New Tank for F8 puffer, advise needed

[ProPuffyFish]

I've got a brand new 20 Gallon tank I plan on keeping a figure 8 puffer in but its been 2 weeks now and the tank is still cycling. My nitrites and nitrates refuse to budge from 50ppm which is way to high to add any kind of fish. The tank has live plants and a few snails I've added as a treat for when the little puffer comes home. I've tried adding bacteria to the tank in bottled form and from my old tank, I've also tried a bacteria booster thats kind of like food for the bacteria I think. The product was called bacter boost. I've also been doing water changes every second day.

Does anybody have idea's on how to get my nitrite levels to drop?

[Pufferpunk]

Please explain the details on exactly how you are cycling the tank?

[RTR]

And what plants you are using - most FW plants do not do well in BW, which the F-8 will need.

[ProPuffyFish]

Okay sorry if all that was confusing.
1. Added clay based river gravel for a substrate
2.I filled the 20gal tank and added water conditioner then increased the specific gravity to 1.005 with marine salt
3. I hooked up the filter that came with the starter kit along with a 50gal "aqua clear" filter
4. I added "cycle" (a bottled form of beneficial bacteria)
5. Then I put in java moss that was already growing amazing on a lava rock and a fertalizer tablet that I stuck in the lava rock (in the 2 weeks I've had it it has grown a full inch and a half)
6. I added about 20 little ram snails from the petstore that I know are pests but the puffers love them
7. I added some tall grass plants that look like curling ribbon ( I added fertilizer tablets into the clay based river gravel near the grass roots) these grasses besides some snail damage are also doing amazingly well.
8. I waited 5 days, in the 5 days my ammonia spiked which was good because then my nitrites spiked a little bit along with my nitrates
9. Added an anubias plant (It's stems have grown a full 5cm in 5days)
10. A specialty aquarium store suggested I use their product "bacter boost" which the ingrediants were all plant baised so I saw no harm. It promised on the label that my tank would fully cycle in 2 days.
11. The next day when I tested the water my nitrites had spiked from 0.25 all the way to 5.0 along with my nitrates. My ammonia stayed very low though
12. I scooped out all the snails and now keep them in a bucket
13. I do 25% water changes as often as I can (around every 2 days)
14. I added "chemi-pure" to the 50gal "aqua-clear" filter
15. I took the filter sponge from a tank I have thats been running for 5 years now and squeezed the bacteria out into some tank water and quickly added the water to my new tank
Everything seemed to be going okay until the bacter boost so I've stopped using it. Since adding the good bacteria from my old tank the Nitrites have gone down from 5.0 to 2.0.
Does anybody know what might have happened so I dont make this mistake again? And also any suggestions to further bring the toxic levels down?

[ProPuffyFish]

Oh wow! In the last 10 hrs my nitrites have dropped from 2.0 all the way down to 0.25! I guess I did do it all right. So another question though I need to increase my pH and make the water harder. Could I do this by adding aragonite into my other filter?

[RTR]

4. "Cycle" is worthless and is likely the source of your nitrogen spikes - it is characteristic of that product as the material is very high in nitrogen compnds itself. It rarely contains any live bacteria, and even if it does, they are the wrong kinds.

7. That sounds like corkscrew Vallisneria, aka Val. For me it does not do well in BW, and does not survive above 0.003 specific gravity. Some folk have reported better results however, so that is a wait and see. More than one species of Val can spiral.

What are the ammonia titers? Without ammonia you are not cycling.

[ProPuffyFish]

It's def not corkscrew, I had some of that but the snails destroyed it. No worries about the tank cycling anymore, I didnt include the ammonia readings because they spiked and then went to 0ppm like they were supposed to, my only problem was nitrites.

So does marine salt by itself make a brackish tank have a higher pH and hardness or do I need to add something else?

[Flutter]

Most people use aragonite sand as the substrate or put aragonite in the filter. Increasing the Total Dissolved Solids is important though with F8s.

If your water is quite hard then it will last a long time.

[ProPuffyFish]

Okay thanks, is aragonite readily available in most LFS stores? We dont have it at the one I work at. I've been looking all over
Isnt Total Dissolved solids the same as specific gravity in brackish and marine tanks. I've always known total disolved solids to be a freshwater reading, I'm new to the term though...

[Pufferpunk]

No, not the same at all.

[ProPuffyFish]

No, not the same at all.

Okay so do you mind explaining it please? Or pointing me in the right direction?

[ProPuffyFish]

I did some reading and I am not sure still how TDS completely applies to what I was asking but I now know it is total disolved inorganic compounds in the water. The special carbon in my filter takes out harmful metals so thats not a problem. Are you guys reffering to simply GH and KH? and what is the range a f-8 puffer would need? I have all the test kits on hand whenever I need them for anything so please let me know

[Flutter]

GH is general hardness and KH is carbonate hardness. Salt messes with one of them but I can't remember which one, I think maybe GH. I remember reading that they should be above 9dH. Our tap water is about 18dH and we still used an aragonite base.

[RTR]

Clarifications:

TDS = total dissolved solids. The term is a tad misleading. It is a measure of everything ionized in solution in the water. It is not just inorganics. Only in purely sterile inorganic mixes dissolved in sterile water would there be no organic components. Even when RO pass-through is used to dissolve newly opened containers of marine mix, you do not have a sterile solution. The total organics will be very small in relation to total inorganics, but there are still organics present. Established tanks.may have quite significant dissolved organic loads. Those dissolved organic compounds (aka: DOC) do contribute to the TDS. Remember that this is a measure of all ions present. It says nothing about the nature of those ions

Specific gravity = a comparison between any given solution and absolutely pure water with nothing organic or inorganic dissolved in it.

Salinity = a measure of the salt content of water. This is not exactly the same as specific gravity, but the terms are frequently used interchangeably in the hobby. Remember that "salt" is per dictionary.com :"Chemistry . any of a class of compounds formed by the replacement of one or more hydrogen atoms of an acid with elements or groups, which are composed of anions and cations, and which usually ionize in solution; a product formed by the neutralization of an acid by a base." Salt is not just or only sodium chloride.

I push aragonite as a substrate for all BW & SW applications, as it is quite valuable in providing stability to the mineral profile of the water in the tank. It is the most soluble of all the substrate material we used commonly in tanks, therefore the most helpful in replenishing used-up or reduced levels of the ions that tend to be used in normal tank operation.

I push this material especially for F-8s, as for these fish there is evidence that stability of the KH is significant to their long-term health and lifespan. KH (carbonate/bicarbonate hardness) is highly variable in low specific gravity water. Without stable KH levels, F-8s are unlikely to reach their proper lifespan. Why this is important I do not know, only that there is an easily measured difference between F-8s kept with relatively stable KH versus those with variable KH. KH is constantly used up in normal tank processes which we cannot bypass. Two milliequivanents of bicarbonate are used for each milliequivalent of ammonia-N oxidized to nitrate-N, even if that nitrate itself is used up from the water column by macroalgae or microalgae or other tiny tank inhabitants. You do not have to have a bacterial biofilter operating to read this KH loss, but it is general to use bacterial biodilters in the low-level specific gravity supplied for F-8s as the liver rock and microalgae/macroalgae used in higher densities will not survive at F-8 normal densities.So with F-8s, this effect is easily read and tested.

Nota Bene: Not all aragonite is prominently labeled as Aragonite. Caribsea - the commercial brand I use most - offers a wide selection of aragonite substrates, and the detail info on them will specify that they are aragonite, even if the label does not specify this large type.

HTH