Cycling, Day 5
Tested my water today. Here are the results:
Test results on 23/01/2015, approximately 9 hours after the last addition of pureed seafood mix.
Ammonia: 4ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5.0ppm
Phosphate: 10.0ppm (or more)
pH: 8.2
kH: 9
Calcium: 500ppm
For some odd reason, calcium has dropped drastically. No idea why, or even if I did the test wrong (I am not too familiar with the API Calcium Test). pH is higher than previously tested by 0.2, whilst kH remained the same.
Ammonia is really high, which I am not surprised about. Both nitrite and nitrate though, are lower than the last time I tested it, after a number of rounds of pureed seafood addition. Phosphate is even higher than before, but given the look of the tank at the moment, I am not surprised. There are food bits floating all over.
In hindsight, I should have pureed the food better. The first time I cycled a tank, the food was pureed really fine, there was absolutely no clogging. This time round, the food particles are still quite large. My bad.
Anyways, this is good and bad. On the one hand, both nitrite and nitrate is lower, despite daily additions of ~15g of pureed seafood. That means that the biological filtration system is being established, as despite all the organic addition, nutrients are being taken care of.
On the other hand, phosphate is increasing... which is worrying. That was the point of the macroalgae. To take up nitrate and phosphate.
Now, two possibilities.
1.) Microbes are outcompeting the macroalgae for nitrates, and so nitrate has became a limiting factor for the macroalgae.
2.) The macroalgae is just half-dead, and so it's just not doing it's job properly.
Of course, it could be both...
Well, this will be something that I just have to keep an eye on.
Talking about the macroalgae, there are some nodular growth on the algae, which wasn't there before.
Anyone know what it is? Tumor growth? Spores? Aliens?
Not sure if it's because the thing is dying, or my water quality is horrid at the moment, or if the light is too bright, or if it just does it because it can but...
The little blobs in the circle. There are two. Kinda hard to see I guess. Any ideas? Because I ain't got any.
Anyways, I'll probably leave my aquarium like that for a bit to see if phosphate do decrease over time. I plan to add a lot more macroalgae anyways, just gotta find them. The second time I went to the beach, it was high tide and unfortunately there was not much. This Monday hopefully, I'll be able to collect more awesome stuff.
Here's the FTS at the moment:
So much stuff floating around...
As I mentioned, the macroalgae is half dead. D: Which isn't surprising, considering how I found it washed up on the beach. But still. I was hopeful.
It is breaking apart, though part of it is turning green (you can tell from the picture above). I am pretty sure that's just microalgae growing inside those tubes though.
Talking about stuff floating around, thanks to how dirty it became, I actually was able to witness the water flow in the first compartment of my sump.
A very artistic representation of the water movement.
I have always been worried about how the water flows when it enters the first compartment. Due to the way the baffles were designed, I have to fill up water very close to the top of the tank, but that means that water flows over the baffle, as opposed to underneath it as intended.
I have always been worried that therefore the area below would be stagnant, but I was wrong! :D
I noticed today that whilst some water flowed over the top, much of it did flow downwards and into the second compartment, as per designed! Awesome. :D
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