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Thank you all A big thank you to everyone for the great advice in times of trouble for this new aquarist! I’m grateful to report my tank has cycled and everything is humming happily!

Paul & Aiken, Thank you both again for lending your wisdom… I think the one thing I did right from the beginning is that I added some ceramic media meant for supporting bio… not sure why I did it, but at the time I thought it was a good idea. I’m glad I did! I had placed the bio media in my...

Wow - you should teach a course or write a book Aiken! Once again you’re hitting me with knowledge I didn’t even know existed….Thank you! I think I’ll likely continue to run carbon until my new tank syndrome has passed and I’m cycling like normal. I just don’t want to make any major changes...

Filter media is the standard charcoal filter pocket (that it came with). I was thinking about adding purigen but I’m not there yet. Long way to go before I start changing up big things or experimenting….. No, I have not vacuumed the substrate as I don’t want to disturb the biological building...

Thanks Aiken for the awesome info - I will def continue with water changes - I was just thinking out loud ?

Thank you @pauladdams1984 !

Seriously?! Wow ok. I find that quite fascinating. Makes me wonder what’s doing the work, so to speak…. Tap water is straight chlorine- but tested anyway and no trace ammonia… This brings up a thought - if it may or may not be “bacteria” that is consuming the ammonia and/or nitrites, then I...

It looks to me… and please do correct me if I’m wrong… that I have established a respectable colony of Nitrosomonas (or their analog) but only have a weak colony of Nitrobacter (or their analog)…..

That’s a good idea Aiken, I’m going to implement that for a while I think… thank you!

Here is the post 50% water change

Upgraded - no more strips…Going to do a 50%water change. Any thoughts on these readings? https://ibb.co/c29NjsC

Thank you Aiken - I feel much better having your thoughts on that!

Should I do another 50% change???? Why didn’t the last 50% change drop the nitrites from 1ppm to 0.5ppm?

Ok - I did ANOTHER 50% water change about two hours ago (that make it 3 total changes of 50% today) and here are my numbers from the strip: Nitrite 1ppm (still!) Hard 75 ppm Chlorine zero Alkalinity 120 ppm PH 6.8

That makes sense- thank you Aiken.

Completed 2 back to back 50% water changes this morning (1hr in between each) Ran out of time this morning but plan on doing another this evening Current readings 30 min after last change: Nitrate 20ppm (still not budging) Nitrite 1ppm Hard 150ppm Chlorine zero Alkalinity 120ppm PH 7.0

Thank you Andy!

Awesome… that sounds like the plan then - thank you again!

Would such a large water change (75%+) ruin my bacterial progress? I’m going to do it for the fish’s sake…but just curious

Thank you Colin!

Thank you Aiken!

Currently: 80 degrees temp Zero ammonia 4ppm nitrite 20 ppm nitrate 25ppm hardness Zero chlorine 120 ppm alkalinity 7.2 ph

20 gal tall 20 gal tetra IQ whisper filter Planted tank (floating frogbit/ pothos with roots in the tank) Lava rock gravel bottom 2 air stones Coconut shell hide outs a couple ceramic pleco caves 2 Cholla wood tubes 1 drift wood “tree” — 3 dwarf gourami 3 dwarf rainbow fish 4 red pencil fish 1...

Ok, first of all - thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to respond. I am so glad I found what seems to be a fun fish loving community here! This is my first tank. From my reading and belated experience, I now realize that I was impatient, ridiculous and down right ignorant when I...