Loaches Online Forum

Fishless cycle does not take 3 months, more like 3 weeks.
Yes, keep the KH up. If you can add some other minerals that would be great to raise the GH, too.
Showing so close to 0 on a strip and hearing from the water company that the water is very soft is good enough for now.
Yes, watch the pH and KH now that you have added the baking soda. I do not know where the KH would go, though. Precipitate? Probably.
I use Seachem Equilibrium for GH. It also has a fair amount of potassium for the plants.
Nitrogen (Nitrate and Nitrite ) can lower the pH.

If the tank is heavily planted you can add the fish as soon as the plants are established, which, for the plants generally used in such systems is just about right away. Load the tank with the fastest growing plants that really do not care if they are rooted or not, and the plants will do a great job of removing ammonia. There is still a little ammonia to feed a small population of nitrifying bacteria, but not very much. You can swap the plants out slowly for prettier, perhaps slower growing plants, but do not remove all the plants at one time; there is not the bacterial population to deal with the ammonia.

I'm well into the cycle with ammonia now so, whether it's the plants or filter that is doing the work, I was going to continue until I clear the nitrite. Most of the plants are doing well, apart from the blyxa (the rushes in the centre) that are looking a little ragged and the eleocharis (the hairgrass near the bogwood ) which is covered in brown algae.

With what should then be a hefty colony of bacteria I was going to add a decent school of danios and barbs: around 18 x 2.5cm/1in glowlights (d. choprai) and 8 x 3.5cm/1.5in drape-fin barbs (poss. oreichthys sp.). I've got 8 x young (2.5cm/1in) cherry barbs (p. titteya) doing very well in a QT and I was going to add those 2-3 weeks after the others, assuming no water quality or disease issues.

Does this sound OK?

I've added some marble pebbles to contribute to the GH but I don't imagine that's going to have a huge impact. Advice on rocks and stones generally says "don't use limestone". Is that because limestone is inherently bad for an aquarium or just because it raises hardness and in aquariums with harder water than mine that's undesirable? I have some limestone chippings that I could bag and use in the filter to get some controllable slow-release GH.

I really appreciate all this advice. Sorry it's drifted a little OT for the loach forum - I think I've managed to hijack my own thread!

Richard, a great product to boost GH for aquariums is Barr's GH Booster available here http://www.aquariumfertilizer.com/store/products.php but probably not feasible for shipping to UK I wouldnt know.

Some things you might try to look for is calcium chloride CaCl2, which is often used as a replacement for salt (sodium free) and also magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) often called epsom salt (sold as a laxative and also salt dips for feet I think). These will add Calcium and Magnesium which is what GH test kit measures, and are both important elements for plants too.

As for what happens to KH I'm not really sure. I would assume if your water is acidic then whenever more acids are introduces then more carbonates will need to be added as well. Thats one reason I dont mess with KH unless your going to check it all the time and constantly adjust - way to much work for me.

In my experience, zebra loaches can reach a maximum size of around 10cm (4in)free iq test with instant results