When should I do my first water change?

[brittant]

When should I do my first water change?

My tank (14 gal BioCube) is roughly 5-6 weeks old. I started with cycled water from another store. I have one fish, a few tiny inverts, and about 8 lbs. of live rock, I believe. My test strip results are as follows:

Nitrate: Roughly 40-80 ppm, vastly on the 40 end
Nitrite: 0-.5 ppm
pH: Roughly 8.0 or a little more
KH: 40-80 ppm

Thanks!

 

[robbrouse]

I think you need to get another 6 pounds of rock or so. What is the ammonia reading? You should have 0 on Ammonia as well as Nitrite. 40-80 is high Nitrate as well.

You might want to do a good size water change and bring down the nitrates and let me know what ammonia is at.

Robb

 

[Northstar24]

Also, test strips are fairly inaccurate - when it comes time to repalce them, invest in the liquid dropper tests from API or something similar

 

[d2mini]

Ammonia and nitrates are the main thing to watch when cycling.
When these start to spike you can start doing large water changes, once a day if you have to. I started with a lot of really live rock so I was trying to minimize die-off from excessive ammonia.
When ammonia and nitrate settle down to safe levels, your cycle is over and you can switch to a regular water change interval.

 

[brittant]

My test strips actually don't have Ammonia on them... I've been taking my samples to the LFS the past few weeks. Would a 2 gallon change suffice? Part of the problem is the amount of distilled water I'd be able to carry back from the store by myself...

 

[brittant]

Also, part of the problem is that the person who was supposed to be fish-sitting this next week while I am on break cancelled suddenly, so I am struggling to find a replacement. Unfortunately, the tank is in a dorm and I will be at home in bed after surgery.

 

[robbrouse]

You really need to buy a test kits that can test for ammonia. 2 gallons is a little under 15% I think it would be a good start. I know Ammonia test are like $10 at the pet store, you might want to pick one up.

 

[brittant]

I'll try Thursday night; unfortunately, I'm in the middle of midterms, and don't have the 2-3 hours it takes to catch the shuttle and come back. :/

But thank you so much everyone.