Recent content by GrumpyGills

Gah, looks like another testing kit to buy. Unless I can just trust my city's water report in which case my hardness should be 150 ppm or 8 or 9 degrees GH. What do you mean by acclimating them slowly? Are you talking about the day I get them adding them to the tank water slowly or some other...

40 gb stocking plan: 15 Cardinal Tetras 6 Sterbai Corys 6 Dwarf Neon Rainbows 2 GBR 1 Angel (maybe down the road) It seems like 79-80 degrees is acceptable for all these fish. I'm sure a degree doesn't matter too much but what exact temperature should I set it at? I hope my pH is ok, it has...

Mine was 36 days total to this point. Still have a few days to go before the fish. Overall, just over a month isn't bad. If I had known that it would actually work by this point I wouldn't have freaked out. But the point is that when it hasn't worked, you don't know whether it will ever...

I think it's pretty amazing that 2 weeks ago a bunch of us showed up at out wits ends with a fishless cycle and as of now it looks like we all succeeded!

Added ammonia last night and had 0s today :D Will be hopefully adding fish this weekend.

Well, my nitrites are off the charts again after adding ammonia. I guess I have some nitrite converting bacteria but not enough to process as much ammonia as is being converted.

Nitrites finally dropped today! Three days ago I did two 75% water changes to get both ammonia and nitrites to 0. Then I added 1 ppm of ammonia, which by the next day turned into 5 ppm of nitrites. I didn't add anymore ammonia and today nitrites are 0.5 ppm! My pH reading is weird now...

Not that I am an expert since I am currently stalled with high nitrites, but my way of seeding my tank without any seeding material was to buy a bunch of plants and put them in the tank without washing them. Two days later my ammonia dropped after previously sitting doing nothing for 2 weeks...

We should start a support group. :) Glad to know I'm not alone. I keep reading nauseatingly successful fishless cycle diaries of people's perfect 15 day complete cycles where they dosed ammonia to 4 ppm every day, never did a water change, and nitrites never went off the charts before falling...

Alright. I have been doing 75% water changes every day just to keep nitrites on the chart. I have only been dosing my ammonia to about 1 ppm every day, and it is gone the next day. I don't know where all these nitrites come from! You are right about one thing... it does feel endless. A...

I think all three pots laying down in the same direction looks unnatural. Maybe try burying one more upright? Just try to make them look random, not intentionally placed.

Would you recommend cardinal tetras? I have been planning on adding a school of cardinal tetras to my first tank (40 gb). I think they are beautiful little fish which will stand out really nicely in my tank with black diamond sand substrate. However, I have been thinking lately that I didn't...

I finally got ammonia --> nitrite about a week and a half ago. Now I can process about 1-2 ppm of ammonia every 24 hours. My nitrites however have been off the charts since the second day they showed up. To combat this I have been doing 50% water changes every day since I have heard that too...

I have my city's tap water report but I am having trouble putting it in context. Is 1 mg/mL an average level? I want to figure out if I need to adjust how much Prime I am adding. So far I have been using the suggested amount.

Are there any species of angel that would be better suited for a 40gb or are they all about the same size? I've watched a lot of videos of angels and some seem massive, others seem not too big.