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Kpatrick

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Feb 9, 2013
Messages
23
Location
Sydney, Australia
Hi everyone,


I have a small aqua on ar510 (75 litres/ 20 gallons approx) that I have been cycling for about 2 weeks now. One live plant the rest plastic as seen on my profile pic. In about a week I plant to add more plants and a bristle nose catfish/pleco and later cardinal tetras.

Look forward to chatting.

Cheers
 
Didn't occur to me before when I was welcoming you but if you can get your hands on a couple of Seachem products, Stability for cycling your tank and Prime when you do your partial water changes. Seachem also have a range also for plant care, Flourish and excel or there is a tab form you can use, just put in your substrate :) welcome again
 
Didn't occur to me before when I was welcoming you but if you can get your hands on a couple of Seachem products, Stability for cycling your tank and Prime when you do your partial water changes. Seachem also have a range also for plant care, Flourish and excel or there is a tab form you can use, just put in your substrate :) welcome again

Hey thanks so much guys and thanks for the advice also. Sorry for the late reply!

I've used seachem prime prior to adding any water and had been doing a 20% water change every week but now more often as my ammonia had recently risen. I've also used the api stress zime but I've heard conflicting views on this and whether it does anything.

Apart from that have been using aqua sonic ph-up and api ph down to adjust the ph. Have been using api master test kit almost every day.

I added fish food the first few days as I read that the ammonia needed to be increased in a fish less cycle however my local fish shop told me to stop doing that and just let the tank run its course as I'm in no rush.

I've set the light on a timer of 8 hours but noticed a dark (slightly copper) algae appearing on the plant leaves and rock. The fish shop said to leave these but I read this colour algae occurs under lack of light so I'm trying to increase the time I have it on. Is this normal, and should I be adding any plant supplements / fertilisers whilst fish less cycling?

I've finally got my nitrite spike yesterday and I'd never registered nitrite before so I'm thinking the cycling is slowly underway. Definitely regret getting just a small 20 gallon now.

These are my current levels as of yesterday evening:
Ph: 7.3
Ammo: 4
Nitrite: 4
Nitrate: 5
All ppm.

Cheers :)
 
Hey thanks so much guys and thanks for the advice also. Sorry for the late reply!

I've used seachem prime prior to adding any water and had been doing a 20% water change every week but now more often as my ammonia had recently risen. I've also used the api stress zime but I've heard conflicting views on this and whether it does anything.

Apart from that have been using aqua sonic ph-up and api ph down to adjust the ph. Have been using api master test kit almost every day.

I added fish food the first few days as I read that the ammonia needed to be increased in a fish less cycle however my local fish shop told me to stop doing that and just let the tank run its course as I'm in no rush.

I've set the light on a timer of 8 hours but noticed a dark (slightly copper) algae appearing on the plant leaves and rock. The fish shop said to leave these but I read this colour algae occurs under lack of light so I'm trying to increase the time I have it on. Is this normal, and should I be adding any plant supplements / fertilisers whilst fish less cycling?

I've finally got my nitrite spike yesterday and I'd never registered nitrite before so I'm thinking the cycling is slowly underway. Definitely regret getting just a small 20 gallon now.

These are my current levels as of yesterday evening:
Ph: 7.3
Ammo: 4
Nitrite: 4
Nitrate: 5
All ppm.

Cheers :)

I would really consider using stability to get your levels down and controlled so you can get to the fun stuff and enjoy watching the personalities develop in your fish :) from what I know about stress zime is that this has been marketed for when you are moving fish or introducing new fish into the aquarium. To be honest, I reckon just stick with the prime.... Prime already promotes slime coat

IMO, probably don't need light on for 8 hours unless the room you have your tank setup is in a really dark that doesn't get any natural lighting, 6 hours is what my main tank set for, my other tank has two sets of lights because it's in a fairly dark room and is timed with warm(almost yellow) led to simulate dusk/dawn an hr at start and finish of day then my regular daylight T8 comes on for only 6 hrs. The fish don't get a sudden shock to lights on lights off fairly happy with that. Sounds like you might have a starting case of black beard algae. Could be because there is too much light in your tank or a chemical imbalance in your tank. You could try lowering your ph even just getting it to neutral ph 7 may slow this down or even stop it from growing further...

A 20 gallon is not a bad place to start. I think I started with a little 5 and now have a 120g and 75g, anyway keep us updated on your progress :)
 
I would really consider using stability to get your levels down and controlled so you can get to the fun stuff and enjoy watching the personalities develop in your fish :) from what I know about stress zime is that this has been marketed for when you are moving fish or introducing new fish into the aquarium. To be honest, I reckon just stick with the prime.... Prime already promotes slime coat

IMO, probably don't need light on for 8 hours unless the room you have your tank setup is in a really dark that doesn't get any natural lighting, 6 hours is what my main tank set for, my other tank has two sets of lights because it's in a fairly dark room and is timed with warm(almost yellow) led to simulate dusk/dawn an hr at start and finish of day then my regular daylight T8 comes on for only 6 hrs. The fish don't get a sudden shock to lights on lights off fairly happy with that. Sounds like you might have a starting case of black beard algae. Could be because there is too much light in your tank or a chemical imbalance in your tank. You could try lowering your ph even just getting it to neutral ph 7 may slow this down or even stop it from growing further...

A 20 gallon is not a bad place to start. I think I started with a little 5 and now have a 120g and 75g, anyway keep us updated on your progress :)

Awesome advice, thanks again for all your help Cronus! :-)I won't worry about the extra light and ill keep adding prime. Once I see the ammonia and nitrites down and clear out the nitrate I'm looking to add a bristle nose catfish/pleco as a first fish to help with the algae too.

Cheers
 
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