SuperD00D
Aquarium Advice Newbie
I wrote a whole thing for this and it got deleted somehow 
. 32 year old here, my daughter and my Mom who lives up the road from us brought home a Betta one day to my Moms house. I stayed over one night and it was in a tiny tank and super dirty so I took it and put him in a 3 gallon from Amazon.
I then bought the 10 gallon topfin tank from Petsmart with “Top Fin Silentstream 10 Power Filter”. I can’t seem to get the tank cycled. It’s been 3 months now with the Betta. I have only ever seen Ammonia while testing, and then change some of the water, using the topfin water conditioner. Test with API master freshwater test kit. Is the topfin conditioner bad? Or am I turning the filter on to quickly? Is the filter just not good for cycling? No added rocks/media or anything, just the filter cartridge and then a blue plastic supposed bio-filter. Tank substrate is normal blue fish gravel.
I didn’t realize it wasn’t cycled (I thought it may be, and that the plants were eating all the nitrates and nitrites or something since it was just one Betta and he had been in the tank 3 months :/ ) so I bought 3 cory’s and an “algae eater”, which ended up being a CAE, from Petsmart. Idiot girl sold me a cory with swim bladder so now I only have two, and the Chinese algae eater knowing my tank size. Now nitrates are at 0.25ppm daily.
My long term goal is a 20 gallon-long tank, or maybe up to a 40 gallon, but Im moving in 2 months and it will be going upstairs, so no idea how big it can be in a standard upstairs north american home.
So my main questions are :
1) How can I get this tank cycled, and any future tank I will be cycling BEFORE fish go in?
2) How big of a tank can go upstairs in a standard united states wood house?
3) Are my Cory’s okay for now with just 2, or should I be seeking 2-4 more ASAP? Albino Cory’s.
4) And is this CAE a definite return? I like him and he did a freaking AMAZING job of cleaning the brown diatom algae. What else can eat brown diarom like him? Siamese? Oto’s? Clown Pleco? I lke the clown Pleco but not sure how good they are with algae. Specifically brown diatom as tha/ what I get here in South Carolina.
5)Should I just return every new fish except the Betta, and put him in his 3 gallon, and cycle his 10-gallon tank? And does his filter need rocks in it? Any new filter and media suggestions? Would need a new lid as well.
Thanks for indulging in this craziness and accidental diving into the fish keeping world.
. 32 year old here, my daughter and my Mom who lives up the road from us brought home a Betta one day to my Moms house. I stayed over one night and it was in a tiny tank and super dirty so I took it and put him in a 3 gallon from Amazon. I then bought the 10 gallon topfin tank from Petsmart with “Top Fin Silentstream 10 Power Filter”. I can’t seem to get the tank cycled. It’s been 3 months now with the Betta. I have only ever seen Ammonia while testing, and then change some of the water, using the topfin water conditioner. Test with API master freshwater test kit. Is the topfin conditioner bad? Or am I turning the filter on to quickly? Is the filter just not good for cycling? No added rocks/media or anything, just the filter cartridge and then a blue plastic supposed bio-filter. Tank substrate is normal blue fish gravel.
I didn’t realize it wasn’t cycled (I thought it may be, and that the plants were eating all the nitrates and nitrites or something since it was just one Betta and he had been in the tank 3 months :/ ) so I bought 3 cory’s and an “algae eater”, which ended up being a CAE, from Petsmart. Idiot girl sold me a cory with swim bladder so now I only have two, and the Chinese algae eater knowing my tank size. Now nitrates are at 0.25ppm daily.
My long term goal is a 20 gallon-long tank, or maybe up to a 40 gallon, but Im moving in 2 months and it will be going upstairs, so no idea how big it can be in a standard upstairs north american home.
So my main questions are :
1) How can I get this tank cycled, and any future tank I will be cycling BEFORE fish go in?
2) How big of a tank can go upstairs in a standard united states wood house?
3) Are my Cory’s okay for now with just 2, or should I be seeking 2-4 more ASAP? Albino Cory’s.
4) And is this CAE a definite return? I like him and he did a freaking AMAZING job of cleaning the brown diatom algae. What else can eat brown diarom like him? Siamese? Oto’s? Clown Pleco? I lke the clown Pleco
but not sure how good they are with algae. Specifically brown diatom as tha/ what I get here in South Carolina. 5)Should I just return every new fish except the Betta, and put him in his 3 gallon, and cycle his 10-gallon tank? And does his filter need rocks in it? Any new filter and media suggestions? Would need a new lid as well.
Thanks for indulging in this craziness and accidental diving into the fish keeping world.
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