Hello there! I've been fishless cycling and dosing with SeaChem Stability into a planted tank. I had to do a partial (~2 gallons) water change to add some plants because some of them arrived late (And I still want to pick up a couple more. Giant bald spot is BAD!). I made sure to add some seachem stability and extra fish food after the water change. My parameters are: ~7ppm nitrites, 7.8 pH, ~5ppm nitrates and 0ppm ammonia. Is this normal? I was looking at a trip up to Austin soon to get fish, but if my cycle is stalled, I'm going to call it off. Do I need to add more food? Leave it alone? Change the water?
I think I broke my cycle! (10g fishpless planted cycle)
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librarygirl
Look It Up
What are you using to dose ammonia? The bacteria need to be fed to grow and they feed on ammonia, either through fish waste (fish in cycle) or with you adding ammonia manually. THe bacteria products can be hit and miss but without an ammonia source they'll never establish. There's a link below in my signature: guide to starting a fw aquarium. The first thing it covers is cycling and explains both fishless and fish-in. Read both and choose whichever method you prefer.
Saltwaterfishgirl
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Girl- my i have your permission to post your fw tank blog on my fb page? Great adbice!
librarygirl
Look It Up
Thanks. I've been tossing fish food in there since I've had no luck getting pure ammonia. >< I've had ammonia for about a week then today it disappeared. I was just worried. I guess I could add a few of the CPDs (I was going to buy ~6-7 CPDs and ~5-6 dwarf cories (corydoras habrosus) or just pass on the trip to Austin (Which is a bit of a bummer since I've been cycling for awhile). Actually, inspiration hit! I can get some media or gravel from that fish store I was going to hit tomorrow!
Good news: I got a handful of gravel and some water from an established tank. I did a large water change and added some seachem stability today. I couldn't believe I had 0 ammonia and buckets of nitrite, so I wanted to knock out the nitrite because holy noodles batman, those were some obscene nitrite readings.
librarygirl
Look It Up
Dosing with fish food is hard to control; you need a lot of it to get a good ammonia reading and it can cause quite a mess.
I'd try to get pure ammonia if you can; some dollar stores sell it or if you have an ACE Hardware near you they sell pure ammonia.
I'd try to get pure ammonia if you can; some dollar stores sell it or if you have an ACE Hardware near you they sell pure ammonia.
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