Recent content by jcostantino

I had to do a major water change (30%) because my nitrites were very high (>1ppm) since I'm cycling my 14 gallon tank. Right now one of my red platys is just hanging out at the bottom of the tank. He's breathing, his fins move and he will go forward a bit but he ends up just floating about 1/2"...

Ok, I checked bottled water - 0.05 ppm nitrite. I also checked my tap water, also 0.05 ppm. Last night the tank was testing >1 ppm nitrite and I changed 2.5 gallons of water. I retested today and it was still >1 ppm so I changed about 6.5 gallons of water and now it's reading 0.5 so I apparently...

Surfactants are designed to alter the surface tension of a liquid.. High surface tension allows a fly to walk on water. It makes the (in this case) ammonia more likely to penetrate the dirt being removed. Soap is a surfactant and well... you don't want to breathe that :)

I've been cycling a 14 gallon hex tank for the past week and a half and these are my test readings so far: Day 1: pH 7.4 (added fish - 1 dwarf gourami and 2 platys) (didn't check water) Day 2: pH 7.4, Ammonia 0 ppm, Nitrite 0.5 ppm (weak color) Day 3: Ammonia 0.25 ppm (weak color), Nitrite 0.5...