afterwinter
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
I had fishless cycled my tank(6.6 bookshelf tank) over 6 weeks and it looked great w/ 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 40 nitrates for 3 days before I added my betta and 6 cherry shrimp.
Suddenly after a week I was reading ammonia. Now it is consistently showing up at 0.25 every 2 days. I feel like I am doing constant water changes. I am not missing any shrimp. I even pulled out everything into a bucket of tank water so I could vacuum better and look for any possible dead shrimp. I did an 80% water change. Still getting ammonia. I haven't cleaned my filter. I did add a sponge to my filter, two weeks before removing one of two old cartridges. I had the ammonia issue before that though.
The only other thing I did was I cut out the carbon from the cartridges after a week of having the fish in case he needed meds. He was looking terrible but is looking great now after some stress coat +. Do you think I killed my good bacteria by doing that? I left the rest of the cartridge alone. It has been 3 weeks and I just can't seem to fix my cycle.
Also I only feed the betta 2 pellets twice a day and he eats them immediately. I stopped feeding the shrimp because there is enough algae on my plants for them. The betta was eating their food and getting huge.
Ugh. I am so confused. Thanks for any help!
Here are before and after pictures of my betta. First was the day after he came home with me and the next is from today.
Suddenly after a week I was reading ammonia. Now it is consistently showing up at 0.25 every 2 days. I feel like I am doing constant water changes. I am not missing any shrimp. I even pulled out everything into a bucket of tank water so I could vacuum better and look for any possible dead shrimp. I did an 80% water change. Still getting ammonia. I haven't cleaned my filter. I did add a sponge to my filter, two weeks before removing one of two old cartridges. I had the ammonia issue before that though.
The only other thing I did was I cut out the carbon from the cartridges after a week of having the fish in case he needed meds. He was looking terrible but is looking great now after some stress coat +. Do you think I killed my good bacteria by doing that? I left the rest of the cartridge alone. It has been 3 weeks and I just can't seem to fix my cycle.
Also I only feed the betta 2 pellets twice a day and he eats them immediately. I stopped feeding the shrimp because there is enough algae on my plants for them. The betta was eating their food and getting huge.
Ugh. I am so confused. Thanks for any help!
Here are before and after pictures of my betta. First was the day after he came home with me and the next is from today.
