High pH out of tap + fishless Stability cycling

Hi, everyone,

I have a few questions, but I'll try to be concise but thorough. I'm currently starting a 10-gallon tank for my soon-to-be 5-year-old because we can't have a furball pet due to allergies. Girl is collecting cicada shells, she wants a pet so bad. We're cycling with Seachem Stability and fish flakes (Prime at initial fill and one other time because, I don't know, I panicked for no reason). Tank has gravel, a castle, a seashell, some plastic plants, AquaClear 20 filter with carbon removed and polyfill added. Water has been cloudy since day 2. Heater is cranked to encourage bacteria growth.

It's day 4. Or 5. I should've written day one down.

I started testing with some strips, and our pH was off the charts. Ammonia readings were 0 to maybe 0.25 on the strips, tiny hint of nitrates. So, I tested against straight tap water and the strips looked the same, maybe a hair different here and there. So, I got the API Master Kit and ran tests on tap (sitting out all day) and tank. pH was my main concern, since I don't have fish yet and I'm early in a 'bottle cycle.'

Tap:
pH - 8.4 - Confirms the strip's 8.5+ reading
Ammonia - 0-0.25 ppm (I did two tubes, because I worried I miscounted drops, exactly the same)
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5

Tank:
pH - 8.2/3 - Definitely lighter than tap
Ammonia - 0-.10ppm (Again, two tubes, looked closer to the 0 than the tap, tho neither was solidly in the 0.25ppm slot)
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 4 (definitely lighter than the tap tube)

So, first: the pH. The LFS (not big box) steered me more toward unplanted vs. planted, but now it sounds like I need some pH intervention here (moss or driftwood?). The store sounded pretty confident, pre-test, that I wouldn't need to worry about the pH in our city. Our water is also very hard and we don't use any softeners. I'm assuming I need to find a good way to get the pH a little more friendly, in a stable way, before adding fish. I expected to discover tonight that my pH was high due to high ammonia, or that my test strips were bad. But it doesn't seem to be the case. We were aiming for 3-4 same gender guppies or a group of endlers and maybe some ghost shrimp for our little tank, but I think this pH is high even for them? What would you recommend for safely lowering pH and encouraging stability? I've read about plants, moss (balls or in filter or planted), driftwood, almond leaves, etc. but I also don't want to overwhelm the tank or need to constantly monitor and mess too much (more opportunity for human error). Do I wait for the Stability 7 days to complete before mucking with pH?

LFS said they expected me to have 7.5 (as with most of the city). My husband works for the water company and off the pH, he could guess which plant we're pulling from and was going to ask how 'stable' that plant is for our house (i.e. how often they switch the plant on us). We're deep enough in the city that we wouldn't be an outlier and would share this plant with a large swatch of LFS customers. So, I'm wondering if there is something more local to our house going on here.

I THINK I'm encouraged that our ammonia is less in the tank than straight from the tap. Don't love that the reading is higher out of the tap, but I suppose w/ Prime for dechlorinating and detoxifying, it's less an issue than just good maintenance?

Stability says you can add fish after the first 24 hrs, but I planned on completing the seven days and then dropping in food as usual but without Stability and waiting 24 hrs to see if the ammonia rises before changing water and bringing in any fish. When the LFS recommended Prime + Stability for starting a new, fishless tank, I had been asking about ammonia for jump starting things. Now that I've read more on it, I guess it's circumventing more than jump starting. I even added an extra 'feeding' over the weekend because I was worried I just wasn't giving it enough food to get ammonia spikes, despite the cloudiness. My question is, based on having a currently cloudy tank and the readings from tap to tank, is this basically the Stability working, or am I stalled? Regardless of when I add fish, I plan to treat things like a fish-in cycle (testing, water changes as necessary) until I feel confident about a regular maintenance schedule.

Whew. So much for brevity. I appreciate anyone who makes it through this mess!

 

Welcome to the forum. I'll try to help, but I've never used Stability, so I don't have any input on that. I did want to say that my water is at 8.2 pH, and I have a wide variety of fish and invertebrates thriving in it. Since you're wanting to keep guppies, I think you'll be okay. Most fish will do better with stable pH, even if it's higher than ideal, than having it seesaw up and down as you try to chase the ideal level.

You mentioned getting fish in a week and then treating it as a fish-in cycle, I don't see anything wrong with that plan. Just keep testing the water and do water changes as needed to keep the ammonia and nitrites low. 1.0 ppm combined is often used as the maximum you want to see, but of course keeping it lower will be better.

 

Just a tip to add, but when using the API master kit, you can halve the Ammonia and Nitrate tests to make them last longer. 2.5ml water in the tube instead of 5, 4 drops for ammonia, and 5 for nitrates (both bottles, of course).

 

I have similar water parameters. My daughter insisted on getting 2 long fin tetras about 2 weeks after we started cycling the tank. One lived about 3 weeks. I replaced it with another long fin tetra. The new fish and the older one both died 2 weeks later. We were adding prime and stability, and doing daily water changes to keep nitrites down. Tested the water every day. It took 2 months to finally cycle the tank. Now she has a female betta in there, and it loves life.

My daughter experienced some emotional trauma involved with the fish deaths. (We now have a grave marker in our yard where they were laid to rest). The grieving was short lived, and probably beneficial as it helped her understand death a little better before her grandfather passed. But still, it was rough. If I were to do it again, I would have prepped her for a 2 month wait before buying fish, and done a proper fishless cycle as I have done with my still fishless tank. Yes, fish usually live shorter lives than large pets, but they can live long healthy lives. I think had they lived for 6 months or longer the emotional trauma would have been much less as she would have been less interested as she was just a few weeks out. Just something to think about from my lessons learned box.

 

My tank went cloudy after setting up for 2 days as I had a bacterial bloom, so the cloudiness isn’t much of a problem and is probably good for you the tank.

 

Leave the pH alone.
Reread how to do a fishless or fish in cycle, don't combine the two.
Evaluate the decor (shell) in your tank for pH stability or not.
Good luck

 

Leave the pH alone.
Reread how to do a fishless or fish in cycle, don't combine the two.
Evaluate the decor (shell) in your tank for pH stability or not.
Good luck

A question on that. I’ve seen Stability used for both fishless and fish-in. I originally intended to do a full fishless cycle and wait and wait and wait, then realized after spending way too many hours on Seachem and other fish forums that people tend to use it for fish-in. Again, I sort of stumbled into this method after asking about ammonia or something to seed my tank and feel like I’ve been mentally old school while using ‘new school’ tools while also being a newb. So, if my nitrite continues to be 0 and ammonia also tests 0 once I’m done with the 7 days (+24 hrs) of Seachem and my nitrates are still present, then do I consider the tank cycled, add fish, but still monitor like I’m doing a fish-in cycle, in case things spike?

pH was high before we added shell. By evaluate, do you mean pull it out and let it hang out in its own bucket and test the water after a couple days? Also, if the LFS says most of their fish are hanging out in 7.5, wouldn’t coming to my tank be a heck of a shock for them? I know you don’t just plop them in, but that still seems like a big swing.

 

Flakes will not add to the ammonia content for weeks, not days.
The pH swing is something your fish will have to deal with, you just need to be a good steward and adjust them properly. Then leave it alone. The less stress the better. By your logic of the ph swing, putting them through a fish in cycle of any kind would not be a good idea.
Again, please reread about different cycling techniques on this forum.
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