kacie

Okay I need help. My tank is cycling, almost there... But there is a white coating on my rock and now I've noticed it on the suction cups of my thermometer. There is white dustish stuff under the rock and sometimes my cory has a white nose. Not good, but I haven't been cleaning because I don't want to set the cycle back. Please tell me should I scrub that rock and thermometer?

Steen16

i could be dust settling from the sustrate.
pictures of the substance would help

john&jen

Scrub away! The cycle is occuring in the filter media and in the substrate.

kacie

okay will scrub. Thanks

kacie

I scrubbed the heater, thermometer and my rock yesterday and today my ammonia readings are back up. Just a normal fluctuation or did I screw it up? Plus I just changed my carbon and now there is a black dust in my water. I rinsed the carbon. God I hope I didn't mess this up.

Steen16

when you change carbon it tends to fog up the water its happened to me a few times when i used to use carbon.. I dont think scrubbing the rock and heater and stuff would have done anything to the amonia levels except maybe the stuff scrubbed of is decaying and producing amonia

hope this helps not to sure myself

kacie

Thanks for the response, I'm reassured. Really wish I could vacuum.

john&jen

You can vac. Vacuuming eliminates the mulm, not all the bacteria. I used to do half the tank every other day while cycling. left, wait, right, wait, left, etc. This keeps the nitrates down too. Carbon should be good for three to four weeks, don't change too often.

kacie

I vacuumed the first month of my cycle and got no where so I decided that was slowing me down and stopped vacuuming. Really don't want to do anything that will slow my cycle more than necessary. It has been 7 weeks.

john&jen

Do you use API StressZyme? I use it after every water change.

kacie

I just mostly use it to condition the tap water for my water changes. There are a number of mistakes made at the beginning that may have reset or stalled my cycle but I'm progressing now.

john&jen

StressZyme does not condition tap water, it adds to the biological filtration. StressCoat conditions tap water.

kacie

Oops, yes I'm using stresscoat.