Can you post pictures?

 

Sure - thanks, see below.

 

How are you cycling the tank?

I don't know what the white stuff might be so I would eliminate one at a time starting with the pH Down. Do a 50% water change and watch for a return on the glass. As a side note: Unless pH is over 8.2 there's no need to alter it. Fish can become accustomed to and do well in high or low pH; it's fluctuating that causes issues.

 

Thanks for this. I'm just sort of letting it run, adding plants and things but no fish, was adding fish food to create ammonia for a few days but have stopped that now. Doing only 20-30 percent water changes, I noticed the white stuff right after the big 50 percent change... that was the first time i added Ph down too so going to not do that again and see what happens, I have a feeling that was it?

Thanks for the note re ph. If the ph does go way up or down with fish in it, is that when you would use the chemical up/down stuff?

 

I wouldn't bother chasing your ph, it will become just constantly adding chemicals. The betta can adjust to whatever your ph is, and that way you won't have any swings in water parameters.

If that's not what the white film is/ was, it might be your driftwood and the bacteria settling in. I'm going through something similar with mine. It's the bacteria eating the carbohydrates out of the wood. It can happen any time, but normally happens in nearly cycled tanks. Mine has a "goopy" look to it. (I'm not sure that's what yours is, but my tank walls had it also) @RussellTheShihTzu educated me on it 😁

 

Is this the so-called 'bacteria bloom' ? My spider vine wood is completely covered in fuzzy jelly lol I think its different to the stuff on the walls tho but maybe not. Is there such a thing as white algae?

So my betta will be going into the big tank with a friend's bristlenose pleco and then gradually some harlequin rasboras maybe or tetras.. i think they're resilient but maybe not enough to just never test the ph?

 

Is this the so-called 'bacteria bloom' ? My spider vine wood is completely covered in fuzzy jelly lol I think its different to the stuff on the walls tho but maybe not. Is there such a thing as white algae?

So my betta will be going into the big tank with a friend's bristlenose pleco and then gradually some harlequin rasboras maybe or tetras.. i think they're resilient but maybe not enough to just never test the ph?

I think part of the problem with chasing the ph is for example if it's high and you treat it according to various product directions it will lower it temporarily . Then it will increase again depending on how hard or soft your water is and you will get a spike via a water change or just the lack of the stability to hold the ph lower. This constant back and forth of treating and chasing the ph is what becomes stressful to the fish. Where as if you just leave how it is from the tap and just test it weekly to make sure there isn't big shifts you should be fine. For me when I'm testing my ph it is giving me an overall baseline of what it 'normally' runs at. So you want to still test it, but it's more for 'informational' purposes. That way if one day you have a really high spike or it plummets you'll know something is off in the balance. The consistency is what is best for the fish, unless you're trying to raise something that requires certain parameters... ie: Discus . I believe they require really soft, acidic water and if you live in an area with hard alkaline water you would be chasing a never ending battle.

I run my water checks at least a couple times of week just to make sure everything is still 'how my normal is'. The exception is you always want 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites, and 10-20 Nitrates. There's some good youtube videos that explain it better than what I probably am. Just be careful because some of the youtubers give bad info. A few of my top favorites overall are: Prime Time Aquatics (he's a biology / chemistry teacher too). Rachel Oleary, A girl talks fish (she keeps it rather simple and easy to understand) and Corey for Aquarium Co-op, except the videos can be quite long if you're looking for particular information. I have about 2 others as well, and the rest i take with a grain of salt.

I'm the type that has to understand the "WHY" or it doesn't always click in my brain.

All that being said, I want to say the group you've described in your tank will all be compatible. Assuming the Betta doesn't get stressed with tank mates. (Which is unknown till you try) Maybe someone else can give better advice on that part. I'm midst setting up a 20 long but it's divided with about 7 inches on one end 15 inches in the middle and another 7 inches on the other end. Ideally I would like my betta on each end and a schooling fish in the middle, but I'm not sure what yet 🤪

I hope I didn't confuse you! I also think all the mods here are wonderful and knowledgeable even with other fish. I know on other forums they'll shame people for doing a fish in cycle, even though I'd bet money 90% of them did a fish in cycle as well soooo..

 

What you have on your spider vine wood is a harmless fungus that will go away on its own.

As far as cycling, letting a tank run is just that: A tank running. (Sounds funny, doesn't it). I've never done a fishless cycle but I seem to remember you need a steady Ammonia source. Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong.

Here is the Forum's fish-in cycling tutorial. This one I do know.

CYCLING: the two-sentence tutorial

Change half the water when either ammonia or nitrite approach 0.50ppm (alternately, 25% at 0.25ppm), or weekly, whichever comes first. Add Seachem Prime at 2-drops per gallon of tank size every day until cycled. That’s all you have to do. You can stop reading now. But there’s a lot of...

www.bettafish.com

 

Thanks for this! My 'cycles' are fishless currently.... The betta and bristlenose are picked out though, and waiting to come home eeeeeeep!! I seriously can't wait.

Someone on another forum mentioned 'silent cycling' that you can do by just growing lots of plants, because they eat ammonia so apparently, if theres enough plants for the tank and they're all growing and healthy then that's a sign the tank is a safe zone for fish, even before the biofilter has established itself? Aquarium coop youtube guy you mentioned does a video about it too. So my big 130L has lots of plants but now I've also set up a little 16L (which I bought originally for the betta but then had a guilt wave and bought a bigger one) with plants in the hopes that, between the fish food and the plants, it will be safe to get betta out of the pet shop sooner and keep him in there while the 130 establishes itself and use it to maybe keep little shrimps or those big golden snails or something.

So if you do have fish in the tank and check pH one week and its a huge jump (btw what would be a huge jump from 7.2?) do you then add the stuff to alter it or do you eliminate possible causes first and just keep testing so it might change more gradually?

 

I'm new to all this myself but I can understand the concept of having lots of plants would assist in the cycling and the plants utilizing the ammonia. I'd hate to say yes, and then you have some ammonia spikes in your tank. What is your pH coming out of your tap?

Maybe someone else could chime in on a huge jump for 7.2, but for me I would watch if it were 7.2 one day and then 8.0 or 8.2 I would try to figure out why it jumped so much. Small variations in that (if you're checking your water regularly and frequently)are fine. I may be completely off with all of this and hope someone chimes in to educate me...LOL! I

It's more of the consistency that you want (again unless you're raising something that requires a very specific parameters :certain shrimp, discus etc) and you're forced to keep your water within those limits. But I can look back at my notes and I can see that my pH fluctuates from 7.6 to 8.2.. here lately it's been running right around 7.8. I personally don't put anything in the water to adjust the pH, I would do a small water change. Too many factors can adjust the ph such as temperature of the water, aeration, conductivity. For example if you were to test your ph 3 times during a 24 hour period you might have 3 different results, but they would most likely be fairly close to your other readings (or close to your tap) if you've recently done a water change. I *believe that's also why people will suggest smaller more frequent water changes because that gives time for your fish and aquatic life to adjust and not going into shock.

I've also noticed that the 'older' my tanks get the more the pH runs at a lower range compared to when I had first got them set up.

Another issue from altering the pH is the TDS. The more in organic and inorganic chemicals you add the higher the TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) is and the more your quality deteriorates. Some shrimp can't have high TDS, so instead of chasing those certain parameters it's easier to keep shrimp that fall within YOUR normal parameters. I hope that makes sense 🤪 ...

And I'm new to this, so I'm sure I'm wrong about some of it, and there's much more knowledgeable fish keepers . I do however have a teensy bit of knowledge regarding fairly complex RO systems in regards to water quality. I worked in dialysis for many years and patients can only have RO water within certain limits or it can literally kill them while dialyzing. .. but I often find myself applying things I know from there to fish keeping and that also gets me into a bit of trouble, so once again 🤪

 

Haha thanks for this

I haven't actually tested my pH right out of the tap! But in the tanks I notice a drop after even just 24 hours from 7.5ish down to 7.2 and then today my small tank had gone right down to 7, after 2 days. My large tank is still 7.4 or so. I wonder about filling the buckets with new water and conditioner and leaving them to sit overnight before adding it to the tanks once there's fish in there, to bring the pH down a little for the betta as they prefer acidic to alkaline right?

I bought another big hunk of driftwood for my large tank today as that apparently helps bring pH down a little due to the tannins. Big tank is still cloudy half of the internet says to do a water change and half of it says to leave it and let the bacteria handle it, and I guess it depends on what is causing it lol but it was after the last big water change that it became suuuper cloudy so I don't think it will help. I will give it another day or two. My stowaway/incidental canary snail is still alive and seems to be having a ball in there so that's encouraging.

RO is a whole other layer of complexity haha eeeek