Goober Pond (5.5 Planted Tank)

Hopefully, a future pea puffer tank!

This is my first attempt at working with ADA Aquasoil. I think I stalled out the cycle (it's at 1ppm ammonia and no nitrite/ates) so I added a lot of pond snails and fish food recently. Maybe I need to raise the pH? I hear low pH creates a kind of ammonia that bacteria cannot eat...

This was also my first attempt at dry starting a dwarf hairgrass carpet. It worked, sort of??? The things are rooting and shooting, albeit slowly.

I also made 3 decorations out of polymer clay, a sign and 2 barrels.

I might add a HOB soon to both help the cycle along as well as maintain the tank after I get a pea puffer.

 

That looks great, especially for a 5.5 gallon aquarium!

 

Really cool little tank. How long have you been cycling? What's the pH?

 

Thank you, both of you!
RockinRy , I've had it submerged since midjuly. pH as of now is about 6.6. Admittedly I have little experience with actively trying to cycle, since my previous walstad tanks cycled themselves without much special attention from me.

Right now I'm trying to raise ammonia levels via fish food. Looks kinda ugly at the moment, I sprinkled in lots of pellets.

 

Sorry for the delayed response. I work at a University and things are hectic with the start of the semester.

I don’t have a ton of experience with low pH, I actually have the opposite side of things with a pH around 8. I do think you are still in a normal cycle time although I would have hoped to see nitrites by now. I agree with your move to add more fish food, ideally you want a higher ammonia level (closer to 2ppm) although with fish food, you probably won’t get an exact amount.

What’s your temp at? You could bump that up to help bacteria growth just make sure it isn’t too crazy for your snails. I wouldn’t recommend adjusting your pH, you are right that the majority of the ammonia is in the form of ammonium at that pH, but from the research I’ve read the bacteria can still consume it. I’ve also read in a couple of spots that they won’t, but I’m not sure where they get that information. Like I said though I haven’t had to worry about that so I didn’t dig too deep into the issue. I very well could be wrong on the ammonium so if a more experienced aquarist sees this and disagrees they should put me in my place ha.

 

I love those little barrels you made!

 

Nah it's good. UnI just started for me too!

Yeah neither do I. Water from the tap's at 8+ but this aquasoil really does its job lowering pH.

I bumped it to 80 or so 2 days ago. I don't want to go much higher because my plants wouldn't like it. The java moss in particular. I'm getting an aquaclear 20 filter tomorrow too, since I want to bolster the tank's capacity for messy puffer table manners.

And thanks Sheldon13! I'm quite happy with how all my lil decorations turned out.