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Great tip. I went into Petco yesterday and was pleasantly surprised by how great all of the fish (glofish and other tanks) looked. Got 7 glotetras that are now in our quarantine tank.

Thanks for the reply. We definitely plan to get a school (6-7) of the danios or tetras. I may order direct from glofish.com since the price is almost comparable to a local store and theoretically that should cut down on the number of tanks and times the fish are transported. My assumption is...

I think we are getting close to adding our final group of fish to our 20g community. The kids want glofish which I'm fine with but I thought I read somewhere that because of the inbreeding of them that their health/hardiness may not be as strong as their non-glofish species (especially the...

Bought a few clay pots at a craft store, fish love them

Normal aquarium gravel and LED lighting, nothing special. So far we aren't having a nitrate problem, just a fairly low-level nitrite spike (.25).

Thanks for the reply. Ammonia is consistently 0 now. Unfortunately, I'm having a bit of a mild nitrite spike, test every day at .25ppm. I've cut back on feeding a bit and dosing with Prime every 2-3 days to detoxify the nitrite (if it works as it says it does). Also do 1-2 water changes...

Thanks, ended up with just a single bolivian ram. Store only had dwarf gourami no honey.

Thanks. I decided against using meds preemptively instead keeping a close eye on them to see if anything becomes noticeable. I know there's a lot of disagreement on using preventive meds or not in a qt.

New bolivian ram in quarantine for about a week now. I haven't seen him eat at all. Swims in place most of the time, periodically turning or going to the other side of the tank. Quarantine tank mate (a male Platy) is very active and eats. The first day he was in quarantine he was pretty active...

I'm about 6 weeks into this hobby so take that into account with my reply but I wouldn't cycle with the angelfish. I did a fish in cycle with three Platies and three swordtails, relatively cheap and hardy fish. Have lost 50% through combination of probably cycling, ich, and bullying but the...

Thanks. More lucky than anything else. Within this 5+ week fish-in cycle I have also lost 1 platy and 2 swordtails. I'm pretty sure the platy was sick to start (never seemed right). About a week in, one of the swordtails was covered in ich. Successfully treated the tank but the ich, meds...

20g tank, finally cycled (or very close to it). 8ph, 179ppm GH. 2 platies and 1 swordtail (all male) have made it through the fish-in cycle like champs. Also recently added 3 Amano shrimp that are funny to watch. Will be setting up a quarantine tank this weekend (hopefully using one of my...

Yup, that seems to make the most sense. One less thing to worry about is a bonus. Thanks for the quick reply

Almost four weeks into a fish-in cycle with my 20g - 2 Platies, 1 swordtail. Only fake plants. Temp is 77-79. KH is 120ish, maybe a tad higher using the test strips. Water is hard to very hard. Not sure if something changed in the last week or so with my tap but I feel like the last time I...

Total new guy here obviously, but is it possible that my BB don't have enough ammonia to really start cycling the tank? Should I wait for ammonia to get to .5 before I water change? I've been water changing when it read .25.

I suppose it means I just keep plugging away with daily tests and water changes if ammonia/nitrites go up. When I'm looking for nitrates, I guess I know what the baseline is so it will need to be above this 5-10 range.

Hmm, may have spoken too soon on this. Took your advice and tested the tap. Came out essentially the same shade of orange (5-10ppm) as my tank test. Probably means BB isn't up to the task yet and not producing enough nitrates to add to the background from the tap. Checked my city water...

I'll test that tomorrow. Good idea

Second day in a row of 0 (or close to it since I'm awful with these color results) for ammonia. Nitrites was 0 again. Nitrates was between 5-10.

Thanks. I've been consistently at 0 with nitrites but have had nitrates present which doesn't seem to follow the typical cycle model. I suppose it is fine if it stays that way.

20g, 2 male Platy, 1 male swordtail, aquarium has been running for 3 weeks. Finally got the liquid test kit 5 days ago and have been testing daily along with water changes and dosing with Seachem Prime and Stability. Used Tetra safestart 3+ weeks ago a couple days before adding fish. Today's...

Looks good. Debating loaches or the little catfish to add to my 20g when it is cycled. Gravel substrate which I know isn't good for loaches.

Good to know, I'll try that set up, thanks. My hope is I can eventually use one of the sponges for an instant cycle in a quarantine tank.

20 gallon. I was treating for ich with meds so I got rid of the standard carbon cartridge. Replaced it with the below setup: bag of seachem matrix below two aqua clear sponges behind the biowheel that comes with the filter. Hoping this does the trick for bio and mechanical filtration. All...

Cool, I'll give that a try tomorrow. Is the idea by double dosing and theoretically getting the toxic ammonia down to zero for 24 hours, you are giving the bacteria time to grow and process the ammonia? So after that double dose, should I expect to see a rise in nitrite and/or ammonia to remain...