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

  1. Tookish_by_Nature on

    Also sorry about the weird formatting, Im posting on a phone and dont know what happened there.

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