mrjester12
Aquarium Advice Newbie
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2020
- Messages
- 3
First time posting here. Hoping the community can answer a quick question. I haven't messed around with aquariums in years. I used to have a couple freshwater and a reef tank about 10 years ago and strayed away from the hobby. I've recently setup a 29 gallon tank for my grandson that has come to live with my wife and I, he wasn't sleeping well at night, he is 1 years old. I figured the background noise and the double as a night light would work awesome, and it has. He loves his fishies...lol. It's been setup for about 2.5 months now, and I'm sure it has cycled. I watched the ammonia grow, watched as nitrites came and went, and I have been seeing nitrates for over a month. When I setup the 29 gallon I took one side of it and kind of "all in oned it".
What I mean by that is I setup 3 sections seperated from the main tank with 2 baffles, in the first chamber is about 2 lbs of biomax rings with mechanical filtration on top of that. The second chamber is just the heater, and third is the return pump that is actually a power head rated for about 160 gallons per hour. I used black plexiglass, and aquarium safe silicone to do this. And I setup the baffle system to ensure the water flows through each compartment completely before it exits.
I do believe that 2 lbs of biomax should be plenty of media considering I also put an undergravel filter in the tank. (I'm not a big fan of these, however it gives the kiddo bubbles to look at and some background noise). My question is every week before I do a water change I'm testing and I'm getting between 0.25 and 0.5ppm ammonia...no nitrites, and between 20-30ppm nitrates. My concern is the ammonia. Is this test kit just really sensitive and I'm just reading small amounts and that will never read 0? All I have in this tank is 2 small goldfish and a couple nerite snails.
What I mean by that is I setup 3 sections seperated from the main tank with 2 baffles, in the first chamber is about 2 lbs of biomax rings with mechanical filtration on top of that. The second chamber is just the heater, and third is the return pump that is actually a power head rated for about 160 gallons per hour. I used black plexiglass, and aquarium safe silicone to do this. And I setup the baffle system to ensure the water flows through each compartment completely before it exits.
I do believe that 2 lbs of biomax should be plenty of media considering I also put an undergravel filter in the tank. (I'm not a big fan of these, however it gives the kiddo bubbles to look at and some background noise). My question is every week before I do a water change I'm testing and I'm getting between 0.25 and 0.5ppm ammonia...no nitrites, and between 20-30ppm nitrates. My concern is the ammonia. Is this test kit just really sensitive and I'm just reading small amounts and that will never read 0? All I have in this tank is 2 small goldfish and a couple nerite snails.