I was wondering if I use an ammonia detoxifier, should the ammonia test read no ammonia or does it just detoxify the ammonia? My test kit stil indicates about 3ppm even after using the appropriate dose of the detox chem. My tank is 185 gallons with 2.25 inches of sand on the bottom and several large driftwood chunks.
Filters are one FX5 @ ten days cycle, two h.o.t. type canisters @ 2 month cycle, one penguin 660 air bubbler with sponge pre filter @ 1 week cycle, one Fb300 fluidized bed filter @ four weeks cycle. And yes I do realise that it takes about 7 weeks to do a thorough cycle of the system but I wanted to go ahead and start enjoying the fishes right away.
I've got 3x 1.75 inch dempseys 7x 2.5 inch spotted high fin pleco, 2x 4 inch shovelnose cats, 1x 5 inch arowana, 4x 2 inch kuhli loaches, 3x 2 inch praecox rainbowfish.
The fish don't seem stressed and I am fully capable of keeping these fish alive in any event (new "tap water" changes). Its just that I have to add so many chems to new water whenever I do the changes, that it gets a little expensive. I have been swapping about 30 gallons water with my other tanks (2x 75 gallon well established gravel based ammonia stable filters) that are next to it about every 48 hours which seem to process the ammonia sufficiently fast enough to not make those tanks toxic. I guess the bottom line is for the fish to behave as unstressed and healthy, which they do.
TIA for any advice or comments. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give a thorough mental pic of my setup.
Filters are one FX5 @ ten days cycle, two h.o.t. type canisters @ 2 month cycle, one penguin 660 air bubbler with sponge pre filter @ 1 week cycle, one Fb300 fluidized bed filter @ four weeks cycle. And yes I do realise that it takes about 7 weeks to do a thorough cycle of the system but I wanted to go ahead and start enjoying the fishes right away.
I've got 3x 1.75 inch dempseys 7x 2.5 inch spotted high fin pleco, 2x 4 inch shovelnose cats, 1x 5 inch arowana, 4x 2 inch kuhli loaches, 3x 2 inch praecox rainbowfish.
The fish don't seem stressed and I am fully capable of keeping these fish alive in any event (new "tap water" changes). Its just that I have to add so many chems to new water whenever I do the changes, that it gets a little expensive. I have been swapping about 30 gallons water with my other tanks (2x 75 gallon well established gravel based ammonia stable filters) that are next to it about every 48 hours which seem to process the ammonia sufficiently fast enough to not make those tanks toxic. I guess the bottom line is for the fish to behave as unstressed and healthy, which they do.
TIA for any advice or comments. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give a thorough mental pic of my setup.
