My First single IBC DIY System

[Edvanr]

Thanks John,
I have 150L of water that I plan to change tonight so I will salt that to 6ppt before it goes in....

[Edvanr]

Ok something strange happened last night. After getting a reading of 1.0 Nitrates in the morning, i took another reading after work and got the following...

PH 7.6
Ammonia 2
Nitrates 0

I took another reading this morning and the results were the same.... Does this sound unusual? Maybe I got a false positive on yesterdays test, does that happen?

Also, I am not convinced my Nitritie test is working properly. I follow the steps adding the 3 different chemicals and at the end the water is just clear/grey looking... nothing like any of the colors on the chart which should show yellow for a reading of zero. Anyone had this problem?

[RupertofOZ]

What test kit are you using???

[Edvanr]

API Test Kits...

Ammonia: 5ml of water, 8 drops of bottle 1 then 8 drops of bottle 2 and shake, wait 5 min and take reading

Nitrite: 5ml of water, 5 (i think) drops from bottle then shake, wait 5 min and take reading.

Nitrate: Can't remember the exact procedure but it was a spoon of powder from bottle 1, a spoon of powder from bottle 2, and some drops of liquid from bottle 3...

[RupertofOZ]

Humm...OK... not the Freshwater Master Test Kit then....

I haven't used a "powder" version of their test kit.... are you sure it's a freshwater kit

[aur_d]

You would be better off treating any top up water to a pH of 6.0 a few hours, or the day before use, this will consume any carbonates in the water, which buffer the pH up. Overtime this method will gradually reduce the carbonate level in your system water and the pH will come down.

What do I need to do that?

[Yabbies4me]

Hydrochloric acid (Muriatic acid)

[Edvanr]

Well it finally happened! After just under 7 weeks my system has cycled and the Ammonia and Nitrites have dropped off to zero.

I will have to get a nitrate test but I am guessing there are plenty now in the system feeding my plants!

It took a lot longer than I expected. I guess i was optimistic that when people said 4-6 weeks it would be closer to 4. I think the main problem was the cold weather we have had here in Melbourne. The water has been around 9-11 degree but we had some days where the temp got down to 3 degrees (not the wather) which can't have helped the bacteria.

Plants are looking good, there was an iron deficiency but I fixed that up now and all leaves are looking healthy.

From the starting 20 fish i lost about 14. Pretty sad and it feels like a waste, next time I will cycle without fish.... I probably could have saved more fish if I had done more water changes but it has been hard getting out there in the dark with a bucket in the middle of winter!

Anyway I will post a pic tomorrow of the plants, fingers crossed I will not see any more deaths now from the fish...

Ed.