Finally got my tank set up!

[Paperlantern4]

I finally filled and set up my 55 gallon tank. I'm completely exhausted. I spent the entire day lugging around buckets of water, rinsing sand, rinsing driftwood. Ugh. My water is a bit cloudy right now but I'm guessing that's normal since the sand probably hasn't had time to completely settle. I'm having a little bit of anxiety as to whether or not I'll be able to pull this off, since this is my first time setting up a fish tank. I got a test kit and tested my water, obviously the parameters suck right now. I'm going to try to locate some filter media from an established tank, otherwise I'll have to do an ammonia cycle (which I'm really scared to screw up, I'd rather avoid it if I can). My water parameters are as such;

GH 180
KH 240
PH 7.5
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20

I'm going to be keeping one single Elephant Nose so I need a KH of between 0 - 10, a PH of 6.5-7.0, and a temp of 73-80 degrees. My question is, what should the GH and KH be and how to I go about lowering/raising them as needed? I feel like such a noob.

 

[ehh]

Just worry about keeping ammonia and nitrite at 0. And keeping nitrates low. Don't worry about ph and hardness and all that mess. If this is your first tank then just stick to the basics!

This thread is also lacking pictures.


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[Paperlantern4]

I didn't want to post pictures yet because of the cloudiness, haha. I'll probably post some in 24 to 48 hours. But will my elephant nose be ok if I don't pay attention to PH and hardness? I know they are very fragile fish.

 

[brich999]

Congrats on setting up your first tank. Dont stress too much, nothing is too difficult ans like ehh said, I wouldnt be too concerned with kh or gh. Ph is easy to adjust and cycling a tank can be easy. There are products that can help or other methods. Ofcourse adding filter media from another tank will speed up the cycle some.

Now show off your work and post a pic