wulfin
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Background:
I set up a 10 gallon tank about 3 weeks ago, added plants. After about a week, I got a betta (fish-in cycle). I used Tank Buster which is a product like Quick Start that is produced by my LFS.
I tested my water parameters nightly for about a week and there was no change (0 ammonia, nitrites, nitrates). Then I got ridiculously sick - so unfortunately the fish were fed each day, but that was about it. So no tests were done (boo).
During that week, something happened. On Sunday I was feeling MUCH better and looked closely at my fish and was horrified to see ich crystals. So off to the LFS I go and get some medication.
Get home and before treating, I try to figure out what caused the ich. This betta is very active and flares at everything, so I figured it could be stress. But since it's been a while, I did my water testing.
Ammonia - 0. Perfect.
Nitrites - off the charts
Nitrates - off the charts.
Uh oh, I'm in trouble. Quickly do a 50% water change and add the ich medication and more Tank Buster (since it states to use it for emergency ammonia or nitrite spikes) to hopefully buy myself some time.
Yesterday there was no time to deal with fish to do anything more than feed (Mondays are my busy day, I'm home about 15 minutes in the evenings).
Tonight, I did a 25% water change and topped up the ich medication since the crystals have started to drop off.
Waited a couple hours and did a new water test expecting nitrates/nitrites to still be high, but hopefully be down from where they were.
ammonia - 0. Not too surprised.
nitrites - 0 ... uhm..what????
nitrates - 0 ... again.. what??
I know I should have tested before I did the water change today, but I was expecting them to still be high.
Did I completely crash the cycle? Or did I just test too soon after the WC?
I set up a 10 gallon tank about 3 weeks ago, added plants. After about a week, I got a betta (fish-in cycle). I used Tank Buster which is a product like Quick Start that is produced by my LFS.
I tested my water parameters nightly for about a week and there was no change (0 ammonia, nitrites, nitrates). Then I got ridiculously sick - so unfortunately the fish were fed each day, but that was about it. So no tests were done (boo).
During that week, something happened. On Sunday I was feeling MUCH better and looked closely at my fish and was horrified to see ich crystals. So off to the LFS I go and get some medication.
Get home and before treating, I try to figure out what caused the ich. This betta is very active and flares at everything, so I figured it could be stress. But since it's been a while, I did my water testing.
Ammonia - 0. Perfect.
Nitrites - off the charts
Nitrates - off the charts.
Uh oh, I'm in trouble. Quickly do a 50% water change and add the ich medication and more Tank Buster (since it states to use it for emergency ammonia or nitrite spikes) to hopefully buy myself some time.
Yesterday there was no time to deal with fish to do anything more than feed (Mondays are my busy day, I'm home about 15 minutes in the evenings).
Tonight, I did a 25% water change and topped up the ich medication since the crystals have started to drop off.
Waited a couple hours and did a new water test expecting nitrates/nitrites to still be high, but hopefully be down from where they were.
ammonia - 0. Not too surprised.
nitrites - 0 ... uhm..what????
nitrates - 0 ... again.. what??
I know I should have tested before I did the water change today, but I was expecting them to still be high.
Did I completely crash the cycle? Or did I just test too soon after the WC?
