My first fishless cycling experience

[Alaris]

Yes do a pwc if ammonia and/or nitrItes are .50ppm or higher. OR you can just add a single dose (for the whole tank) of Prime b/c it locks up .80ppm of ammonia.

You should probably start adding nitrAtes to your tank. Apparently there's not enough to go around. You might also need to add other nutrients as well, but at this point I will default to someone else who knows more about ferts and algae....

 

[Sahabo]

how do I add nitrates??

 

[Sahabo]

this is really starting to stink I did a large water change and discovered my tank has a large number of planaria in it! I guess messed up by adding the plants before cycling was finished and not having enough nutrients because there was dead plant material everywhere. Plus lots of algae. Should I just keep doing pwcs to clear things up?

 

[Purrbox]

Check out this thread. There's a link to an article with directions on treating for planaria and hydra. I gave it a try and it worked wonders with no harm to my Cherry Red Shrimp.

Most people use KNO3 to dose Nitrates since it is very economical.

 

[Sahabo]

Joy, did the worm treatment harm your beneficial bacteria at all?

Thanks everyone for your continuing help!

 

[Purrbox]

As best as I can tell no. Shrimp are very sensitive to Ammonia and Nitrate and I didn't see any negative response from them at all. Of course my aquarium is very heavily planted, so the plants do act as a part of the biofilter. Since it's a dewormer, it really should only affect worms and not bacteria.

 

[Sahabo]

wow, thanks Joy. the treatment worked like a charm!

SO. I stopped adding ammonia a few days ago. The ammonia readings went to 0. Last night, I added one drop of ammonia which put the reading at .50ppm. This morning, it was back to 0. Nitrites still at 0. Am I done? Is my tank cycled??