




Hi 👋
Ive wanted fish for a long time and
have read and researched a lot. but as a total
beginner Im unsure what I should do now.
The tank is a 63L, sand substrate with
submerged plants (Annubias, Java Ferns,
some Crypts + some basic houseplants
cuttings that are growing new water roots
well that trail over the top. Im Also currently
waiting on a deliverv of some moss balls and
frogbit) I add made for aquarium liquid
fertaliser once a week. There is a corbo root
and I plan to get some more driftwood.
I have 2 filters, one a basic sponge filter and
a hang on one with multiple compartment
that contain some floss pad cartridges made
of coconut coir and some carbon pellets (
wont purchase replacements but figured I
may as well use them for now since they
came with the filter already) some filter floss,
some ceramic biomedia rings and another
compartment that was empty in which I put
some cubes of seeded spounge filter a friend
very generously cut out of their own tank
thats been established for years.
Temp is around 26°C and Ph 7.5.
I followed a guide to do a fishless cycle
adding liquid amonia to maintain about
4ppm as and when needed and it was slowly
progressing as it should but it seems
everything sped up seemingly overnight once
the seeded sponge was added. Im struggling
to read the amounts for water parameters exactly but I went from having a few Nitrites to between 2ppm-5ppm I think and Nitrates are at about 80ppm already though I thought people tend to get stuck with high nitrites for a while before any Nitrates appear at all? (pics attached for reference of readings from API water kit)
*The amount of Nitrates being so high so suddenly was weird to me, so I checked my tap water which has about 5.0ppm, could that have effected things?
Could the Nitrates being so high already cause the cvcle to stall or crash it somehow or anything? all the info I find is very contradictory so I dont know what to do. should I wait to see if it evens out itself or do I need to do a waterchange despite not having any livestock in the tank and not planning to for a while yet anyway?*
please help this confused noob U_U
Posted by Tookish_by_Nature
1 Comment
Also sorry about the weird formatting, Im posting on a phone and dont know what happened there.