 3 weeks doing typical fishless cycling.

jdhef

Check your tap water for nitates. My tap water has 10ppm nitrates, so you may not have any nitrates from the cycle yet, only what is in your tap water.

John

lifechooser

Today's results (day 4). Tap water results in brackets.
Ph -- 7.5 (7.0)
NH3 - 0.6 (0) Stable
N02 - 0.8 (0) Up from 0.3
NO3 - 110 (0) This is as high as my kit goes. It's up from 10.

How am I progressing? Should I worry about the high level of nitrates already? I don't want to change water while cycling.

HatchetHaven

Just a quick Q: Are you using test strips or a liquid test kit?

pepetj

Ok, if you are using strips, be aware of the likelihood of false positive readings for NO3. If you are using liquid reagents, then I would suggest the following.
Control the ammount of ammonia by using drops of ammonia.
Add Xdrops of ammonia solution (without surfactants) until you attain a reading of 5ppm in NH3/NH4. Wait for 30 minutes and read for NO2. You need to register a spike in NO2 (off charts reading), if your reading is still rising, keep adding Xdrops daily. If you already have a reading like that, next day you add half X drops of ammonia solution. Keep doing readings daily, until two things happen:
a) Ammonia goes to zero in 12hours.
b) Nitrites begin to fade down.
Once Nitrites reach zero. You stop adding ammonia solution. Your readings of nitrates could be high, don't worry, just perform a total water change and you are ready to go.
Of course double check your water parameters before adding fish.

I usually get a small tank cycled in 11 to 13 days.
Good luck, thanks for being careful with your goldfish.
Welcome to Fishlore
Pepe
Santo Domingo

lifechooser

I'll see if I can get hold of some ammonia. I'm using a nutrafin mini master test kit (liquid). I might take some water to the LFS and see if they get similar results.

HatchetHaven

Good. Those test strips can be so inaccurate!

lifechooser

I didn't manage to get hold of any ammonia, but since I last posted, my ammonia levels have gone up.

Obviously my tank hadn't started cycling yet, which is why I was getting confused. I'm much happier now the ammonia has gone up and I know where I am.

Hopefully it will cycle soon enough and I'll be able to get some fish. I mean the bubbles are pretty, sure, but it's still just an empty tank of water.

Attached Images

empty tank.jpg (273.4 KB, 11 views)

jdhef

I like the airplane.

Shawnie

its a great looking tank...I adore the deco!!

COBettaCouple

Great theme to your tank!

lifechooser

Thanks. I'm trying to keep a sense of scale. It's going to have minnows and tetras, to keep the fish in scale with the airplane, rather than having the equivalent of giant monster fish. That's why I went for fine gravel/sand too.

It will improve a bit when it's cycled as some of the stuff will be removed.

I need to get a better photo without reflections or cloudyness. That pic is from my cameraphone. I need to get the SLR out.

Cheers guys