Help With New Tank Syndrome

Also, to your question about dosing. If you're treating the volume of replacement water in the bucket, dose for the volume of the bucket. If you're treating for the volume of the tank, dose for the volume of the tank. I do water changes with water coming in through a hose from the tap, and I dose Prime to the volume of the tank. I used to use buckets, and dosed for the bucket.

Thank you. I also started out dosing buckets now I dose for the tank.

 

Thank you. I also started out dosing buckets now I dose for the tank.

Did you retest the ammonia by chance? Those are incredible numbers.

 

I suggest to consider adding a sponge filter to each tank. They colonize a tremendous amount of beneficial bacteria. When you need a quick and temporary quarantine/hospital tank, you can pull pit a cycled sponge filter and drop it in a 5 gallon bucket along with a cheap 50w adjustable heater

 

Did you retest the ammonia by chance? Those are incredible numbers.

No I didn’t because I ran out of time because I ran out of time. I just did 50% water changes. I will retest tomorrow.

I suggest to consider adding a sponge filter to each tank. They colonize a tremendous amount of beneficial bacteria. When you need a quick and temporary quarantine/hospital tank, you can pull pit a cycled sponge filter and drop it in a 5 gallon bucket along with a cheap 50w adjustable heater

I was considering doing this. Thanks!

 

Beg, borrow or steal some mature filter media.

 

Hmm I haven't seen anyone talk about plants yet in this thread...

Although I'm relatively new to this hobby too, my advice would be to add a decent amount of plants to your aquariums then you will not have to worry about a thing. Do a huge water change first to dilute that ammonia and then add plants. Ammonia should never come back up and your tank will cycle in the background. Super easy!

I got into the hobby because all of the super nice looking planted aquascapes I saw online so I started day 1 with plants. Cycling was never an issue. Didn't even have a test kit at the time lol, only weekly water changes.

 

Golden Pothos is easily found at big box home improvement stores and local nurseries.

I just bought some last month.

I prop it up between the lid and filter and let only the roots hang down into the water.

Pothos is great because it doesn't require much light, whatever the room has normally is all it needs.

It's also relatively cheap. For $10-$13, I bought a pot large enough to divide between 3 tanks. I went out and bought another one.

My community tank has anubias + the Pothos, but my Africana and South American tanks have only Pothos.

mastersafara , the Pothos might be a good route to take.

 

Hmm I haven't seen anyone talk about plants yet in this thread...

Although I'm relatively new to this hobby too, my advice would be to add a decent amount of plants to your aquariums then you will not have to worry about a thing. Do a huge water change first to dilute that ammonia and then add plants. Ammonia should never come back up and your tank will cycle in the background. Super easy!

I got into the hobby because all of the super nice looking planted aquascapes I saw online so I started day 1 with plants. Cycling was never an issue. Didn't even have a test kit at the time lol, only weekly water changes.

Golden Pothos is easily found at big box home improvement stores and local nurseries.

I just bought some last month.

I prop it up between the lid and filter and let only the roots hang down into the water.

Pothos is great because it doesn't require much light, whatever the room has normally is all it needs.

It's also relatively cheap. For $10-$13, I bought a pot large enough to divide between 3 tanks. I went out and bought another one.

My community tank has anubias + the Pothos, but my Africana and South American tanks have only Pothos.

mastersafara , the Pothos might be a good route to take.

I do have live plants in all my tanks but not like you might think. Most are the Petco bought above substrate plants like Java Fern, Buce, Moss, Amazon Sword and some others. The tank with all the whacky numbers last night, I planted about a week ago with Dwarf Hairgrass, Repens and Cardinalis. I have this tank set up with the Fluval Plant LED, but haven’t seen growth yet. The substrate for this tank is a layer of Fluval Stratum on the bottom and above it a layer of Gravel stone. I’ve attached some pics of my tanks. While we’re on the subject of plants, I added some dissolved epsom salt to some of these tanks to help the fish pass internal parasites they may have. Is the epsom salt bad for the plants? I’ve also added API Leaf Zone for the plants. I hope that’s not bad for the fish??

 

Only the last tank with al the java fern has enough plant mass for you to silently cycle the tank. I've never kept java fern but I understand they're a low light plant and don't grow very fast at all. Perhaps that is why you're still having trouble with the cycle?

But to be honest, there are more plants in that picture than I started out with and I didn't run into any problems at all. Maybe a large water change is in order and then the issue will solve itself (for the heavily planted tank).