odobenus
Aquarium Advice Activist
Quick summary of my problem: I moved my fish from a 10 to 55 gallon aquarium over a month ago and still have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and 0 nitrates.
Okey dokey, the details. In this thread I got a lot of advice on how to move the little guys from my 10 to my 55, and what other fish I could add. We set up the 55 gal, filled it with water, set up a Rena Filstar XP2, and got the temperature stabilized. On August 28 we moved three BA tetras, the redtailed black shark, a lot of the larger rocks, a couple of live java fern, and our HOB into the 55 gal. We kept an eye on the levels, but nothing happened; no minicycle, no nitrates, nothing. We waited until 17 September, and still nothing, so thinking that perhaps there just weren't enough fish in the aquarium to produce enough ammonia, we added three more BA tetras. It's now two weeks into October and the tank is still at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates. There are six BA tetras and the redtail in the tank, along with the java fern. We took the HOB off about three days ago. We use the AP Freshwater Master kit (liquid reagent) which we bought in June.
We did a pwc of about 15% twice, to clean up the visible poo from the sand.
What is happening? My theories (and why I don't like any of them) are:
(a) the test kit went bad. I have a hard time believing, however, that our test kit went bad overnight like that. (Before you ask, I can't get our water tested at the LFS - they don't test water.)
(b) the java fern are eating up all the nitrates. There are, however, only four average-sized java fern, which I don't think are enough to take up all of the nitrates for an entire month.
The fish all seem to be just fine and healthy (if a bit fat
). They're very active and eat a LOT. I am not concerned about their health at this point, but I don't want anything strange to happen suddenly.
Any thoughts? Do we just need to wait longer?
Okey dokey, the details. In this thread I got a lot of advice on how to move the little guys from my 10 to my 55, and what other fish I could add. We set up the 55 gal, filled it with water, set up a Rena Filstar XP2, and got the temperature stabilized. On August 28 we moved three BA tetras, the redtailed black shark, a lot of the larger rocks, a couple of live java fern, and our HOB into the 55 gal. We kept an eye on the levels, but nothing happened; no minicycle, no nitrates, nothing. We waited until 17 September, and still nothing, so thinking that perhaps there just weren't enough fish in the aquarium to produce enough ammonia, we added three more BA tetras. It's now two weeks into October and the tank is still at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates. There are six BA tetras and the redtail in the tank, along with the java fern. We took the HOB off about three days ago. We use the AP Freshwater Master kit (liquid reagent) which we bought in June.
We did a pwc of about 15% twice, to clean up the visible poo from the sand.
What is happening? My theories (and why I don't like any of them) are:
(a) the test kit went bad. I have a hard time believing, however, that our test kit went bad overnight like that. (Before you ask, I can't get our water tested at the LFS - they don't test water.)
(b) the java fern are eating up all the nitrates. There are, however, only four average-sized java fern, which I don't think are enough to take up all of the nitrates for an entire month.
The fish all seem to be just fine and healthy (if a bit fat
). They're very active and eat a LOT. I am not concerned about their health at this point, but I don't want anything strange to happen suddenly. Any thoughts? Do we just need to wait longer?
