mike3epanda
Aquarium Advice Freak
Im about to finish my cycle except that I have to get rid of my nitrates... can I just put AmQuel+ in the tank which get rids of ammonia, nitrite, & nitrate instead of doing a PWC??... thanks in advance
1 Q
- Thread starter mike3epanda
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Amquel and other products can eliminate initial ammonia, nitrate/ite, but if your liverock still has decaying matter then you will still receive spikes. Better to be safe than sorry and use the water change time efficiently by sucking out any decay.
Kurt_Nelson
Aquarium Advice Addict
mike3epanda said:
I may be wrong, but AmQuel doesn't really get rid of all that stuff - it just turns it into things that are not toxic to your fish. You want to get in the habit of doing PWCs because you are not only getting rid of nitrates (the end product of your constant ammonia/nitrite/nitrate conversion process that's going on), but you are replenishing necessary "trace elements" that get used up.
From what I've seen, starting out this hobby with "shortcuts" and sloppy housekeeping only leads to quick frustration.
I agree that you need to do PWC`s. Shortcuts will cause nothing but trouble IMO. The purpose of PWC`s is two fold. 1) it dillutes excessive nutrients and DOC`s and 2) it replenishes trace elements that have been depleted by corals, Fish and inverts. I could tell and should have said something earlier when you usded the short cut to cycle your tank. Just a word to the wise. Nothing ever happens quickly in this hobby. Dont rush things. Patience is a virtue.
mike3epanda
Aquarium Advice Freak
k... well my nitrate is at 0 but nitrite at around 15-20.. when do u think imgonnabe able to put livestock in there?
Kurt_Nelson
Aquarium Advice Addict
If you're looking for someone to tell you an exact time frame for when it's safe, no one can really do that. Cycling a tank, with no initial bacterial to seed things, will take 4-8 weeks. Seeding the tank with cured live rock, or live sand will speed things up, but there's no real way to know by how much. Biospira may... or may not speed things up. Others here have had great success with it, others have not.
Sooo... the only safe answer as to when it's safe to add fish (or a cleanup crew for that matter) is "when your ammonia AND nitrites have reached zero." And you're going to be the first one to know that!
And while low to medium levels of nitrates are not toxic to fish, you will want to do one or many PWCs before you add fish so that you can get your nitrates down to a reasonable level before you start adding fish. Doing them before adding fish is way easier because you can do larger % water changes (and thus fewer of them to reach the same goal) without being concerned about altering the water parameters too much, too fast since there's nothing in the tank.
Sooo... the only safe answer as to when it's safe to add fish (or a cleanup crew for that matter) is "when your ammonia AND nitrites have reached zero." And you're going to be the first one to know that!
And while low to medium levels of nitrates are not toxic to fish, you will want to do one or many PWCs before you add fish so that you can get your nitrates down to a reasonable level before you start adding fish. Doing them before adding fish is way easier because you can do larger % water changes (and thus fewer of them to reach the same goal) without being concerned about altering the water parameters too much, too fast since there's nothing in the tank.
lando
Aquarium Advice Addict
PWC is the only way to go. There are NO short cuts in this hobby.
