first time cycling tank - going a little TOO well?

[jessriggy]

Heya!
long story short, got a fish i wasnt expecting and had to cycle a tank with him in it. Learnt how to do it, got a testing kit and have been changing the water daily the way you're supposed to. However, my ammonia is never really that high? when testing against the colour chart, i change it per 25ppm but it barely looks that high, it's definitely not ABOVE that. Checked the nitrites, low also. Nitrates are also low (though thats to be expected so far, right?). This will be day 5. PH is about 7.2.
I did a 50% water change tonight, just because i was feeding him frozen blood worms and it was getting everywhere so i had to do a bit of a cleanup but usually i do 25%. Treat the water with stress coat and a little bit of bio-active rapid start.

Am I missing something? I've been expecting spikes but I've yet to see any. I'm getting a bit worried im doing the tests wrong, but followed instructions to the very detail!

5 gallon tank, internal filter + light + heater, 1 betta, 1 apple snail and some java moss (introduced tonight w/ snail)

 

[jessriggy]

for reference, this is my ammonia reading for after doing my 50% change and it looks exactly like it did before. To ease my mind, would you read this as 0? or atleast below 0.25?

 

[Sk3lly]

Your removing the toxins before they can build up. One fish alone isn't going to produce much waste (dependant on fish). Every time you do a 50% water change to half the amount of toxins in the tank

 

[jessriggy]

So I'm doing the right thing? Or am I removing too much of it?

 

[Sk3lly]

Perfect thing to do for the health of the fish. Whenever you get over .5ppm for ammonia or nitrite, do a 50% water change.
I dont know what tap safe conditioner you use but seachem prime will detoxify ammonia and nitrite for up to 24hours. Its very good for fish in cycling.
You wont see big spikes doing a fish in. You'll know your cycled when your daily testing starts giving you a 0 reading for ammonia and nitrite. You'll also be getting nitrates by that point. You can let nitrates rise to around 40-50ppm before a change but normally good practise to do one 50% change a week once cycled

 

[jessriggy]

At the moment I'm using stress coat as it is a conditioner also, but I'll look into changing to that as I have heard it mentioned quite a bit as the go to conditioner. Thankyou very much how long do you think it should take roughly? And I should continue with my daily changes?

 

[Sk3lly]

At the moment I'm using stress coat as it is a conditioner also, but I'll look into changing to that as I have heard it mentioned quite a bit as the go to conditioner. Thankyou very much how long do you think it should take roughly? And I should continue with my daily changes?

4-6 weeks is sort of the norm for cycling but theres no set time to it. You dont need to do daily water changes. You DO need to test daily though. Then like i said if your ever over 0.5ppm ammonia or nitrite then do a water change

 

[Sk3lly]

You might find its every 2-3 days if you keep on top of it. Also the more you feed the fish, the more ammonia will be produced. Go easy on feeding

 

[philipraposo198]

light feeding is key, and like others said with only small amount of fish your ammonia shouldn't be climbing much.

I personally would only feed 1 small every 3-4 days that why u can focus more on water quality. fish can go weeks and be fine without eating but if somehow ammonia got to high and you have high PH then thats very bad news.

onces u start to see nitrites u can feed a little every day if u wish. whats your ph?

 

[jessriggy]

I've been light feeding him just a couple of black worms here and there, usually one-two in the morning and one-two at night (takes about a second for him to eat them). I will cut down, however, to once a day with just a worm.

My PH is 7.2-7.5.

Tonight's water change went bad. Normally he is fine. I changed it once, 25%, temperature matched (as close as i could get) and treated it but he started swimming erratically. Not too bad but he rarely hangs at the front of the tank and he was going up and down the glass. I rechecked ammonia levels, seemed about .25, did another change. this is within about three hours. Did the change, tried my best to match it, even siphened old tank water that im not changing out into the bucket to make the temperature as close as i could before putting it in there. Put it in, no better. He's still swimming round odd. He's laid on the bottom a few times (though not unusual for a betta, im sure) and keeps going up and down with a few minutes of rest. Checked ph, everything seems okay. The snail in the tank is happily eating way. Is there anything I can do? Or am I just being a worry-wart?

 

[Sk3lly]

I dont think theres anything wrong. I think to me it sounds like your under feeding too much

 

[jessriggy]

oh, sidenote, i chucked a piece of blanched broccoli in for the snail and then took it out. could this have done it? He's calmed down a bit now, but still not his normal self.

 

[jessriggy]

I feed him the amount he stays up the top for, usually he eats the first worm (keep in mind they're quite long, some 3cm long) and then MAYBE eats the second. Alot of the time he will go down away from the second and i toy with it up the top to get his attention back, or sometimes wont eat it at all. He's always got a full belly after

 

[Sk3lly]

Oh ok im unfamiliar with those worms. I feed bloodworm and thought they might be similar. Bloodworm are small