BlueWolf's Howl

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September 26, 2018

Quick Fishie Update

If you know you have a fish problem, you probably should stay out of the pet stores for a while. I didn't. And now I have two more (new) angels. One is gold and the other is a "koi" angelfish. I was concerned that the tank wouldn't cycle without fish. So I got two more. Good luck fishies - I hope you're strong.

Tonight's readings:

Angel tank -- 4ppm ammonia (this happened just before the danio tank dropped to 0, so I have my fingers crossed and I'm rooting for the two new fish to survive). They get a PWC tonight.

Hospital tank - well, let's just call this the crawfish tank. That's what is in there right now.
0 ppm ammonia !!!
1.0 ppm nitrite
5.0 ppm nitrate
I'm going to leave this alone tonight and let the cycle continue.

Goldfish tank - the cloudiness that appeared when I moved the tank (apparently a bacterial bloom) is now gone (no treatment but patience). I added a sponge filter and some bunches of hornwort, so that may have helped, but it really took time.
4 ppm ammonia - they will get a PWC tonight too

Danio tank
0 ppm ammonia
1.0 ppm nitrite
5.0 ppm nitrate
Again, I will leave this tank alone tonight and let the nitrogen cycle play out.

Since my last post, I set up the saltwater (30 gal) tank! It will eventually be a reef tank.
I used Caribsea Agra-live for the substrate and a mixture of white dead rock and some purple life rock. Live rock is wet and is different from life rock (dry). It's supposed to help the tank cycle faster and is a bit more expensive - so I used a mixture. I got saltwater pre-mixed from the LFS (local fish store). I have an undergravel filter (old style v-shaped, used from the LFS) and two powerheads (300 gal/hr each). So that's 20 tank changes/circulations per hour. Of course, there's also a thermometer in there. I had it set up for about 3 days and went to the LFS and got two really small clownfish (like Nemo) to help cycle the tank. I also bought a skinny hang-on-back protein skimmer (that still needs to be connected - probably tomorrow).

The clownfish are cuter than I thought. I was really against doing a Nemo and Dory tank. That was not my intent - it just seemed too.... ordinary. But clownfish are inexpensive and there's actually a chance they can survive the nitrogen cycle. They've been in the tank for about 24 hrs - and have basically been swimming only in a very small portion of the tank. They are swimming against the back of the tank - back and forth from one end to the other - at the top. Apparently they think it's fun to swim through the small space between the top of the thermometer and the side of the tank. The smaller of the two sometimes uses the space between the two suction cups - because he can and the larger one can't... For goodness sake - you have the entire tank to yourselves and you're using about 10% of the tank.

There are more tests to take for the saltwater tank:
Salinity/Specific Gravity - 27 PPT / 1.020 - this is at the bottom of the safe range
I've also noticed that there is some water loss due to evaporation. Normally this is what makes the salinity go up - but I have added rock and perhaps some of the salt was absorbed by the rock. I will add salt water to attempt to increase the salinity closer to ideal.

7.8 pH - had to use the high range pH test solution for the saltwater tank

0 ppm ammonia - it looks cloudy, but is definitely yellow
0 ppm nitrite
0 ppm nitrate

I used the Freshwater test kit for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I also have a Reef Master Test Kit - but that doesn't have ammonia and nitrite tests. It does have the nitrate test and the test seems to be the same as the freshwater kit.

In addtion, the Reef kit tests:

Calcium: 18 drops 360 ppm (should be 400 to 500)
KH: 9 drops 161.1 ppm KH
Phosphate: 0.25 ppm

And I just noticed - I have a heater - but forgot to put a thermometer in the tank!
Attention to detail...

Posted by BlueWolf on September 26, 2018 10:11 PM