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Green water is not harmful to the fish as it's a natural biological process happening. Green water has one major concern tho. It's ugly. On the other hand it means algae is consuming all the nitrogens (from ammonia to nitrate) in a natural and safe manner which is why your levels are at zero...

They won't get along. The Betta will attack the guppies to death. Literally. I have a 110 gal tank and 1 betta and 2 male guppies fought. I pulled the betta before he killed a guppy, but just. The guppy is still recovering and betta has a home in the sump.

And you have no plants or other nitrate removers? How heavily stocked is your tank? My nitrates are 0 in a heavily stocked 110 gal tank. Very few water changes at all, but well planted.

A cycle should take about 6 weeks. Dr Tims can cause a false cycle, where free swimming bacteria can consume all the nitrogens without settling on the surfaces where they should. You think the cycle is very quickly done, and you don't wait for the bacteria to properly colonize, and you end up...

When I look at the color of the tank water , it looks like a weak brownish tea color. That looks like the tannins leaching out of the wood. Having soaked it for 3-4 days would do little too. When you did soak it, do you remember if the water colored? If it is the wood, I wouldn't worry at...

IMHO water changes are the most promoted, useless forms of nitrate control. Think about it. A 25% WC is more accurately known as leaving 75% of the nitrates in the tank. So each week your leaving most of the nitrates in the tank to accumulate. Eventually the levels of nitrate will rise until...

When I first started reading, I thought what is the problem. Ammonia is great to have during s cycle. Then, much later on I saw you had fish in there. Crap. A 50% water change at 8ppm ammonia (an extremely highly toxic level) means half the ammonia is left behind. That's 4ppm, a very toxic...

I must be missing something. Your pH is 6.5. That is well below the green you're looking for with the drop checker. The solutions I've seen always change at 7.2.

There's obviously something in the water, probably from the sand. A significant water change is needed as your O2 exchange at the surface is completely eliminated.

Add a dark backdrop to the tank to make colours pop. Corrugated plastic cardboard cut to size is perfect. Dark colours work best (compared to the white wall behind there now)

Plants. They use nitrates to grow.

Before you put the rocks in the tank, put egg crate on the bottom (before sand, or work it down through it). Other wise the larger rocks can crack the bottom glass.

When doing a fish-in cycle, you're creating a very small BB population as you ammonia and nitrite levels are never allowed to climb very high. This means, when those levels finally reach 0 again, you can only add a small number of fish to the system (I'd recommend 1/2 of what you already have)...

Garnet (sand blasting media) and quartz (pool filter sand) are both silica based minerals. What does that mean? Nothing more than the fact that glass is also a silica based mineral. None of them are going to leach silica into the water coloum unless your water becomes extremely acidic (i.e...

As this is a new aquarium, your nitrates are likely very high (even with some aggressive water changes after the cycle). That means your plants are not able to consume all the nitrates and algae forms. Lowering your pH level will slow the growth of the algae without harming the plants. But...

When using the aluminum oxide for phosphate and silica removal, the order of filtration MUST be aluminum oxide first then fine mechanical filtration second. That is opposite of the normal order, but is the only way it effectively works.

I wouldn't worry about aggressive water changes, since that is a big source of your nitrates. In fact, I'd reduce water changes. Let your plants reduce your nitrates to low levels. Java ferns are a great plant to have since they grow so dang fast. Every time you prune them your extracting...

Depending on how hardy the plants are, you can do a saltwater bath for a couple minutes. That should kill the hitchhikers but the plants should be ok

Is the silica coming in your tap water? I know some areas (especially further south) have higher concentrations of silica. If so you may want to run a RODI filter on your water. Removing your silica is the only way to stop diatoms.

Be careful harvesting stuff from the river, especially those whose climate is close to the aquarium. Unwanted and harmful hitchhikers can tag along. But careful treatment (boiling wood and substrate) should prevent pests.

Having plants during the cycle means having lights too. Unfortunately the cycle is a ridiculously fertilizer rich environment. Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all fertilizers. And at the levels you'll see during the cycle means you get algae. I prefer to not have plants during the cycle and...

Your other post is under general discussion

Do you have a bubbler? A lid like that will drastically reduce O2 exchange. I also always recommend live plants as that is the best way to control nitrates.

Agree on the filter media. Also you don't need to keep dosing to 4 ppm daily. Only add more when it gets to 0. And for the start, dosing to 1 or 2 ppm is plenty. It normally takes about a week for each stage to start, so converting nitrite to nitrate will start later than the ammonia stage.

If it is glass you need to know if it is tempered. Tempered glass cannot be drilled. Non-tempered glass can be drilled quite easily (check YouTube videos).