Habitat - Indoor :: Water chemistry and cycling turtle tank

[talal]

Hi everyone,

I had my turtles in my tank for about 10 days before I got my filter in the mail due to previously ordering an XP3 and again a replacement XP3 but both of them leaked pretty much instantly after which i was like "F it" and got an eheim 2075 ( working perfectly ). Before I got the filter to get going I was pretty much doing water changes daily or every other day since the water would get cloudy. I installed my filter a little over a week ago and the water started to get cloudy after about 5 days. After reading all the posts here I believe that is the ammonia building up? that is pretty much how it is supposed to go until the beneficial bacteria builds up and my tank completes its cycle. However, the first time I took the readings( after 5 days ), my results were:

PH = 8
ammonia: 0.25 ppm
nitrites: 5 ppm
nitrates: 5 ppm

I was a little curious so i went ahead and tested water out of my tap as well and they were identical to the ones above ( of my tank ). I waited two days and took the test again and got the same results but my water was getting a little cloudy so I did a 30% water change. After two days ( today ) i did another test and the readings were:

PH = 8
ammonia: 0 - 0.25 ppm
nitrites: 0 ppm
nitrates: 5 ppm

So I am a little confused now, how did the nitrates drop to 0 in two days after only a 30% water change. The filter is new and so is the tank. I ordered some carbon that i will put in my filter to get the PH down and clean the water, at the moment i only have mechanical and biological media in there. I am using the API test kit and every time i followed the instructions really carefully. Has anyone else had a similar result this quick?

There are currently 3 hatchlings in my tank and I had put in 12 feeder fish out of which only 3 are left.

All replies would be greatly appreciated! Thank you

[dumbork14]

how did the nitrates drop to 0 in two days

Don't you mean nitrites?

Either way, the second reading is normal. I have experienced this fluctuation in the test readings before, and it seems like your filter is doing its job. Of course, the ideal readings would be 0 ppm for all three (ammonia,nitrites,nitrates), but I have read in some of the threads that maintaining a 0 ppm reading in nitrates were seldom achieved (turtle owners may become complacent if the levels stay within the yellow-light orange area). I have also read that unless you have a planted tank, your nitrates level will remain in the light orange readings.

The way to decrease the nitrate level is to periodically change the water of the tank by percentages. This is sort of a trial and error. You may have to change water weekly by 20%, monthly by 30%, or every 2 months by 40% -- depends on you. You would have to test the water to see if there are any changes, or if the nitrate level is decreasing or not.

Hope this helps!

[ljapa]

If the nitrites dropped to zero, you have the bacteria that converts nitrites to nitrates able to handle the nitrite load. I would have expected your nitrate reading to be higher than 5 if 5 ppm is what you see in tap water.

The cloudiness can be a bacterial bloom when a tank is cycling. I did not see it myself, but have read enough references to it to know its actually a good sign.

If your ammonia is reading slightly below your tap water and your nitrite is zero, you are practically there. As to how that could have happened with only a good working filter recently, the bacteria that perform this magic love to colonize a filter with biomedia and good water flow, but they will also colonize the substrate and every surface they can like the glass, decorations, etc....

[talal]

My tank water is a lot more clear today! I guess the cycle is pretty much complete. I did however to another test and the nitrates don't seem to go higher than 5 ppm while the ammonia is somewhere between 0 - 0.25 and nitrites are 0 . Going to put some carbon in my filter tomorrow hopefully it's in the mail. Lets see what that does for me, atleast it will dechlorinate or remove chloramine from the water.

[Starscream]

I plan to roll with some carbon as well.

[talal]

I just put some in last night. I got it off ebay for $24 for 40z and I used a $1 walmart laundry bag cut to size to hold it.