Navykop
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2023
- Messages
- 24
Ok, first of all - thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to respond. I am so glad I found what seems to be a fun fish loving community here!
This is my first tank. From my reading and belated experience, I now realize that I was impatient, ridiculous and down right ignorant when I got my tank off the ground (on 5/23/23 to be exact). Not two weeks later….I dropped in some fish like an eager idiot. I’m happy to say I haven’t lost anyone to date but it’s been a water changing/chemistry battle!
I hoping someone might clue me in as to where I am, what I might be looking at in the near future and and advice tips to get there more smoothly.
So to start, I will say I have NEVER had so much as a drop of detectable ammonia in my tank except for the first few days. Ammonia dropped to nothing and nitrites grew. No ammonia has ever showed up again….
I did have a cloudy algae/bacterial bloom at the end of May/begining of June for a couple days but it seemed to clear up on its own.
Nitrites have remained at 0.5ppm to 1ppm (per the tetra app - based on it’s dip strip interpretation) ever since until the last couple days or so here. Oh and no measurable nitrates ever showed up until the last couple days here as well.
So present situation. Still no ammonia. Nitrites are climbing to 3-4ppm but are able to knocked back down to 2-3ppm with a 25% water change. Next day right back up though. Nitrates have appeared and seem to be holding steady at 20ppm for some reason. All other parameters are dead center in the preferred “green” zone and have mostly always been so. Occasional downward drift of PH occurs but is rectified with a little PH + to get it back to 7-7.2 range.
Here’s the rub. Tank looks beautiful and everybody looks happy. The fish and the inverts are actively mating. Everybody eats good and acts “normal”. Gourami’s building his bubble nest. Everyone swimming in their proper “zones”…. It sure doesn’t look like a tank with a nitrite problem….
Anyway, I could use anyone’s thoughts on my tank. Am I overthinking this? Is my tank nitro cycle moving in the right direction do you think? I’m a bit nervous because I have a trip planned where I leave on June 23rd… I want to be a good fish parent but I think my early stupidity might have doomed them all…
Thanks in advance!
This is my first tank. From my reading and belated experience, I now realize that I was impatient, ridiculous and down right ignorant when I got my tank off the ground (on 5/23/23 to be exact). Not two weeks later….I dropped in some fish like an eager idiot. I’m happy to say I haven’t lost anyone to date but it’s been a water changing/chemistry battle!
I hoping someone might clue me in as to where I am, what I might be looking at in the near future and and advice tips to get there more smoothly.
So to start, I will say I have NEVER had so much as a drop of detectable ammonia in my tank except for the first few days. Ammonia dropped to nothing and nitrites grew. No ammonia has ever showed up again….
I did have a cloudy algae/bacterial bloom at the end of May/begining of June for a couple days but it seemed to clear up on its own.
Nitrites have remained at 0.5ppm to 1ppm (per the tetra app - based on it’s dip strip interpretation) ever since until the last couple days or so here. Oh and no measurable nitrates ever showed up until the last couple days here as well.
So present situation. Still no ammonia. Nitrites are climbing to 3-4ppm but are able to knocked back down to 2-3ppm with a 25% water change. Next day right back up though. Nitrates have appeared and seem to be holding steady at 20ppm for some reason. All other parameters are dead center in the preferred “green” zone and have mostly always been so. Occasional downward drift of PH occurs but is rectified with a little PH + to get it back to 7-7.2 range.
Here’s the rub. Tank looks beautiful and everybody looks happy. The fish and the inverts are actively mating. Everybody eats good and acts “normal”. Gourami’s building his bubble nest. Everyone swimming in their proper “zones”…. It sure doesn’t look like a tank with a nitrite problem….
Anyway, I could use anyone’s thoughts on my tank. Am I overthinking this? Is my tank nitro cycle moving in the right direction do you think? I’m a bit nervous because I have a trip planned where I leave on June 23rd… I want to be a good fish parent but I think my early stupidity might have doomed them all…
Thanks in advance!