Ok, so I started up my 29 gallon, using media from my friend's established aquarium.
His filter pad did not fit my filter, so I thought I could just slice it open and removed the stuff from inside (which i thought was the media and what I wanted). He later told me that that was just the carbon, and I needed the actual blue part of the filter pad in my tank.
So that whole time, I thought I was good to go and had a cycled tank. Again, newbie and dumb.
So I already had 6 black skirt tetras and 2 platy in there and everything was going good. Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were all at 0...which I thought was good. Again, dumb new hobbyist. Sorry.
So I added my new friends, 2 bolivian rams, a clown pleco, and 5 guppies. (not all at once. Over the course of a week)
Everyone still seems healthy and happy, but my ammonia spiked to 1ppm. Still no trites or trates. I have been doing 30-50% water changes every other day and I cut back feeding to every other day. The ammonia is down to .25, but still no trites or trates.
So...what do I do now? Just keep up with the water changes? Do I still have a good 2-3 months of this ahead of me?
His filter pad did not fit my filter, so I thought I could just slice it open and removed the stuff from inside (which i thought was the media and what I wanted). He later told me that that was just the carbon, and I needed the actual blue part of the filter pad in my tank.
So that whole time, I thought I was good to go and had a cycled tank. Again, newbie and dumb.
So I already had 6 black skirt tetras and 2 platy in there and everything was going good. Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were all at 0...which I thought was good. Again, dumb new hobbyist. Sorry.
So I added my new friends, 2 bolivian rams, a clown pleco, and 5 guppies. (not all at once. Over the course of a week)
Everyone still seems healthy and happy, but my ammonia spiked to 1ppm. Still no trites or trates. I have been doing 30-50% water changes every other day and I cut back feeding to every other day. The ammonia is down to .25, but still no trites or trates.
So...what do I do now? Just keep up with the water changes? Do I still have a good 2-3 months of this ahead of me?
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