Long story short, set up a new tank on the fly using semi-established sponge filter. Tank is currently possibly reading ammonia? If so its such a minute amount I cant decipher yellow vs that slight tint of green, nitrite about 1, nitrate about 40-60 at any given time. I'm doing water changes every 48 hours, maybe 60% give or take. And most important I'm dosing with stability and prime every 48 hours with the water changes. Anything else I can do except drop more established media in? In my head as long as im doing what im doing I should be fine but a second set of eyes so to speak might help.
Established filter/new cycle
- Thread starter savannah_az
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Hello; You are doing what I do when setting up a new tank. The test numbers for nitrate a bit up but I guess that is why the WC every two days.
Well yeah, two days because seachem said prime stops working in 24-48 hours so as soon as it starts losing the effectiveness its time for a water change. I guess a better question to ask is "is there anything else I can dose with?" I'm knowledgable enough about the hobby but I know near nothing about all the addatives/chemicals I could use to speed up and help the process.
hello; I will assume you mean the process of having a mature cycle with well established beneficial bacteria (bb).
If you are patient there are some on this forum who have used "cycle boosting" products and do endorse them. I have never used any so cannot say.
The following is an excerpt from one of my recent posts: The next thing to keep in mind is the dynamic balance between the mass of fish in a tank and the size of the bb population. Over time the population of bb in a tank will match the amount of their needed nutrient (ammonia) that is available. If you add a very large fish ( or several small) to a tank already in balance that fish will become a new source of ammonia. The existing bb will not have the numbers to "eat" all that new ammonia immediately. They will start reproducing right away and will eventually make enough new bb to handle the extra ammonia. What I am getting at is in a new tank do not add too many fish all at once.
The point I was getting at is over time the bb population matches the ammonia and nitrites available in the tank. So if you want to get the ammonia and nitrite down to zero it may either take a bit of time for the bb population to catch up by reproduction or you can add some more bb loaded material from an established tank.
Keep in mind that decay byproducts from excess food also make ammonia so reduced feeding or fasting days may take some of the load off the existing bb until natural reproduction can catch up.
I also would not add any more fish until the bb are established.
Correct, by process I mean "cycle". And yeah, I'm not new to the hobby so I got the cycling thing down but I do appreciate the answer none the less. The tank is a nursery/qt for some fry so heavy feeding is a given right now, another reason the 48 hour wc. Also on a side note, when I do water changes im not using fresh water, I"m using display tank water. I know fresh water would probably be better, but my thought process is my main tank is well cycled, nitrates read at 5ppm at best at 80 degrees. So by filling the qt/nursery with tank water im really only adding in 5ppm nitrates but its a current 80 degrees (fry tank is set for 81-82) and the main tank will get the 30-40 gallons of fresh water and considering this happens every 48 hours plus my normal drip its almost more of just a holding area to keep the water warm so theres no shock to the fry.
hello; Here is a different opinion. It is my understanding that the bb are not in the water ( or very little in the water) but stuck on surfaces as a bio-film. I see no advantage to using old tank water in a fry tank. Seems to me you are adding extra nitrates on top of that produced by the fry and the "extra" feeding off a fry tank.
Right, I'm not adding for the BB but more the temperature. However its a 6 of one half dozen of the other. Add 5 nitrates or deal with either cold water or a large barrel in the living room to get the water room temperature. To me adding the 5 nitrates is worth is since the prime is going to bond it for the next 48 hours anyway.
Ive used tetra safestart several times and it has always worked. Most of the time its worked in less than 1 week though i continued to feed lightly and monitored water quality incase something went haywire
I'm currently using seachem stability... without getting to into it its the same stuff right (BB in a bottle)? Just a debate if which brand is better, although I have no problem doubling up with safe start, I mean how could too much good bacteria be bad right?!
Nah no need to get into anything man just trying to help. You could right but about it being the same stuff. I dont know the exact ingredients in safe start but i believe something is different between the two because with safe start you have to wait 24 hrs to dose it after using a dechlorinator if i remember correctly stability did habe that requirement.
A few yrs ago i tried stability and it didnt work. Not saying safesrart is better maybe i screwed something up but never had any issues with the safe start.