Hey guys, got a couple of questions for you (posted one in a different forum but thought I'd expand to General Discussion for faster responses):
1. Can you do a water change on a still cycling, fishless, planted tank?
2. If one fears that their cycle has stalled (as in ammonia won't go down past .5ppm, even though it went to 0ppm last week for a couple days), would a water change help?
Reason I'm asking is that my 18 gallon freshwater tank (no fish, but live plants and drift wood), has become inundated with diatoms and hair algae and some of my plants are suffering from this coating of algae. My light is probably considered low/medium, but the plants are definitely growing. The tops on all of them look great, but down where there is more diatom accumulation, leaves and roots and stems seem to be dying. (Note: Lights are only on 6 hours tops a day).
Really I would prefer my plants to not die, especially because I just received more yesterday.
Question 2 pertains to the frustrating possibility that well, I think my cycle stalled. I'm not sure what's going on but nitrItes have been perpetually at 'off the charts' for two weeks (in that the solution turns purple as soon as it hits the bottom), and my ammonia refuses to go below 0.5ppm. This all happened around the beginning of this week. Before then things were going really smoothly, right on track. Now... doesn't seem as much.
I fear I may have shocked some of the bacteria when I topped off the tank level on Sunday or so. My house gets warm, and while mostly lidded, water just evaporates fast. But I think my last top-off had the water too cold? I'm not sure. That's all I can think of and so now the bacteria are trying to catch up.
Any thoughts? HELP.
1. Can you do a water change on a still cycling, fishless, planted tank?
2. If one fears that their cycle has stalled (as in ammonia won't go down past .5ppm, even though it went to 0ppm last week for a couple days), would a water change help?
Reason I'm asking is that my 18 gallon freshwater tank (no fish, but live plants and drift wood), has become inundated with diatoms and hair algae and some of my plants are suffering from this coating of algae. My light is probably considered low/medium, but the plants are definitely growing. The tops on all of them look great, but down where there is more diatom accumulation, leaves and roots and stems seem to be dying. (Note: Lights are only on 6 hours tops a day).
Really I would prefer my plants to not die, especially because I just received more yesterday.
Question 2 pertains to the frustrating possibility that well, I think my cycle stalled. I'm not sure what's going on but nitrItes have been perpetually at 'off the charts' for two weeks (in that the solution turns purple as soon as it hits the bottom), and my ammonia refuses to go below 0.5ppm. This all happened around the beginning of this week. Before then things were going really smoothly, right on track. Now... doesn't seem as much.
I fear I may have shocked some of the bacteria when I topped off the tank level on Sunday or so. My house gets warm, and while mostly lidded, water just evaporates fast. But I think my last top-off had the water too cold? I'm not sure. That's all I can think of and so now the bacteria are trying to catch up.
Any thoughts? HELP.