Planted tank cycle - water change and pH questions

[natureDipper]

Hi, everyone. This is my first ever tank. Did plenty of research about the cycle. However, I have a fairly planted tank, so I think it is not exactly going by textbook. Was hoping to share my numbers and see what the more experienced people think.

It is an 87 litres Marina Vue tank. With all the decorations I fitted 64 litres of water in it. For simplicity's sake I am counting it as a 20g.
I will put up pictures of its planting in the comment to give you an idea.
It has 5 litres of Aqua Basis Plus soil and then nearly 10kg of Dennerle Quartz gravel.

DAY1 Added 38ml Fluval cycle
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
PH 7.3

DAY2 Added 15ml Fluval cycle, whole Tetra food flakes
Ammonia 0.25ppm

DAY3 Added 15 ml Fluval cycle, crushed Tetra flakes
Ammonia 0.50ppm
Nitrite less than 0.25ppm
Nitrate 0 ppm
PH 7.3

DAY4 Added crushed flakes
Ammonia 0.50ppm
Nitrite less than 0.25ppm
Nitrate 0ppm

DAY5 Added crushed flakes

DAY6 Added crushed flakes, alder cones
Used Tetra strips instead of API test kit

Nitrite 1mg/l
Nitrate 25mg/l
PH 7.4
GH 16
KH 4

DAY7 Added some more plants, crushed flakes
Ammonia 1ppm
Nitrite 2ppm
Nitrate 0ppm
PH 7.4

Tetra strips reading:
Nitrite 2-3mg/l
Nitrate 20mg/l
GH 16
KH 8



So, my questions.
First, there's differences between tetra and API readings. I got the strips mainly for hardness testing, but even KH seems to differ significantly within a day. Also, nitrate readings today come differently. Do I just ignore Tetra and stick with API not to confuse myself?

Also, I would like to lower the pH to 6.8-7. The alder cones coloured the water in one day, but seemed to have little effect on pH. Also, there is crushed flakes disintegrating on top of gravel. Would this not acidify the water? So when I actually get fish and they eat the food before it disintegrates, how will that affect the pH.

Third question, water change. It is fishless cycle, so I am in no rush to do water changes. What would be reason enough to do it? Certain ammonia reading, I imagine. But for a planted tank, what number am I looking for?

Also, any insight in where in the cycle I am? I know I need to wait for ammonia to disappear. But will it ever if I keep adding food every day? Do I skip feeding and watch the reading then? I imagine I won't see much in terms of nitrates, as some plants have already clearly grown.

Anything I am missing?
Aquarium on day 1
and here on day 7
and here on day 7

 

[Fae]

The strips are pretty inaccurate ime, and not really worth using. I would just go off the liquid kit. You can get a liquid KH/GH test as well if you're wanting to test those more accurately

Can you test your tap water? It would help paint a better picture of what's going on.

Is there a particular reason you want to lower the ph? Most fish can adapt to your given ph, and would be less stressful to them than trying to mess with it.

KH acts like a buffer for your ph. Anything acidic in the water will degrade the KH before it lowers your ph. Your KH will drop to 0 before your ph lowers. This is a really good thing, because just one point of ph difference is actually x10. Having a reasonable KH is a key to a healthy aquarium for most people.

I would vacuum the fish food out of the gravel every few days or it will rot and grow fungus. Your cycle will likely be done soon, by my best guess

 

[natureDipper]

Thank you!
I did a bit of gravel vacuuming and water change at the same time. Added more food and fluval cycle afterwards. Will run full tests again tomorrow and do them on the tap water as well.

I read that kuhli loaches want pH up to 7 and I dowant to get them down the line. But, to be fair, even the basic info on different specias vary quite a bit on internet sources. The other fish I am looking at seem to be alright with pH up to 7.5, so I should be good.

 

[Dechi]

Since your nitrites have started rising, I would say your cycle is going well. Keep feeding it so the BB can grow, but not too much. You don’t want ammonia and nitrites too high or it will take longer to finish cycling.

A usual cycle takes 4 weeks, maybe a little more or a little less.
Since your nitrites have started rising, I would say your cycle is doing well. Keep feeding it so the BB can grow, but not too much. You don’t want ammonia and nitrites too high or it will take longer to finish cycling.

A usual cycle takes 4 weeks, maybe a little more or a little less.

 

[natureDipper]

4 weeks!.. That is a lot. I was hoping fasterops: but will have to take it as it comes, I suppose.

 

[natureDipper]

So, after the advice in here, I did around 20% water change (mostly to vacuum the wasted food) on day 7. (Also added some more plants as they arrived online).
Day 8 and day 9 readings are identical: ammonia 0.5, nitrite 2, nitrate 0.

Tap water has 0 ammonia, nitrites or nitrates, ph 6.8.

Am I ok to keep the 2pp nitrites or do I want to lower them with water changes?
Also, I am keeping the tank at 25 degrees Celsius, as this is what I am planning to have it at for the fish. I understand bacteria grows faster in warmer temperatures. Does it make sense to heat the tank up a couple extra degrees just for the cycle and then turn it down later? Or is it better to grow the bacteria in the temperature that I would want it to later operate?

 

[Fae]

So, after the advice in here, I did around 20% water change (mostly to vacuum the wasted food) on day 7. (Also added some more plants as they arrived online).
Day 8 and day 9 readings are identical: ammonia 0.5, nitrite 2, nitrate 0.

Tap water has 0 ammonia, nitrites or nitrates, ph 6.8.

Am I ok to keep the 2pp nitrites or do I want to lower them with water changes?
Also, I am keeping the tank at 25 degrees Celsius, as this is what I am planning to have it at for the fish. I understand bacteria grows faster in warmer temperatures. Does it make sense to heat the tank up a couple extra degrees just for the cycle and then turn it down later? Or is it better to grow the bacteria in the temperature that I would want it to later operate?

I think you probably won't see much for nitrates because of your plants, at least not until you have more fish in there. Nitrites will go down when bacteria grows to eat it. I would keep it at the same temp, personally, but I don't know if it makes a difference.

That's weird your ph dropped so much, if there was fish in there that would have been stressful for them. What's your KH?

Have you added more fish food at all? If your ammonia drops to 0, you definitely will need to add more to keep the BB alive and growing

 

[mattgirl]

Since your ammonia source is fish food I will recommend your add it every third day. It takes about that long to decompose and produce ammonia. By feeding every third day you are keeping a constant amount of ammonia in there. There is no need to lower the nitrites with water changes. You want to grow nitrite eating bacteria so don't remove its food.

Adding the bottled bacteria may speed up the cycling process but don't be surprised if it still takes 4 or more weeks for the cycle to finish up.

I wouldn't try to manipulate the pH level. In most cases it is best to just work with what we have. Stable is much better than a specific number for most fish. Bacteria tends so grow faster in warmer temps but yours is fine.

I would stick with readings you get with the API liquid tests. Using both it and the strips is just going to cause confusion.

You really don't have enough plants in this tank to pull all the nitrates out. We just have to assume none have been produced yet. They should start showing up once the nitrites start going down.

 

[natureDipper]

That's weird your ph dropped so much, if there was fish in there that would have been stressful for them. What's your KH?

The 6.8ph is the tap water ph. The tank reading seems quite stable at around 7.4.

Since your ammonia source is fish food I will recommend your add it every third day. It takes about that long to decompose and produce ammonia. By feeding every third day you are keeping a constant amount of ammonia in there. There is no need to lower the nitrites with water changes. You want to grow nitrite eating bacteria so don't remove its food.

That makes sense. I definitely see the food struggling to decompose, but did not want to stop the whole process by stopping it. Everythird day it is then. Or maybe every other day but smaller amount?..
Well, I just did some minor gravel vacuuming for purely esthetic reasons and now have detritus worms on the glass. I recon this means I definitely put too much food, if I managed to grow these guys in just over a week?..

 

[mattgirl]

That makes sense. I definitely see the food struggling to decompose, but did not want to stop the whole process by stopping it. Everythird day it is then. Or maybe every other day but smaller amount?..
Well, I just did some minor gravel vacuuming for purely esthetic reasons and now have detritus worms on the glass. I recon this means I definitely put too much food, if I managed to grow these guys in just over a week?..

When using fish food as our ammonia source it doesn't take as much as one would think. We are basically trying to mimic what we would be feeding fish if fish were in there. I feel sure most of us over feed from time to time. It is possible to over feed while fishless cycling. If you would rather feed every other day that should be fine but just a small pinch of food should be enough.

Detritus worms are just one of the things we will deal with when ghost feeding. They are unsightly but thankfully harmless. Since you are depending on decaying fish food for your ammonia source you don't want to pull too much water out of there. We don't want to reduce the amount of ammonia the flakes are producing. The build up of food may be unsightly but can be dealt with once the cycle is complete.