Hello everyone!
I recently got into this hobby about 2 months ago and it has been a fun learning experience. I have a 20 gallon vertical tank. My tank has 1 apple snail, 2 orange dwarf gouramis, 2 peppered corey catfish, 1 golden plectomus ( I think it is, just hard to tell ) 2 Madagascar rainbow fish, 3 zebra danios, and then 3 kuhli loaches. ,150 watt heater, 5 plants , pool filter sand for substrate, 2 5100k lights with timer. 1 whisper 10 air pump and 1 whisper 40 air pump. I recently converted the tank with pool filter sand , I used to have gravel but I saw that the loaches do better with sand. When I did that i removed 50% of the water and put a new charcoal filter in my EX20 water filter. Before I did that change I had the tank setup for 4 weeks. Now my question is when i did that, did I reset the water cycle in my tank by putting new substrate and a new filter ? I saw that a cycle for a new tank takes 6-8 weeks ? Also I read somewhere where people use biological ceramic rings instead of the charcoal filters because its better at keeping the ammonia and nitrate levels down ? My water perimeters so far are a PH of 7.1, Ammonia at 2.0 and Nitrate nearly 0. I know that ammonia level is too high but isn't it ok for a cycling tank ? For the past week I was doing daily water changes and brought the ammonia from 4.0 - 2.0. And with each water change I was adding AMMO lock and that API stress zyme stuff. How can I bring my ammonia level down ? At week 7 with my tank and did all those changes at about week 5.
Any opinions would be great!
I recently got into this hobby about 2 months ago and it has been a fun learning experience. I have a 20 gallon vertical tank. My tank has 1 apple snail, 2 orange dwarf gouramis, 2 peppered corey catfish, 1 golden plectomus ( I think it is, just hard to tell ) 2 Madagascar rainbow fish, 3 zebra danios, and then 3 kuhli loaches. ,150 watt heater, 5 plants , pool filter sand for substrate, 2 5100k lights with timer. 1 whisper 10 air pump and 1 whisper 40 air pump. I recently converted the tank with pool filter sand , I used to have gravel but I saw that the loaches do better with sand. When I did that i removed 50% of the water and put a new charcoal filter in my EX20 water filter. Before I did that change I had the tank setup for 4 weeks. Now my question is when i did that, did I reset the water cycle in my tank by putting new substrate and a new filter ? I saw that a cycle for a new tank takes 6-8 weeks ? Also I read somewhere where people use biological ceramic rings instead of the charcoal filters because its better at keeping the ammonia and nitrate levels down ? My water perimeters so far are a PH of 7.1, Ammonia at 2.0 and Nitrate nearly 0. I know that ammonia level is too high but isn't it ok for a cycling tank ? For the past week I was doing daily water changes and brought the ammonia from 4.0 - 2.0. And with each water change I was adding AMMO lock and that API stress zyme stuff. How can I bring my ammonia level down ? At week 7 with my tank and did all those changes at about week 5.
Any opinions would be great!
, 0 nitrate and 0 nitrite. 2 weeks ago I had nitrate even though the ammonia was high. What i'm doing wrong ? I've been doing 25% water changes and adding water conditioner , ammo lock and stress zyme everytime. so 5 gallons every week. Is there a different method I can approach this ? EthanBeltramo thinks my plants to the left are non aquatic , if so could they be the contributing factor to my high ammonia levels ? The water has cleared up a little since adding that UV sterilizer. Thanks again for all your help
