27 gallon hex tank setup :D

[mommytron]

readings today:

ammonia - between .5 and 1.0ppm
nitrite - 0ppm
nitrate - 40 or 80ppm, not really sure, the colors for each are the same on the chart lol

hmmm.. i'm not sure why nitrite is going down but ammonia is going up. could it possibly be to a slight inconsistency with dosing everyday? should i not dose the ammonia today since there is a reading or maybe just dose half??

 

[mommytron]

same readings today and i did not dose any ammonia yesterday. any ideas of what's going on? did i stall the cycle? what now?

 

[logansmomma1228]

Maybe wait a couple more days and see if it goes down? Sometimes they can stay at the same levels for a little while. That is why I test every other day at first until I see a change.

 

[mommytron]

with the way the numbers have been, it seemed like the cycle was almost done before. and now it is at a standstill. i think the heat this past week really screwed it up. but i thought the heat had to get wicked high to kill the bacteria. i dunno, all i know is i'm getting really discouraged

 

[Lowryder]

Bacteria start to die around 120F.

 

[mommytron]

so yesterday i decided to dose the ammonia up a cap full. today it read 1.0ppm and 0ppm nitrite. ...... ??????????? i'm so confused. with the amount of ammonia i added, it probably dosed it up to 2-3ppm. i'm not understanding why the cycle is converting some of the ammonia but i'm not seeing any nitrites or anything.... any ideas what is going on here???

 

[logansmomma1228]

Maybe you should do a large water change and re dose again. This ammonia is different from the last time right? Maybe you overdosed the ammonia?

 

[mommytron]

hmmm.... that's a good idea. but to get the ammonia back to zero i gotta do like a 100% water change right? lol...good thing the tank is right by the sink!!! guess it looks like i'm moving the water sprite over to the 20 gallon for now and changing out all the water. thanks lm.

 

[logansmomma1228]

np. I wouldnt say you would have to do 100% but probably pretty close. I personally would do a good 75 or 80% at least.

 

[mommytron]

so the tests are still all reading the same. the tank is pretty close to the sink, and occasionally soap bubbles will rise up off the dish soap and float around. i always watch them to make sure they don't fall in the tank, but it's possible that one or more could have. i think this is what stalled the cycle. i'm very sad that we may have to tear down an entire tank and wash/trash everything. i kinda wanna cry but i guess it was a stupid idea to put it so close to the sink (but also convenient because we could use the sprayer to fill it and empty it right down the drain with our little siphon.) what do you all think? you think even as little as one tiny soap bubble could clear out all the bacteria?

 

[HN1]

I wouldn't personally worry about the soap bubbles until there are animals in there. I doubt they had any net effect on the cycle. Did you seed with material from another tank (sorry if you mentioned it in an earlier post)? I'd suggest doing 75% changes for 2-3 days in a row and counting that as a "reset". Nitrite will take awhile to show up in a lot of cases and I've even seen where the nitrite portion of the cycle is nearly silent. JM2C. Good luck!

 

[mommytron]

the thing that doesn't make sense to me is that ammonia already fell to 0 and nitrite spiked, then nitrate started showing up. one day the nitrite reached zero, and ammonia stuck at about 1ppm. and it hasn't changed in a week. i'm very confused...the only think i can think is something killed off all the bacteria. i don't want to get the levels back to zero, dose the ammonia up, and wait 3 weeks just to find out it's not gonna happen. done that before! i'm not sure what i'm going to do at this point. maybe tear down the 27 and start the 55??? lol , i dunno

 

[mommytron]

added some more seeded media yesterday to the second filter. readings still the same (~.75ppm ammonia, 0 nitrite) hoping i will see a change soon! feeling very pessimistic though

 

[severum mama]

Do you have a nitrate reading? Just curious.

 

[mommytron]

i did have a nitrate reading. apparently i failed to mention this beforehand, but it was actually like 160ppm. i actually just mentioned this in chat, and Petty Officer Salamander suggested that this was the reason for the cycle stall. he suggested i do a water change then dose back up to 4ppm. i immediately did a ~75% water change to take that way down. i have not tested or added ammonia yet, debating whether i want to dose it up that high or not. i don't want to add a HUGE amount of fish to start with, either 5-6 panda cories or 10 tetras (not sure what kind yet, it looks like the LFS will be ordering ember tetras for us, so probably those)

 

[mommytron]

so readings after water change are as follows:
0ppm ammonia
0ppm nitrite
10ppm nitrate

here goes nothin! i just added 2 cap fulls of ammonia, hopefully bringing it to about 3ppm, will test it in a few when it's a bit more circulated.

 

[mommytron]

possible stock choices:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

these options include all the fish i am considering. if you think another combination would work better let me know

 

[krap101]

It seems you're set on panda cories and ember tetras . After setting up a few tanks with random 3-4 member shoals/schools, I have kind of changed my view from variety to a few large schools. I usually don't use programs to stock my tank, but here I have 99%

http://aqadvisor.com/AquStockImage....00909300065:,10:200909300155:,1:201001231352:

 

[mommytron]

yeah i'm not really using it to decide my stocking level but more for a tool to show the stocking choices easier. i like that idea, krap101.

 

[krap101]

Also, I'm not sure how widely pandas have been bred in the past couple years, but the last time I checked, most pandas are wild caught (meaning ridiculous dieoff rates). Another thing to consider is a smaller shoal of pandas and more embers. I think I can safely say, and tetras are more affected by the number of the shoal than cories (within reason). So maybe like 15 embers and 9 pandas? My experience with cories is that they tend to break off into tighter groups of 2-4 rather than stay as one big shoal. I haven't had any experience with cories on the large scale (say 50-1000), but anyways. I think (not sure yet) that it might be better to keep schoolers in a odd number, because if there's an even number, it's more likely they'll stay in two even groups (for more of the time) rather than one big school/shoal. This hasn't been tested yet, but it works with ants/bees (when choosing a new hive). I'd try adding the pandas in the middle or last to try to get them into a more established tank.

I think I may be misusing words. I think tetras school and cories shoal? (shoal being more loosely bound)