tried seachem stability on my 20 long

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milkman407

milkman407

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Jul 15, 2006
5,162
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So today is day 9 ( used it for 7 days ) followed the directions, have 1 dozen feeder guppies in the tank ( they had babies apparently and seem to be thriving lol ).

did my readings today on day 9 and ;

ammonia 0-.25 ( hard to tell the difference)
Nitrite through the roof, 2ppm and 5ppm look the exact same on the color chart to be honest
nitrate looks to be 20-40ppm

I'm expecting a $500 fish next week

is my only option at this point to try and find someone in my area with extra filter media?

I've attached pictures of the test with and without flash, I'm partially color blind so these have always been a little difficult to judge.

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IMG_5016.JPG
 
also, if anyone has some extra cycled media, i'll gladly pay at this point. Don't want my lechardti to die on me.
 
Don't give up on the stability

You can dose higher amounts; it's safe; it can potentially seed bacteria faster

you've got nitrites which is great; it still may take a week to get them all gone and fully converted to nitrates

honestly a 20G for even a baby aro is a bit small; esp one so expensive

do you have access to at least a 50G? that'll be a better option for water quality and also to reduce the fluctuation in your parameters during water changes

if you continue the course you'll still be fine; but you may consider daily partial water changes to keep the nitrites low while still cycling

fish-in cycling is fine; an expensive fish makes it more exciting

you can also dose seachem prime to detox nitrites
 
If you're showing nitrates and nitrates already then you're doing good. Bottled bacteria isn't the magic instant cycle some claim. Keep doing water changes and testing your water.
 
For a starter, double the recommended dose of Stability. Then get your hands on some established media if possible. A $500 fish isn’t something I would risk.
 
Regardless of the 20gals cycle time… do u have a larger tank running already? If so id toss in a “pup box” i.e. floating type rubbermaid container into ur larger tank to rear the small lei in. Would be about the same size as a 20 gal footprint sure, but the water quality would be much better being in a larger system. Ive also “daisy chained” in smaller tanks onto larger tanks with sumps for growing out fish also. Hope one of my ideas helps ur cause.
 
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mm, problem resolved. A good samaritan came through and cleaned out one of her filters and gave me a bag of used biomax. the lei will be going into a 240 once i pick up the rest of my stuff from storage. ( I just moved across the country and broke down tanks prior to moving, the timing of the import was just unlucky for me).
 
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milkman407 said:
mm, problem resolved. A good samaritan came through and cleaned out one of her filters and gave me a bag of used biomax. the lei will be going into a 240 once i pick up the rest of my stuff from storage. ( I just moved across the country and broke down tanks prior to moving, the timing of the import was just unlucky for me).
Click to expand...

Good fish never come at the right time lol… glad u scored some cycled media to help the cause.
 
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