Day #1: Water Test

Tyler — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:39:27 +0000

Okay, I picked up a master water test kit from our LFS (local fish store) and started to do the water tests. These are my current results:

Ammonia (NH3): ~0.6
pH: ~7.6
Nitrite (NO2): ~1.6

I will do a partial water change (about 25%) and due to the amount of algae growing, I have covered the tank with a towel. This should eliminate all light reaching the tank and the algae should die off eventually. Can’t photosynthesize if there is no light right?

Do you notice anything odd about the above photo? There isn’t any Nitrate test solution! I also noticed that my Nutrafin Mini Master Test kit said that it was supposed to come with a pH, NH3/NH4, NO3 and NO2 tests but the Nitrate (NO3) is missing. I got in touch with Hagen (who is the manufacturer of Nutrafin products) and they acknowledged that the test kit was supposed to come with a a Nitrate test. They are sending me a free Nitrate test kit! They informed me there are two test kits avalable and that there is a test kit that has the General Hardness Test and the other comes with the Nitrate test. As you can see in the photo above, I am supposed to get the NO3 (Nitrate) test.

So for now I will continue to test the water for Ammonia, Nitrites and hopefully I will see my Nitrate test soon so I can check for that.

Our Little Fish Tank

Tyler — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:46:56 +0000

Welcome to Our Little Fish Tank. I thought it would be fun to try and document the process of setting up a freshwater aquarium in our small 700 square foot apartment here in the West End of Vancouver. Since I have previously enjoyed keeping fish, I thought both Robyn and myself might be able to enjoy keeping some freshwater fish here.

Since I do not have photos of the initial set up of our little tank, I will just list out the equipment we are using:

Eclipse 3 – 3 gallon all-in-one system

Pretty simple huh? Currently the tank itself is a bit overrun by some brown algae, but that will eventually work itself out.

As for what sort of fish we would like to put into it? Well our options are really limited because of such a small tank. Though we’ve decided that we would probably keep at most 5 guppies.

So what is this newly created WordPress.com site all about?

Well as I mentioned before I thought it would be kind of fun to document the experience of setting up a new fish tank. My previous fish tanks were 20 gallons and 10 gallons, so setting up at 3 gallon tank will be an interesting feat. I plan on testing the water on a daily basis in order to do a fishless cycle. A fishless cycle will help ensure we do not kill our fish.

I do have to admit something though. A few weeks ago we bought 5 guppies thinking that being hardy fish, they would survive in a newly set up tank. I was wrong and killed all 5 guppies within 12 hours of putting them into the tank. Possible reasons for their deaths? Your guess is as good as mine.

So please bare with me as I write about my trial and error experiences with doing a fishless cycle, and hopefully we’ll have some healthy, active fish to show off!