Personal computing discussed
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titan wrote:Don't fight your tank. Don't try and overpower it with chemistry. Let it reach a balance. Ammonia and nitrite will reach zero on their own in a healthy tank with adequate filtration. Ammonia remover isn't what you need. Time is.Turns out the ammonia levels were between .25 and .5 ppm, so I got some ammonia remover. I'll check it in a bit to see what the levels are at now. I did pick up a Mardel Master Test Kit. According to the 5-in-1 test strip my nitrate levels are about 20 ppm, nitrite at about .25 ppm (it wasn't white which is 0 but it wasn't quite to .5 the lightest pink), total hardness is about 250 ppm maybe more, buffer is about 240-300 ppm, and pH... Well, I had a tough time figuring that one out. It's this dark hot pink color. If I'm reading the scale right I'm at a pH of 8.0-8.4.
titan wrote:Please don't. Your tank isn't anywhere near ready for that. Try to keep what you have already alive instead. Don't even think about more fish until you have 0 ammonia and nitrite in your tank.I do plan on getting some fish tomorrow.
titan wrote:Are those test results from tap or tank? You should not use distilled water except to mix with other water. It has no buffering.What do you guys think about my water? Should I start buying distilled or natural spring water from the store?
titan wrote:Hardness, buffer, and pH will fall where they will. It's far more painless to pick your fish to suit them than it is to try and change things. You test them to make sure they're not crazy, not to try to make them conform to any particular range. Let them fall where they will, and pick your livestock to match your conditions. At most, if you have very hard water you could dilute your tap water a set percentage with distilled or reverse osmosis water to cut the hardness. You can also do this to cut nitrate levels if your buffering is strong enough. The only real concern you might have is if you have very low levels of buffering - that can potentially make your pH fluctuate too much.Will the pH balance on its own too? What about the hardness and buffer? I tested both tap and tank. The only difference in the readings were for the ammonia. 0 ppm in the tap.
Alright, no fishies tomorrow.
titan wrote:Dilute with nitrate-free water instead. No need to go nuts with chemicals. [size=0]How interesting that you can use a font size of zero pixels[/size]My tap water already has nitrate in it. According to the strip it's about 20 ppm. I was thinking today though that Nitraban might be a good way to remove some nitrates. I wouldn't use it in lieu of water changes, but as a supplement. Seeing as i don't have plants in the tank right now to use the nitrates.
What do you guys think?
mattsteg wrote:titan wrote:Dilute with nitrate-free water instead. No need to go nuts with chemicals. [size=0]facktastic[/size]My tap water already has nitrate in it. According to the strip it's about 20 ppm. I was thinking today though that Nitraban might be a good way to remove some nitrates. I wouldn't use it in lieu of water changes, but as a supplement. Seeing as i don't have plants in the tank right now to use the nitrates.
What do you guys think?
titan wrote:Distilled will bring your hardness, buffering, etc down, so be sure that you'll be within reasonable ranges (I suspect you will) Spring water is probably going to be reasonable on its own so it won't move stuff other than nitrate much.mattsteg wrote:titan wrote:Dilute with nitrate-free water instead. No need to go nuts with chemicals. [size=0]facktastic[/size]My tap water already has nitrate in it. According to the strip it's about 20 ppm. I was thinking today though that Nitraban might be a good way to remove some nitrates. I wouldn't use it in lieu of water changes, but as a supplement. Seeing as i don't have plants in the tank right now to use the nitrates.
What do you guys think?
So, I should pick up a bottle of natural spring drinking water or distilled?
titan wrote:Yeah, fish are generally pretty tolerant of most levels of stuff, as long as stuff doesn't change rapidly or often. Distilled water would be fine and even useful to mix in, but be sure to keep the ratio you use the same.Well, my water is really hard (425+ppm), 300+ ppm alkalinity/buffering, and past 8.4 probably. I'm a little iffy on the buffering and the pH as the color on the strip doesn't match any color on the bottle. My fish, though, look happy and look healthy, so I'm not too concerned.
mattsteg wrote:titan wrote:Yeah, fish are generally pretty tolerant of most levels of stuff, as long as stuff doesn't change rapidly or often. Distilled water would be fine and even useful to mix in, but be sure to keep the ratio you use the same.Well, my water is really hard (425+ppm), 300+ ppm alkalinity/buffering, and past 8.4 probably. I'm a little iffy on the buffering and the pH as the color on the strip doesn't match any color on the bottle. My fish, though, look happy and look healthy, so I'm not too concerned.
titan wrote:The best thing to do would be to lose the incandescents. They generate a lot of heat and not much light. Wattage recommendations are generally related to fluorescent lighting. Consider looking into compact fluorescents. I got my lighting stuff from ahsupply.com Of course, "easy" plants require less light, but I'd at least get away from incandescents. Looks like a nice package of plants.mattsteg wrote:titan wrote:Yeah, fish are generally pretty tolerant of most levels of stuff, as long as stuff doesn't change rapidly or often. Distilled water would be fine and even useful to mix in, but be sure to keep the ratio you use the same.Well, my water is really hard (425+ppm), 300+ ppm alkalinity/buffering, and past 8.4 probably. I'm a little iffy on the buffering and the pH as the color on the strip doesn't match any color on the bottle. My fish, though, look happy and look healthy, so I'm not too concerned.
Thanks for your feedback. What you just said had been echoed somewhere on AuqaFacts.com. Or somewhere similar. I am planning on getting plants though so nitrates from the tap shouldn't be such a big deal.
Speaking of which, I never got any feedback on the plants from AZ Gardens though. Specifically the <A HREF="http://www.azgardens.com/habitats_easy.php">Easy Habitat</A>. What do you think about that package for the 10 gallon? What about <A HREF="http://www.azgardens.com/newtools2.php">aquascaping tools</A>?
With two 15W incandescent bulbs, do I count that as 30W total, or 15W effective as far as plants are concerned?
titan wrote:No need to hang, a simple hood along the lines of http://www.ahsupply.com/finished_enclosures.htm that sits on the tank is pretty straightforward to construct.Or you could go to the hardware store and build your own hanging fluorescent light. Something that you could hang from the ceiling.