Well this is embarrassing because I’ve been in the hobby for 8 years and have had a planted 29g running with no problems the whole time…
I decided to start this 6.8g backwater tank. Mopani wood and alder cones have biofilm. I used fresh (heavily rinsed) Carribsea sand with root tabs, water from the 29 and kept a piece of old filter floss from the 29 in there for 3 weeks and then put a betta in because why wouldn’t it be ready?
Decided to test it yesterday and I’ve got 2ppm ammonia, 0 nitrites and 5-10ppm nitrate. I’ve dosed AmGuard and Prime and did a water change so far. What did I do wrong and how can I rectify this? I’m ready for the onslaught of comments.
Posted by Sauce218
7 Comments
I’m also kicking myself for not layering the substrate to support plant life. I don’t know wtf I was thinking, I feel so dumb.
I dont see anything abnormal, your tank probably still cycling
Using old water wont do much, as the bacteria is mostly on surfaces. The old filter floss will help but probably too little.
What was your ammonia source in the 3 weeks? If you are feeding the betta now then the fish food is the ammonia source
The root tabs are aquarium-specific, not generic plant ones, right? If not, that’s where the ammonia is coming from.
The Prime should take care of the ammonia, (making it harmless). Nitrites zero is good. Don’t kick yourself. With water change, it should level out. Smaller tanks are harder to keep level than large tanks. More water changes etc. If you’re using tap water test it before using. If showing ammonia or high nitrates try RO water instead.
New tank is a new animal all together. Don’t beat yourself up. Your ammonia is probably just coming from your old substrate and root tabs, it’s normal cycling. You can add some starter bacteria to speed things up a little bit, FritzZyme7 has worked for me before in tanks above 6PH.
From what I can see its not enough plants to use up all that ammonia. Temp fix would be toss in a bunch of floating plants or realistically just put in some more stems. What is your PH would be my last question, 2ppm is actually not dangerous if your PH is low enough.
NOW add some dirty filter media. If the bacteria starve they die off quick, fish food without a fish takes time to break down into ammonia especially since it’s other types of bacteria that do that and those also take a bit of time to colonize sufficiently.
If the donor tank is old enough and stocked enough a little bit of gross floss will fix up this tank in no time.
Urgh this happened to me. I set up three new tanks, all using old filter media. Two cycled up right away, one is ruining my life.