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new to this, please help: cycling aquasoil, cycled after 2 weeks? if not what's happening?

Abcdefg said:
Kadoxu, thanks,

Ive stepped up the water changes and I set up my sodastream co2 kit (went through a whole bottle over the weekend due to not tightening it, but hopefully i'll get it right next time)

I've set a sort of arbitrary bubble count that seems to result in a lime green checker at some stage before the end of the day (it was that colour when I got back from work today at least...)

I haven't been able to do any structured tests with the timing the drop in ph, but hopefully will do tomorrow night.

I was wondering whether its worth investing in a PH pen, I was looking at the BOYU one, seemed cheap but to have decent features like 3 point calibration, any opinions on this particular one or any sub £50 recommendations would be very much appreciated

or is it just ok to go with the idea that i keep things consistent bubble count wise for the next two weeks, and as long as i never see any yellowishness in the drop checker, then adding fish and shrimp in two weeks time wont gas them?



Also, finally got round to uploading some algae pics at the bottom of this page;

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/50-litre.47865/

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Since you have no fish or shrimp yet, you can just test the PH before it goes off and adjust CO2 for the next day, then repeat the process everyday until you are happy with it.

Don't know if I already mentioned this for CO2 measurement...
co2_ph_kH_chart.png


KH and PH will tell you how much CO2 is present in the water. You want to have around 30ppm CO2 in the tank during light hours.


Can't really advise on root tabs and PH pen, since I have never used them...
 
Thanks Kadoxu,

I'll look in to doing some proper measurements at some point, but I'm in the mental trap of:

" Lots of people are saying test kits don't work, so I have no way telling what pH and kh are to any degree of accuracy anyway. Presumably even if I buy a pH pen that's somewhere near reliable, I still won't know what KH is"

I might buy a pen, but torn between going for a £40 one and a £100 Hanna one, don't know whether there's be any difference for my purposes...

I might ask o the co2 subforum about how people are measuring pH with any degree of accuracy.

In other news, there seems to be an explosion of wildlife, with 3 snails (think they are ramshorn, and snuck in on some moss), and also lots of some kind of tiny daphne or something, running around on the wood, and swimming in zig zags... I'm presuming g this is a good sign that the tank can support life? ...although there are lots (in the thousands perhaps) of tiny specks which I guess might be snail eggs, I'm not sure I want them all to hatch if they are.
 
@kadoxu , I reckon you should change your name to PhKhMeister.

Nice work!
 
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Right, so Thames Water says:

dkh = 14 (14.56, if I use the calculator in your link Darrel)

and PH is 7.73


Are these figures for the water supply zone likely to hold up in terms of what comes out of the tap in any given property? or could that vary substantially beyond these area readings from thames water?

I've been keeping a day to day log of my test strip tests, and I do have a few readings that seemed to be 3 or 6 for KH, would these have been completely erroneous, or is it possible for KH to move around this much whilst setting up a tank?


Thanks
 
Hi all,
Abcdefg said:
Are these figures for the water supply zone likely to hold up in terms of what comes out of the tap in any given property? or could that vary substantially beyond these area readings from thames water?
Click to expand...
It depends on where your water supply comes from. If it always comes from the same source, and that is a deep aquifer, all parameters will be pretty stable.

If your water supply comes from a mix of sources, (reservoir, river, ground water) the hardness will vary seasonally, although because you are in the SE of the UK it will always be "hard".

cheers Darrel
 
zozo said:
But note point 3 in the chart, the values represent ph/kh and color in the drop checker, not the water in the tank..
Click to expand...

I see, I think the thing that's confusing me is this;

I think I understand that the drop checker is trying to measure co2 more accurately -through measuring evaporated co2 changing the pH of the known kh regent in the checker. ( Have I got that right?) Rather than doing a pH test in the tank water and a calculation after.

However I see posts on ukaps and elsewhere of graphed pH logs ( cant seem to find an example post right now..). Are these tank water logs or some sort of colorimetric log of tge drop checker?

Thanks
 
Abcdefg said:
I think I understand that the drop checker is trying to measure co2 more accurately -through measuring evaporated co2 changing the pH of the known kh regent in the checker. ( Have I got that right?) Rather than doing a pH test in the tank water and a calculation after.
Click to expand...

Yes that's the main point, in the dropchecker the kH value is static and never changes only the pH/color changes according to co2 amount.. In the tank water kH can change due to used hardscape or substrate or water change etc. Usualy 4dkH regent is used because the right color reflex 30ppm co2 with 4dkh.. With the above chart you can determine the approximate 30ppm color if you have a different dkh regent.
 
Abcdefg said:
I've been keeping a day to day log of my test strip tests, and I do have a few readings that seemed to be 3 or 6 for KH, would these have been completely erroneous, or is it possible for KH to move around this much whilst setting up a tank?
Click to expand...
This shows why hobby test strips are of little use in, other than transferring your wallet contents to the fish shops wallet.:D

You water company states 14dKH yet you see 3-6dKH. Could be chlorine in the water affecting (bleaching ?) the test strip or could even be dissolved CO2, you will never know. I think water hardness test strip are actually pH based and measure the alkalinity of the water, thus will be easily influenced by other things in the water.

You could try leaving a cup of water out 24hours to allow chlorine (& CO2) to degas, then measure dKH.
 
Thanks zozo, Ian,

I'll try the leaving a cup out for 24 hours on some tap and some tank, and see what they say,just out of curiosity.

Is the drop checker the best way to calibrate the c02 then? or would a PH pen be useful to use for this?

Is it useful to have a PH pen anyway? for other purposes day to day, week to week or month to month?


I'm hoping to add shrimps and fish in 9 days, and was wondering if it will be useful to verify the state of the tank then?

Currently I am jsut going to have to rely on a 6 in 1 test strip, and a liquid combined NH3 NH4 test to (hopefully) show that there is "0" ammonia and "0" nitrites before heading to the fish shop... does this seem wise?

I have some juvenile snails (ramshorn I think currently about 3mm shell diameter) that snuck in on a pinch of fissidens fontonalis from the LFS and also some daphne or copepods or some such. <--- is this a sign that the water is habitable? the snails have been in for 2 weeks maybe and have grown loads from their <1mm initial size.

Thanks
 
kadoxu said:
Since you have no fish or shrimp yet, you can just test the PH before it goes off and adjust CO2 for the next day, then repeat the process everyday until you are happy with it.

Don't know if I already mentioned this for CO2 measurement...
View attachment 94733

KH and PH will tell you how much CO2 is present in the water. You want to have around 30ppm CO2 in the tank during light hours.


Can't really advise on root tabs and PH pen, since I have never used them...
Click to expand...


Am I misinterpreting this chart in some way?

it seems as if by using 4 dkh water in the drop checker then we would be targetting a yellow colour in order to get around 30 ppm?

'green' part os the chart table athat correspond to 30ppm would need a 6 to 10 dkh range.

Am I missing something about the nature of the solution in the drop checker, and indeed the whole chart? or is it that its designed so it errs on the side of caution, in terms of livestock

Thanks
 
Abcdefg said:
Am I misinterpreting this chart in some way?

it seems as if by using 4 dkh water in the drop checker then we would be targetting a yellow colour in order to get around 30 ppm?

'green' part os the chart table athat correspond to 30ppm would need a 6 to 10 dkh range.

Am I missing something about the nature of the solution in the drop checker, and indeed the whole chart? or is it that its designed so it errs on the side of caution, in terms of livestock

Thanks
Click to expand...
You're looking at it the wrong way... :lol:

First you go to the dKH column that has the value of your drop checker solution (usually 4dKH).
Then, in that column, you go down to the value of CO2 you want (around 30ppm).
And finally, from that value of CO2 you want you check the PH/color you should have (usually PH 6.6 or green color).

So, if you use a 4dKH drop checker solution, the solution's PH should be 6.6 (green) for you to have a 30.1ppm of CO2.
 
kadoxu said:
You're looking at it the wrong way... :lol:

First you go to the dKH column that has the value of your drop checker solution (usually 4dKH).
Then, in that column, you go down to the value of CO2 you want (around 30ppm).
And finally, from that value of CO2 you want you check the PH/color you should have (usually PH 6.6 or green color).

So, if you use a 4dKH drop checker solution, the solution's PH should be 6.6 (green) for you to have a 30.1ppm of CO2.
Click to expand...


:) thats the way I was looking at it, I guess i'm just interpreting the green as a yellowish green, as it's towards the top of the spectrum and i'm not looking at it in isolation...
cheers!
 
Hi,

I'm back with some questions... sorry...

I have N03 at 0 now it seems: tested with tetra liquid test kit and test strips.

Could I ask some questions about RO water use and re-mineralising and dosing EI at the same time?

I hope to be able to keep some shrimp at some point. I'd like some of these down the line hopefully:

http://www.planetinverts.com/Blue Tiger Shrimp.html

but I'm happy to take a while to get to them, I was wanting to add some galaxy rasboras / celestial danios ( or whichever way everyone is naming them) and some otos and possibly a small school of something else very small


So with the view to changing the water towards something more suitable, from it's previous london tap water source, I'm switching to RO water. last week I cut the tank water with 2/3 tap 1/3 RO, and at the start of this week I did a 95% water change where the replacement water was pure RO water.

It had a TDS of 0, then I added some salty shrimp GH+ (http://www.saltyshrimp.de/english/beesalt_bee_shrimp_mineral_gh_plus.html ) in order to remineralise which brought the TDS to about 150 -200 ish

Since this I have been carrying on dosing EI as before.

The tank seems to be fine. the plants are looking good, and there is substantially less algae, snails seem to be doing fine and I have now noticed some conical style shell snails (they're tiny though) in addition to the ramshorns.

(I have also notice hydra and planaria, but I will be dealling with these with 'no planaria' soon: http://www.pro-shrimp.co.uk/genchem/157-genchem-no-planaria-50g.html)

a few Questions:

(1) I'm wondering whether the EI is going to have everything that the plants need without the tap water? or if I need to dose so extra stuff.

the EI kit I have from aquarium plant food has Potassium Nitrate, Potassium Phosphate , Magnesium Sulphate and chelated trace (not specified what this contains), and I read this on another forum:

" if you want to use RO water with Shrimp speciality re-mineralization salt or solution, you will need to dose additional Manganese, Zinc, Boron and Molybdenum" ( http://www.shrimpnow.com/forum/showthread.php/11571-Guide-on-Setting-Up-Planted-Shrimp-Tank)

(2) is it worth considering cutting the RO with some tap to add back traces? or is this self defeating? I suppose I'd rather not cut it as it might defeat the purpose somewhat, and pure RO with the right additives would be informative from a learning perspective and perhaps easier to deal with known definite minerals rather than surprises?

Many Thanks,

Tom
 
Abcdefg said:
chelated trace (not specified what this contains),
Click to expand...
http://www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/fertilisers/dry-chemicals/dry-salts/chelated-trace-180.html

Which is actually this.
http://uk.solufeed.com/products/chelates/solufeed-tec

EI generally contains in excess of the nutrients required for your plants, which is where the estimative bit comes from, so unless your tank is extremely packed with plants I doubt it is a nutrient deficiency. You could up the EI dose if you feel plants are not doing well.

Generally people cut RO with tap so as to add hardness back (and save money, with RO working out typically 2p per litre if on a water meter). Fish, plants and shrimp will suffer if water is too soft. They generally dilute to a known hardness ie if was 20dKH dilute 50:50 to 10dKH. Try not to get below 8dKH as things like pH pens won't give reliable readings and you are reducing the buffering from a pH crash, though many people operate fine at 4dKH.
 
ian_m said:
http://www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/fertilisers/dry-chemicals/dry-salts/chelated-trace-180.html

Which is actually this.
http://uk.solufeed.com/products/chelates/solufeed-tec

EI generally contains in excess of the nutrients required for your plants, which is where the estimative bit comes from, so unless your tank is extremely packed with plants I doubt it is a nutrient deficiency. You could up the EI dose if you feel plants are not doing well.

Generally people cut RO with tap so as to add hardness back (and save money, with RO working out typically 2p per litre if on a water meter). Fish, plants and shrimp will suffer if water is too soft. They generally dilute to a known hardness ie if was 20dKH dilute 50:50 to 10dKH. Try not to get below 8dKH as things like pH pens won't give reliable readings and you are reducing the buffering from a pH crash, though many people operate fine at 4dKH.
Click to expand...


Thanks Ian,

So, if there's no need to worry about deficiency, which as you say is the whole ethos of EI, then do I need to worry about excess?

I understand that water changes are part of the EI method, and stop the ferts from accumulating in the tank over time...

however with shrimp should I be worried about the resulting TDS from remineralising with a shrimp remineraliser and EI at the same time? I have no experience with keeping shrimp or fish yet so I'm not clear on this:

- are the TDS levels quoted for shrimp water conditions ment as an indication of overall water quality?

- if so then can I exceed those levels because I know that the shrimp remineraliser and the EI dosing contain only benign minerals and traces.

- or are these TDS guides because shrimp can be effected by the TDS levels irrespective of the which solids are dissolved? so even if it doesn't contain any tap water nasties it can still effect them? Obviously I wont plan on exceeding the TDS levels by multiple hundreds, but for example if the sorts of shrimp I'd like to keep might be said to like 150 TDS, and my remineralised RO waer had a TDS of 300 - 350 would that be a problem?

Thanks,

Tom
 
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