Water Cycle Issues

Continuing to have some parameter issues but no where near as bad as they were last week ... so improvement

	Aug 13	Aug 14	Aug 15
NH[SUB]3[/SUB] / NH[SUB]4[/SUB]	0.25	0.25	0.1
NO[SUB]2[/SUB]	1	0.3	0.225
NO[SUB]3[/SUB]	5	Not checked	0

Will check again tomorrow but did not do a water change today, I did do one the previous two days but running low on RO water to keep a 50/50 mix for the change. If it is still this or higher tomorrow, will do another 25-50% water change. We have decided to get Prime when we buy more water conditioner next month (with all these water changes we are likely to need more next month so figured on making the change then if we don't run out before then.

 

What are you using for an ammonia source? What's your pH? Any reason why you're using RO water? Do you have high nitrates in your tap?

 

First off, this was a cycled tank so the ammonia source CURRENTLY is the fish and any degrading plants (not much of that currently). As for the RO water, our water is extremely hard (high both in KH and GH) so am using a mix of RO and tap to moderate that since the betta I got from the LFS was in straight RO water (I know that is not appropriate for any fish, but their store so not my call) and because of this, I decided to blend the water to get the right mineral levels and so far as I have tested since getting to that blend, both GH and KH are at good levels for my betta.

Last check, my pH was at 7.4 .... all 3 listed parameters are going down steadily. There was a recent death of shrimps in the tank, which I attribute the higher levels of toxins to currently.

 

Are you using any bacteria supplement to help? Can you test your nitrates?

What is your pH, KH and GH out of the tap?

 

I was told by multiple people on here to stop using the bacteria support once it was cycled .... My nitrates were tested today, it said like 0.

tap water parameters:

KH is 12-13 drops
GH is 16 drops
pH registers between 8.2-8.4

Last time we tested the GH/KH in the tank with 50/50 mix
KH at 5 drops (90 ppm)
GH at 9 drops (162 ppm)

 

Yes, that's true about discontinuing the bacteria supplement once cycled but your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate numbers don't indicate a cycled tank. What bacteria supplement have you been using?

Your water is hard but I don't see why you would need to continue using RO water. Your tap pH is fine too but that's a big drop from your tap to tank (probably from using a mix of tap and RO?). It would be worth checking to see what your tap pH actually gets to by putting some tap water in a bucket and adding an air stone. Then test after a few hours.

 

How would oxygenation affect the water pH?

 

Yes, that's true about discontinuing the bacteria supplement once cycled but your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate numbers don't indicate a cycled tank. What bacteria supplement have you been using?

Your water is hard but I don't see why you would need to continue using RO water. Your tap pH is fine too but that's a big drop from your tap to tank (probably from using a mix of tap and RO?). It would be worth checking to see what your tap pH actually gets to by putting some tap water in a bucket and adding an air stone. Then test after a few hours.

She had consulted with others on this forum regarding the hardness of our water, and the fact that our fish was kept in RO water at the LFS before. It was a general concensus that it was a good idea to mix RO and tap water 50/50 to be more in a healthy range for a betta. RO water from the local health food store is pretty inexpensive, so it's no big deal for us to do this, and she wants to make the tank as healthy for her fish as possible.

The Tank seemed to be cycled before we added the betta. It was showing 0/0/<30 for about a week before adding the fish, with a blip the day we got the fish, but it settled down within a day, and was stable until she added the 3 ghost shrimp which died within a day or two. THAT is when things went wonky. We've done pretty much daily water checks, and significant water changes when it reads bad.

How would the pH of the tank be effecting her ammonia and nitrite levels that signifcantly?

 

I highly doubt the bioload of 3 ghost shrimp was the culprit of the tank having to re-cycle. Something had to have happened like filter media changes or rinsing in tap water for you to have had a cycle bump but if I recall from a past thread, you didn't do either of these?

What's the pH if you mixed 50/50 tap and RO? I don't know why you would need to mix the two though since I personally don't see a need for it. Bettas are not that sensitive to water hardness or high pH. Maybe I'm missing something though and perhaps our water guru @CindiL can shed some light.

 

I wouldn't mix them anymore. I'd do daily 10%changes with just tap water for a week and then you can just use tap water. The 50/50 was a great idea to get the fish acclimated but you don't need to do it anymore.

How long were the shrimp dead before they got pulled?

 

I wouldn't mix them anymore. I'd do daily 10%changes with just tap water for a week and then you can just use tap water. The 50/50 was a great idea to get the fish acclimated but you don't need to do it anymore.

How long were the shrimp dead before they got pulled?

they died overnight while we were asleep

 

Weird. What products are used in the tank?

 

I highly doubt the bioload of 3 ghost shrimp was the culprit of the tank having to re-cycle. Something had to have happened like filter media changes or rinsing in tap water for you to have had a cycle bump but if I recall from a past thread, you didn't do either of these?

What's the pH if you mixed 50/50 tap and RO? I don't know why you would need to mix the two though since I personally don't see a need for it. Bettas are not that sensitive to water hardness or high pH. Maybe I'm missing something though and perhaps our water guru @CindiL can shed some light.

@L, if I remember correctly, was one of the people who advised her to go with the 50/50 mix. She was pretty involved in the original discussion of how the water should be handled. My wife already stated the pH of the current 50/50 mix as 7.4

Honestly, it's getting us just a wee bit frazzeled over hear that we're getting jumped on for something we did our research, and consulted with people on and got advice (from people HERE) to do it the way we are. As far as I know, it has very little do with why our cycle is having a blip, since the tank has been on a 50/50 split since the betta went into it, and we had pretty stable parameters for several weeks.

Unless the mix of RO mix has some bearing on the situation at hand, could the thread be kept on topic? It's starting to feel like you are jumping down our throats for issues that as far as I know aren't pertinent. (Yes, maybe you are right and that the betta does not require the 50/50, but as far as I've read, it should not have anything to do with a disrupted cycle, and I don't think should hurt anything to continue the process should we wish to to give the betta more ideal water conditions.)

Weird. What products are used in the tank?

besides the RO/tap mix, we use BIgAl's water conditioner for the dechlor (it's what we have, and don't have money for prime right now). it has been dosed with bigal's biosupport during the initial cycling process as well.

The only other thing that has been added was a very small dose of liquid ferts to help the plants, but it wasn't even as much as the bottle advised for the size of her tank.

 

You're right. I'm sorry. The other question I asked though was for troubleshooting.

 

I highly doubt the bioload of 3 ghost shrimp was the culprit of the tank having to re-cycle. Something had to have happened like filter media changes or rinsing in tap water for you to have had a cycle bump but if I recall from a past thread, you didn't do either of these?

What's the pH if you mixed 50/50 tap and RO? I don't know why you would need to mix the two though since I personally don't see a need for it. Bettas are not that sensitive to water hardness or high pH. Maybe I'm missing something though and perhaps our water guru @CindiL can shed some light.

Also, it wasn't the bioload of three ghost shrimp we were thining might have caused the bump, but the DEATH of those shrimp, with at least 2 of the corpses in the tank for as much as 10 hours (and we're unsure as to if we managed to get all the parts. we've done multiple vacuums during water changes, but *shrugs*)

 

Sorry if you feel that anyone is jumping down your throats because that's definitely not the intention. Tone is lost in communicating through the internet so maybe it was misinterpreted that way. I think we're just trying to understand what's happening with your cycle. Perhaps sticking to one thread on your cycling so all the information is together and who advised to do what and why would help everyone. Again, not saying any of this is your fault and we're certainly not trying to put the blame on anyone. We're all just trying to help.

 

Sorry if you feel that anyone is jumping down your throats because that's definitely not the intention. Tone is lost in communicating through the internet so maybe it was misinterpreted that way. I think we're just trying to understand what's happening with your cycle. Perhaps sticking to one thread on your cycling so all the information is together and who advised to do what and why would help everyone. Again, not saying any of this is your fault and we're certainly not trying to put the blame on anyone. We're all just trying to help.

we appreciate the help we get from here, and we've been trying very hard not to read too much into the posts, but it did start to get even to me, and I'm not all that reactionary to internet posts.

the original thread that held the discussion regarding the water situation was more focused on her tank in general, and not on cycle issues, so foreverlearning felt it was better to put the question in the area where it applied, to get more visibility on it. Some forums we've been involved with have been rather particular about putting new topics into new threads in the proper sections, so we try to be careful with that as much as possible.

 

I don't think that even the death of those shrimp and corpses being there for 24 hours would crash a cycle, you'd just have a bump of a cycle. I think we're still not seeing something.

 

I don't think that even the death of those shrimp and corpses being there for 24 hours would crash a cycle, you'd just have a bump of a cycle. I think we're still not seeing something.

I don't think we have a completely crashed cycle, as we're showing nitrites as high, but the ammonia is mostly under control. The nitrites are coming back down now as well. I just checked her logs and yeah, the spike in ammonia happened the day the first shrimp died, the next day the other two died, and that's when the nitrite bumped.

All parameters are coming down to just about normal again though, if we don't get another burp in ammonia, I'm guessing we'll probably be at 0/0/<30 again in the next couple days.

 

Good deal then. Sounds like you guys are mostly good then. Glad to hear it!

 

Good deal then. Sounds like you guys are mostly good then. Glad to hear it!

yeah, me too. Jensen is a cool little fish and he's fun to watch while sitting at our desks (can't wait til my new tank is cycled and I can put the shrimp in it lol). foreverlearning is just pretty paranoid about her sweet lil fishy, and goes looking for confirmation on information when something weird happens with the tank (and you know how it goes, Husbands just can't be trusted to be right, gotta have a second opinion.. Love you sweety! )

 

Love you too ashke.

 

Hi, a little late here (on vacation) but it was me who advised to use the 50/50 RO water and I'd still keep doing it. With a GH of 16, they're at 286 ppm which is too high for most fish, my guess is the TDS of the water is very high also. Most fish will be alright up to 225, even 250 but it would probably take its toll on a soft water fish over time. Even my hard water fish (livebearers) I keep at around 180. Though they could live with it harder, my Tetra's probably wouldn't appreciate it

Anyways foreverlearning. Seems like could be something else contributing. And that you're having a cycle bump. A couple of quick questions. How often are you rinsing your filter media in old tank water? Weekly would be good to rid the filters of any old food and poop etc that will cause a rise in ammonia. You are not rinsing under tap water right?

People often suggest TSS+ or Stability during a cycle bump to help things catch up again. Yeah, they will do it on their own, just takes longer.

Also, it's not unusual to lose new shrimp, they are not hardy creatures. Once they acclimate they will usually live awhile though!

 

Anyways @. Seems like could be something else contributing. And that you're having a cycle bump. A couple of quick questions. How often are you rinsing your filter media in old tank water? Weekly would be good to rid the filters of any old food and poop etc that will cause a rise in ammonia. You are not rinsing under tap water right?

People often suggest TSS+ or Replenish during a cycle bump to help things catch up again. Yeah, they will do it on their own, just takes longer.

Also, it's not unusual to lose new shrimp, they are not hardy creatures. Once they acclimate they will usually live awhile though!

I was rinsing it when I did the weekly water changes .... but with doing water changes every day I hadn't done it in the last couple ....as for the tap water, no! I know that kills the BBs. With regards to Replenish, that's for maintaining GH .... do you mean Stability? for the BBs?

For the shrimp, if my pH was at around 6 when I added them it does not surprise me that they died. They like 7 and above as I understand it ....

 

Oh oops, sorry yes I meant Stability! I'll edit my post.

I just read back through the thread and didn't see any mention of your ph dropping down to 6.0? This would cause a cycle bump in and of itself which may be why you're seeing ammonia and nitrites. When PH drops significantly the bacteria that are unique and thriving in your ph of 7.4 will stop multiplying or die off. It seems more often than not to effect the nitrite converting bacteria more than the ammonia converting bacteria.

Have you recently tested the KH in the tank? You may need a bit more tap water to RO water if you find your ph is dropping.

 

Oh oops, sorry yes I meant Stability! I'll edit my post.

I just read back through the thread and didn't see any mention of your ph dropping down to 6.0? This would cause a cycle bump in and of itself which may be why you're seeing ammonia and nitrites. When PH drops significantly the bacteria that are unique and thriving in your ph of 7.4 will stop multiplying or die off. It seems more often than not to effect the nitrite converting bacteria more than the ammonia converting bacteria.

Have you recently tested the KH in the tank? You may need a bit more tap water to RO water if you find your ph is dropping.

Ya that is what we thought once we noticed that the pH had dropped .... we used straight dechlorinated tap water for a water change, pH back up to 7.4 when it was checked .... then again this morning when we did a parameters check it was back down .... so we again did a water change, 4 hrs later we re-checked the pH and it is still holding at 7.4 .... we will recheck again before bed to see if it changes AND check the water sample we were aerating at someone else's suggestion tonight to see if IT drops at all ... though hubby's jug of water he prepped yesterday in case he needed a water change today still had pH of 8.3 ... so we used THAT to top up the water after the water change today .... see if THAT does something ... Frankly it is frustrating the out of both of us!

Odd thing is that both GH and KH are up a smidge in the tap water. KH was 13-14 and GH was 17

 

Well at least we know what is going on most likely with the cycle bump.

Its a good idea to know if your ph rises, falls or stays the same once aerated. If you have oxygen in your tap water than when it off gasses the ph will fall, if you have CO2 in your tap water which is very frequently the case with wells, it will start out very low and rise quite a bit. Its important to know because if the difference between tap and tank is greater than .5, sometimes you need to limit how much you change or aerate first etc. We don't know if that's the case for you but always worth knowing what it does.

 

Well at least we know what is going on most likely with the cycle bump.

Its a good idea to know if your ph rises, falls or stays the same once aerated. If you have oxygen in your tap water than when it off gasses the ph will fall, if you have CO2 in your tap water which is very frequently the case with wells, it will start out very low and rise quite a bit. Its important to know because if the difference between tap and tank is greater than .5, sometimes you need to limit how much you change or aerate first etc. We don't know if that's the case for you but always worth knowing what it does.

We are also wondering of the baffle we added to the filter could be causing it by limiting oxygenation. We are going to see what happens with that test bucket, then maybe add the bubbler to the tank and see if that solves the issue by increasing the oxygen absorption

 

ok, tested the water that has been bubbling for 8 hours. ph is 8.3

so....put the bubbler into the betta tank and see if that helps?

 

If the aerated water did not change value, you don't need to put it into the tank.

 

If the aerated water did not change value, you don't need to put it into the tank.

? I was thinking that the problem might be a CO2 build up, and that aerating would put oxygen into it and keep the ph stable...

 

That's not what the bubbler test was actually doing. It was just providing constant movement with the surface of the bucket water. It's kind of controversial but unless the bubbles are teeny tiny it's unlikely they actually transfer a decent amount of gasses.

 

That's not what the bubbler test was actually doing. It was just providing constant movement with the surface of the bucket water. It's kind of controversial but unless the bubbles are teeny tiny it's unlikely they actually transfer a decent amount of gasses.

no, but it will cause surface agitation with WILL help the oxygenation, won't it?

 

Yes. I just didn't want you to think the bubbles themselves would do it. If you have a filter moving the surface that should be enough though.

 

Yes. I just didn't want you to think the bubbles themselves would do it. If you have a filter moving the surface that should be enough though.

filter is pretty severely baffled because the current was bugging the Fish. Funny thing is, I went ahead and put the bubbler into the tank; It's only been an hour, but the pH has already gone up by about .3-.4

will leave it running over night and test it again in the morning. with any luck, the pH will be back to something akin to normal and we can get the cycle going again.

Thankfully I have some media I can take out of the 20 gallon to kickstart it.

 

well. that did nothing, pH was still at 6 this morning

 

I would add in a very small amount of baking soda, about 1/8 tsp to the 5 gallon mixed in a little tank water. Check it after an hour and continue adding it until your ph is back up to "normal" (your tap). Check your KH then and post back here.

 

I can't for the life of me figure out how your ph is dropping so quickly with such a high kh. This isn't making a ton of sense.

I wouldn't add that media to the tank. You're only going to hurt the bb with your low ph, instead of helping your tank.

Have you seen any algea?

 

Can you take a gallon out of that tank and put it in a bucket with a gallon of ro water or distilled water? It can be less just try a 50 50 mix.

 

I can't for the life of me figure out how your ph is dropping so quickly with such a high kh. This isn't making a ton of sense.

I wouldn't add that media to the tank. You're only going to hurt the bb with your low ph, instead of helping your tank.

Have you seen any algea?

no sign of algae, and yeah, I can add do that 50/50 test. will get that set up now

just let it sit? or aerate it?