My mother-in-law bought a male betta fish for my children, and I was tired of watching it suffer in the 1/2 gallon bowl, so I purchased this 15.8 Gal tank setup from petsmart, it fits perfectly in the space I wanted it in:
National Geographicâ„¢ Aqua Oasis Starter Kit | Aquariums | PetSmart
I threw away the pump as it seemed like junk and just had 2 small pieces of foam and a very small bag of carbon, and the water flow was WAY to fast and bubbled like crazy on the lowest setting, so I replaced it with an aquaclear 30, which should filter my tank size about 9.5 times an hour and runs a lot smoother.
I started this tank on Friday 7/25 and used seachem prime and let it run for a day, checked the water and everything seemed correct with a test strip, so I put the betta in on 7/26, then on 7/27 I added 5 serpae tetras and 2 ghost shrimp and the tank seemed slightly cloudy I am assuming because of adding the betta and the bacteria bloom , one of the ghost shrimp died the next day, as I was doing more only research I found out about seachem stability, so I added my first round of that last night to help with the tank cycling, and this morning it was pretty much crystal clear again, fish all seem happy along with the one ghost shrimp that is left.
I purchased the API Freshwater Master Test Kit and my readings are as follows:
PH around 7.5
Ammonia around .25PPM
Nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 5.0 ppm
Does this seem correct, from everything I was reading it sounded like Ammonia should be off the charts, followed by Nitrite, followed by Nitrate?
I am lost as to where to go from here, I am going to test again tonight since I added the Seachem stability, but when am I suppose to start doing water changes, and can I add anymore Serpea Tetras or anything else, along with how many ghost shrimp can I/should I get, I don't want to overload the tank, the betta doesn't really seem to care about the other fish, he sits up top on a leaf and tends to go crazy and swim around every once in a while.
Thanks for any thoughts or help.
National Geographicâ„¢ Aqua Oasis Starter Kit | Aquariums | PetSmart
I threw away the pump as it seemed like junk and just had 2 small pieces of foam and a very small bag of carbon, and the water flow was WAY to fast and bubbled like crazy on the lowest setting, so I replaced it with an aquaclear 30, which should filter my tank size about 9.5 times an hour and runs a lot smoother.
I started this tank on Friday 7/25 and used seachem prime and let it run for a day, checked the water and everything seemed correct with a test strip, so I put the betta in on 7/26, then on 7/27 I added 5 serpae tetras and 2 ghost shrimp and the tank seemed slightly cloudy I am assuming because of adding the betta and the bacteria bloom , one of the ghost shrimp died the next day, as I was doing more only research I found out about seachem stability, so I added my first round of that last night to help with the tank cycling, and this morning it was pretty much crystal clear again, fish all seem happy along with the one ghost shrimp that is left.
I purchased the API Freshwater Master Test Kit and my readings are as follows:
PH around 7.5
Ammonia around .25PPM
Nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 5.0 ppm
Does this seem correct, from everything I was reading it sounded like Ammonia should be off the charts, followed by Nitrite, followed by Nitrate?
I am lost as to where to go from here, I am going to test again tonight since I added the Seachem stability, but when am I suppose to start doing water changes, and can I add anymore Serpea Tetras or anything else, along with how many ghost shrimp can I/should I get, I don't want to overload the tank, the betta doesn't really seem to care about the other fish, he sits up top on a leaf and tends to go crazy and swim around every once in a while.
Thanks for any thoughts or help.