phin9009
Aquarium Advice Regular
Hello! Just joined today and wanted to introduce myself. I am currently fishless cycling a 46 gallon bowfront aquarium that will not have live plants, just fake plants and decorations. I have an Aquaclear 110 powerfilter with BioMax media, AC sponge filter insert, and a ton of filter floss. I had put in a normal amount of filter floss but then obtained some used from a tank at my LFS (in the hopes it would speed up my cycle).
I began my fishless cycle on August 3rd, and added the filter floss August 16th. I originally dosed the tank to 4ppm ammonia (Ace brand Janitorial pure ammonia). It had dropped to 2ppm and stayed there since about 4 days after the start of the cycle. Since that, my tank has shown no progress. I have done tons of research and decided to try the advice I found on an article on here. I re-dosed my tank with ammonia tonight and will keep dosing it when it drops down. I also finely ground up a very small amount of fish food to provide trace elements. I added half as much ammonia as originally used, waited an hour and tested. It showed only a small change in color (not nearly as dark as 4ppm but darker than 2ppm. So I added more. And waited. And tested. And i hadn't changed! (Maybe I was starving the bacteria from the filter floss and they ate what I had added??). I added more, waited the hour and tested, now it's at 4ppm. We shall see what it reads tomorrow (I'm really hoping its gone down and nitrites show up!)
My planned stocking is 1 angelfish, 1 german blue ram, 9 harlequin rasboras, 9 cherry barbs, 3 dalmation mollies, 3 sunset platies, 3 blue platies, and 4 african dwarf frogs.
Any advice and comments are welcome and appreciated!
I began my fishless cycle on August 3rd, and added the filter floss August 16th. I originally dosed the tank to 4ppm ammonia (Ace brand Janitorial pure ammonia). It had dropped to 2ppm and stayed there since about 4 days after the start of the cycle. Since that, my tank has shown no progress. I have done tons of research and decided to try the advice I found on an article on here. I re-dosed my tank with ammonia tonight and will keep dosing it when it drops down. I also finely ground up a very small amount of fish food to provide trace elements. I added half as much ammonia as originally used, waited an hour and tested. It showed only a small change in color (not nearly as dark as 4ppm but darker than 2ppm. So I added more. And waited. And tested. And i hadn't changed! (Maybe I was starving the bacteria from the filter floss and they ate what I had added??). I added more, waited the hour and tested, now it's at 4ppm. We shall see what it reads tomorrow (I'm really hoping its gone down and nitrites show up!)
My planned stocking is 1 angelfish, 1 german blue ram, 9 harlequin rasboras, 9 cherry barbs, 3 dalmation mollies, 3 sunset platies, 3 blue platies, and 4 african dwarf frogs.
Any advice and comments are welcome and appreciated!