35g tank and seeded bacteria from my other tank (the sponge filter) for roughly 2 weeks prior to adding in any fish. After checking and ghost feeding for a few days my ammonia & nitrite were 0 and nitrate <20. As I was doing my regular maintenance today my ammonia was at 1 and nitrite 1. I just did a 50% water change but I am unsure what went wrong and I have never done a fish in cycle before always fishless but I need to learn now I guess since I fucked up. I need some advice on what to do to make sure my fish don’t die on me and to get through this successfully.
Posted by danaeko
1 Comment
Well with ghost feeding it takes a while for food to break down. I personally dosed straight ammonia for cycling my reef tank.
And when there is no food at all for the bacteria they die rather fast I think. Same with no flow. So that might also be a factor.
When you have fish it goes faster. And it’s clear you have more fish then the bacteria can safely handle.
What it looks like to me. With you discription is that the ghost feeding was working fine alone. And the filter could handle that, but when adding fish (quite a few from the image) it has overwhelmed the filter, possibly there also was some unprocessed food in the tank. Or you are feeding a bit on the heavy side.
Whatever it is. Your filter is not handling it at this moment. I’d keep a close eye on it. Daily ammonia, nitrite and nitrate tests to log the trend of the cycle. You could be spiking or it could be going down.
Whatever it is I’d add some bacteria just to speed up the process and keep an eye on it, and add some prime to neutralize the ammonia for a while, do moderate but frequent water changes as necessary to keep the toxicity low.
And personally I’d go for a bigger filter just a sponge seems rather little for a 35g, but I always prefer over capacity in filtration, just to be safe.
Good luck!