Sicklid
Aquarium Advice Addict
Are you testing your tap water parameters for comparison before you add it to the tank? This can give clues too...
first timer w/ a 55
- Thread starter Da Squid
- Start date
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Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
I know you're all sick of hearing my cycling woe's, but I keep getting confused by my readings. on 6-14 the ammonia was 1, the nitrite 0, the nitrate 15 and the ph 6 or below.
just tested today, 6-16 and the ammonia was .5, the nitrite 0, the nitrate 20, and the ph 6 or below. Is it possible the tank is starting to cycle after almost 2 months? Or maybe I'm seeing things
The plants should be consuming the nitrates...so that number should be going down, not up right?
just tested today, 6-16 and the ammonia was .5, the nitrite 0, the nitrate 20, and the ph 6 or below. Is it possible the tank is starting to cycle after almost 2 months? Or maybe I'm seeing things
The plants should be consuming the nitrates...so that number should be going down, not up right?
fishmonkey
Aquarium Advice Addict
can we see some pics?
Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
Sure, i'll show ya my shiny algae farm . Update on the testings... my ammonia drops by about half every day. Nitrites stay at zero and nitrates continue to go up maybe 5 ppm a day. Current readings are ammonia .3, nitrite 0, and nitrate 40. I tested some tap water after letting it sit out for a day or so and I got zero ammonia, zero nitrite, 5 nitrate, and 7.6 PH. How is it that my tap water is 7.6 PH and my tank water is 6.0 or below?
The plants are all showing great growth except for the amazon swords that continue to rot and melt away. I pinch off leaves and stems as I go, but that plant doesnt seem to like my water. I tried to show all the brown and thread algae that takes over the tank every two days, but my camera isnt up to snuff. Getting some black mollies and maybe an SAE for the algae tommorow.
. Update on the testings... my ammonia drops by about half every day. Nitrites stay at zero and nitrates continue to go up maybe 5 ppm a day. Current readings are ammonia .3, nitrite 0, and nitrate 40. I tested some tap water after letting it sit out for a day or so and I got zero ammonia, zero nitrite, 5 nitrate, and 7.6 PH. How is it that my tap water is 7.6 PH and my tank water is 6.0 or below? The plants are all showing great growth except for the amazon swords that continue to rot and melt away. I pinch off leaves and stems as I go, but that plant doesnt seem to like my water. I tried to show all the brown and thread algae that takes over the tank every two days, but my camera isnt up to snuff. Getting some black mollies and maybe an SAE for the algae tommorow.
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Floyd R Turbo
Aquarium Advice Addict
Your pH in your tank is low because something is causing it to drop. It is most likely your driftwood. I would remove the driftwood and put it in a separate bucket of fresh tap water, let it sit for a few days (stirring occasionally) and test the pH of both tank and bucket. My driftwood caused a pH drop and it was hovering around 6.8 or so until I removed it, now my pH hovers around 8.2.
Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
Yeah, I figured it was the driftwood, but I never imagined it would change it by 2 points. I am tempted to take out the tall piece as it doesn't seem to add much to the tank anyway. Still, I was always hoping for mostly amazon fish which i read prefer the low PH. It'll just make slow acclimating the fish extra important.... and is probably what prevented the fishless cycle for so long.
Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
Woo hoo, after 2 months we have fish! I put three adult black mollies in the tank last night after slow acclimating them. Water was ammonia zero, nitrite zero and nitrate 20. Tank probably isnt cycled, this was after a 50% WC.
I was worried at first because one of them quickly swam to the bottom and hid while the other two stayed at the top and looked like they were gupling air through their mouths. This mornign all three were swimming around at the surface in the corner where the current isnt as strong. Are mollies normally surface swimmers or could they be in trouble due to the low PH? I'm sure temperature isnt helping them either. Its been very warm lately here and even with the heater turned way down the thermometer is reading about 80 degrees.
I was worried at first because one of them quickly swam to the bottom and hid while the other two stayed at the top and looked like they were gupling air through their mouths. This mornign all three were swimming around at the surface in the corner where the current isnt as strong. Are mollies normally surface swimmers or could they be in trouble due to the low PH? I'm sure temperature isnt helping them either. Its been very warm lately here and even with the heater turned way down the thermometer is reading about 80 degrees.
Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
Thanks ingg. I'll keep remember that order from now on.
Its been almost a week with my three molly's and they are still alive! I've almost got the hang of feeding them so that no food falls to the bottom. All water readings are still normal. I'll probably do a 20% WC just for the heck of it anyway.
I hoped the molly's would eat the horrible thread and brown algae that is taking over the tank, but Jaws couldnt eat that much! The threads twist together and if I go two days without cleaning, it looks like someone dropped a big ball of green yarn in there. Its really crazy. They look like their strangling the plants and when I pull it off the substrate I find the stuff runs all through my turface! Should I start dosing Excel every day? Perhaps that would help. ONly running my lights about 6 hours a day but algae is still growing like a monster.
Its been almost a week with my three molly's and they are still alive! I've almost got the hang of feeding them so that no food falls to the bottom. All water readings are still normal. I'll probably do a 20% WC just for the heck of it anyway.
I hoped the molly's would eat the horrible thread and brown algae that is taking over the tank, but Jaws couldnt eat that much! The threads twist together and if I go two days without cleaning, it looks like someone dropped a big ball of green yarn in there. Its really crazy. They look like their strangling the plants and when I pull it off the substrate I find the stuff runs all through my turface! Should I start dosing Excel every day? Perhaps that would help. ONly running my lights about 6 hours a day but algae is still growing like a monster.
Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
The problem seems to just be getting worse. It used to be every two days I need to clean out the thread algae but its just growing faster and faster. If I hear no resounding no's, I'll probably start dosing excell until I get around to trying some DIY CO2.
Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
Quick update: Tank has been doing pretty good so far. I have the three black mollies, ten neons, and maybe 2 or 3 baby mollies at least. The PH in my tank jumped from 6.0 to around 7.2 recently and has been holding there ever since. To protect from something like that again, I added half a cup of crushed coral to the filter.
Plants are mostly doing fine. I added a few root tabs under my swords and while the older leaves are still rotting away, new shoots seem to spring up every day. Hair algae is still a problem. I've been dosing excel to see if it does anything, but I'll just have to wait to christmas when I spring for a CO2 system.
I'll get a picture one of these days.
My question, I definately want a school of some kind of bottom dweller and was wondering if anyone could suggest a few fun species. And after that, I was hoping to get some ideas on what other types of fish I could add. I'm a big fan of mollies, so maybe a natural progression would be swordtails next, though it would be fun to branch out to something else.
Plants are mostly doing fine. I added a few root tabs under my swords and while the older leaves are still rotting away, new shoots seem to spring up every day. Hair algae is still a problem. I've been dosing excel to see if it does anything, but I'll just have to wait to christmas when I spring for a CO2 system.
I'll get a picture one of these days.
My question, I definately want a school of some kind of bottom dweller and was wondering if anyone could suggest a few fun species. And after that, I was hoping to get some ideas on what other types of fish I could add. I'm a big fan of mollies, so maybe a natural progression would be swordtails next, though it would be fun to branch out to something else.
Sicklid
Aquarium Advice Addict
Cories are great for the bottom and are pretty funny to watch, especially when they pile up on top of each other for sleep time...
Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
Any particular kind of corrie? There are so many.
Aquarium1
Aquarium Advice Addict
There are three that I really like. The elegant, bronze and albino cories IMO are my favorite but u cups get almost any one you wanted.
FishEggs
Aquarium Advice Addict
i like the false julii or the corydoras sterbai myself.
Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
A little update. I've added pressurized co2, run two 54w T5 lights (a 10k and the 6.5 reddish one) and have been dosing the EI method for one full week. I'm about to scrape off the algae and do a 50% WC.
I added 8 corries and two SAE's. The SAE's ahve been doing great though the corries keep dropping off one by one inexplicably. While they have been dying, my nitrates were around 5 to 10. Since I started the EI method, but my nitrates have gone from around 25 to 40. Funny enough the corries stopped dying after the nitrates jumped.
My hair algae problem has decreased since I added faster growing plants. Special thanks to Justonemore20 and Kaiofcanada for the amazing plant packages! My brown and green algae has gone up noticibly since doubling the light. Its mostly on my rocks, so I don't mind it too much though and think it adds some color to the tank.
I'd like to try adding more corries again, but I'm worried the nitrates are too high. Think it would be alright if I lowered the EI dosing method by a little bit? Also thinking of getting some bright colored fish to offset all the green and brown in the tank. Maybe sword tails?
I'm NOT happy with the plant placement in there. I sorta dumped them in willy nilly and will be rearanging things next week. Any advice or opinions would be appreciated.
I added 8 corries and two SAE's. The SAE's ahve been doing great though the corries keep dropping off one by one inexplicably. While they have been dying, my nitrates were around 5 to 10. Since I started the EI method, but my nitrates have gone from around 25 to 40. Funny enough the corries stopped dying after the nitrates jumped.
My hair algae problem has decreased since I added faster growing plants. Special thanks to Justonemore20 and Kaiofcanada for the amazing plant packages! My brown and green algae has gone up noticibly since doubling the light. Its mostly on my rocks, so I don't mind it too much though and think it adds some color to the tank.
I'd like to try adding more corries again, but I'm worried the nitrates are too high. Think it would be alright if I lowered the EI dosing method by a little bit? Also thinking of getting some bright colored fish to offset all the green and brown in the tank. Maybe sword tails?
I'm NOT happy with the plant placement in there. I sorta dumped them in willy nilly and will be rearanging things next week. Any advice or opinions would be appreciated.
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Floyd R Turbo
Aquarium Advice Addict
Looking great! Yeah it's a great site to find live plants, I did the same thing recently with my 55 and it's now mediumly to highly stocked, which has helped cut out the algae growth noticeably.
Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
Thanks! I'm having a great time observing all the changes since I went high tech. All the lower light plants are taking on subtly different shapes with the extra light. And some of them look to be changing colors a bit. Or it could be brown algae forming on their leaves. I was definitely surprised to see the brown stuff take off, but its much easier to deal with then the long green hairs I had.
Sicklid
Aquarium Advice Addict
I like it!
Da Squid
Aquarium Advice Freak
Danka. I should have waited till after the algae cleaning and WC to take a pic. It looked like all the plants were pearling last night. It could just be from adding all that new water so I don't want to get excited. I'll see what it looks like tonight.
Still getting the hang of the CO2. I have a solenoid hooked up to a PH controller, but when the tank hits the set level of around 6.5 and the solenoid shuts off, the gas will continue going for another hour or so. I'm guessing a wire is loose in there somewhere. According to my drop checker, the CO2 levels have never gotten out of control, but I may start turning it off at night just to be safe. Not like it needs to run then anyway.
Still getting the hang of the CO2. I have a solenoid hooked up to a PH controller, but when the tank hits the set level of around 6.5 and the solenoid shuts off, the gas will continue going for another hour or so. I'm guessing a wire is loose in there somewhere. According to my drop checker, the CO2 levels have never gotten out of control, but I may start turning it off at night just to be safe. Not like it needs to run then anyway.
