Fishy monkey
Aquarium Advice Activist
I went to my LFS last week, they said cos I was doing a fish in cycle with only 5 danios in a 165litre it would take forever, and advised 4 panda cories to help it along saying they could survive anything and were really hardy fish.
I lost a cory after every water change (temp matched, with aquasafe in and left for 5 mins for the aquasafe to work, approx 30% water change) so today I went back to the LFS, they said I was changing too much water and just 10% is more than enough. I got some safe start and they said to put some in every other day to help speed the cycle up, 5mls for every 6 litres in the tank, not every 6 litres I change. That's the first thing I want to run by you guys.
The second thing, I'm doing a fishless cycle with my QT, a 60 litre. I have no pure ammonia so am using crushed food. All seemed to be going fine until last week, now my ammonia just isn't converting to nitrites anymore. Don't know why that happened cos my nitrites were ticking along nicely. The LFS guy said crushed food cycles don't work, and the only way to cycle the tank is with fish cos there's nowhere round here that sells ammonia.
He also said to keep a couple of fish in the QT to keep it cycled, just a couple of platies would do it.
The LFS in question has been voted top in a popular fish keeping magazine, and this guy is the manager so I kinda want to trust him, but it goes against all I've read here.
I'd love your input on this cos I just wanna get things right, this is my 3rd attempt at establishing a tank and its heartbreaking when I get it wrong.
I lost a cory after every water change (temp matched, with aquasafe in and left for 5 mins for the aquasafe to work, approx 30% water change) so today I went back to the LFS, they said I was changing too much water and just 10% is more than enough. I got some safe start and they said to put some in every other day to help speed the cycle up, 5mls for every 6 litres in the tank, not every 6 litres I change. That's the first thing I want to run by you guys.
The second thing, I'm doing a fishless cycle with my QT, a 60 litre. I have no pure ammonia so am using crushed food. All seemed to be going fine until last week, now my ammonia just isn't converting to nitrites anymore. Don't know why that happened cos my nitrites were ticking along nicely. The LFS guy said crushed food cycles don't work, and the only way to cycle the tank is with fish cos there's nowhere round here that sells ammonia.
He also said to keep a couple of fish in the QT to keep it cycled, just a couple of platies would do it.
The LFS in question has been voted top in a popular fish keeping magazine, and this guy is the manager so I kinda want to trust him, but it goes against all I've read here.
I'd love your input on this cos I just wanna get things right, this is my 3rd attempt at establishing a tank and its heartbreaking when I get it wrong.