Recent content by pookawolf

I've got a 40 gallon breeder that I'm planning on planting. I've got eco-complete with aquarium gravel substrate and got some strange test results early on (aka nitrites on day 4). Well I'm now at 3.5 weeks and after dosing my tank to 1ppm of ammonia yesterday I got 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and...

Thank you for responding. I haven't been shaking any of the bottles (except for nitrate 2). They are all from March of this year. They definitely were going in dark purple and getting lighter. It looks like I have an almost 100% water change (or more) on my morning to do list!

I started cycling my tank almost 2 weeks ago with eco complete. After 4 days I was getting nitrites....everything seemed to be progressing and today the nitrites appeared to be lowering (the color on the API test went down from 5+ to between 1 and 2) but the nitrates didn't seem to be shooting...

FishN00b83 I've been following your thread and was going to sit down and see how they compare tonight. Besides the Nitrites showing up way too quickly my cycle seems to be going relatively "normal". It is taking longer to get an increase in nitrates than to see nitrites. I'm on day 11 and...

Thank you, I just skimmed it and I will definitely read it more thoroughly tomorrow. I guess I may be in for an interesting ride, fortunately I have no intentions to add fish until I'm certain the tank has cycled!

Ok I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this is a bit too good to be true. Absolutely everything is new or hasn't been used in over 5 years (decided to use my old aqua clear filter but I got new sponges for it). I've got 2 heaters, 2 filters, 45lbs aquarium gravel mixed with 65lbs eco...

So I'm not a beginner but it has been a while since I've had a fish tank. I've got a 40 breeder that I started cycling Sunday evening. I added 1/4 cup of ace ammonia and a pinch of ground up fish food. Needless to say the ammonia tested off the charts (teal within 30 seconds). I did almost a...

Sounds good! I think I may end up doing a few scenerios so I can adapt to what the LFS has. If I went with the local petsmart I might be able to get an amazon sword and some water sprite. I'm excited to get started!

Ok, so I'm guessing the answer to this is "it depends" but how many plants should I buy initially for my new 40 gallon aquarium? The closest quality non-big-box store is 60 miles away and I get up there 1x per quarter if that so I don't want to under or over buy. I have 60/40 ecocomplete and...

Hi! I'm not entirely new to fish keeping but it has been a while since I have had a tank (my 1.5 year old betta has a 2.5 gallon tank but nothing with a filter in 4 years). My husband decided that wanted a tank with corydoras again and that the new baby would love an aquarium so we decided to...

Thanks for the replies! I'm not sure if I was expecting it so soon. The filter sand would definitely be cheaper than one of the plant specific substrates. For some reason I'm hesitant about using sand in the tank...maybe that I'll need to use more ferts for the plants and I'm worried about...

Hi! I'm hoping y'all can give me some opinions on how to set up the first tank I've had in years. I'm really interested in people's opinions! The plan is to have a 40 gallon lightly planted tank (which may get more heavily planted depending on how the initial plants go). Stocking is going to...