TwoFish
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hi Ya'll! I'm sure you're sick of cycling questions but I'm a little perplexed.
I'm cycling a new five gallon tank and I've never deliberately cycled a tank (I've only been keeping fish for about seven or eight months now). I decided I'd do this tank right from the start, so I seeded it with water from my semi-established tank (still recovering from a cycle crash caused by fish medication) and added in some fish food on Sunday of this week.
Just to be clear: THIS TANK HAS NO FISH IN IT. But it does have three small live plants.
Monday the ammonia spiked (yay!), Wednesday it began to fall and the Nitrites are currently spiking and yesterday I noticed that Nitrates are beginning to appear.
Here's my problem: everything I've read says to try and keep the ammonia at around 4ppm while cycling to ensure you don't stall your cycle. But, despite adding quite a bit of fish food yesterday, the ammonia is actually LOWER today than it was yesterday (<.25 ppm as of a few minutes ago using the Master test).
Should I do a water change to bring down the Nitrites so they aren't converting the ammonia so quickly or ....?
In other news: it's really cracking me up to be worrying about how to make the ammonia HIGHER in a fish tank
. Especially since I've been undergoing a seemingly endless re-establishment of a cycle in my other tank and have been trying my darndest to keep ammonia at non-lethal levels.
I'm cycling a new five gallon tank and I've never deliberately cycled a tank (I've only been keeping fish for about seven or eight months now). I decided I'd do this tank right from the start, so I seeded it with water from my semi-established tank (still recovering from a cycle crash caused by fish medication) and added in some fish food on Sunday of this week.
Just to be clear: THIS TANK HAS NO FISH IN IT. But it does have three small live plants.
Monday the ammonia spiked (yay!), Wednesday it began to fall and the Nitrites are currently spiking and yesterday I noticed that Nitrates are beginning to appear.
Here's my problem: everything I've read says to try and keep the ammonia at around 4ppm while cycling to ensure you don't stall your cycle. But, despite adding quite a bit of fish food yesterday, the ammonia is actually LOWER today than it was yesterday (<.25 ppm as of a few minutes ago using the Master test).
Should I do a water change to bring down the Nitrites so they aren't converting the ammonia so quickly or ....?
In other news: it's really cracking me up to be worrying about how to make the ammonia HIGHER in a fish tank
. Especially since I've been undergoing a seemingly endless re-establishment of a cycle in my other tank and have been trying my darndest to keep ammonia at non-lethal levels.
