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hello,
I’m doing a fishless cycle for a 10 gallon that will hopefully have caridina shrimp in it soon. It's been running for a little over a week with a seeded sponge filter, wood, plants, and 1.5 indian almond leaves from my other two 10 gallons. I've been adding fish food for an ammonia source but am sort of confused on my parameters right now.
This is the pH of my tap water
and (I'm not sure how considering my tap's pH, the driftwood, and almond leaves) my pH in the tank has gone up. I did a small water change for the first time this afternoon and the pH went back down to like a 6.9 or so.
I also am not sure if I'm misreading the nitrate or if there actually is some present. It looks fairly orange to me but I have heard that the colors don't always match up right with these tests. Is it possible to have nitrates without seeing nitrites? I thought that you usually see ammonia then nitrites then nitrates. I have a bundle of pothos hanging out the top of the tank and lots of salvinia minima (I think) which is supposed to suck up nitrates from what I understand. I'd assume it's not cycled yet but I know shrimp don't have a huge bioload.
There are a few hitchhiking snails who have been leaving trails all over the glass. There's algae growing and biofilm building up. I've been using seachem stability and a tiny bit of Bacter AE. I'm just worried that my tank is no where close to cycling and I would hate to make a very expensive mistake (let alone potentially hurt the shrimp).
I’m doing a fishless cycle for a 10 gallon that will hopefully have caridina shrimp in it soon. It's been running for a little over a week with a seeded sponge filter, wood, plants, and 1.5 indian almond leaves from my other two 10 gallons. I've been adding fish food for an ammonia source but am sort of confused on my parameters right now.
This is the pH of my tap water
and (I'm not sure how considering my tap's pH, the driftwood, and almond leaves) my pH in the tank has gone up. I did a small water change for the first time this afternoon and the pH went back down to like a 6.9 or so.
I also am not sure if I'm misreading the nitrate or if there actually is some present. It looks fairly orange to me but I have heard that the colors don't always match up right with these tests. Is it possible to have nitrates without seeing nitrites? I thought that you usually see ammonia then nitrites then nitrates. I have a bundle of pothos hanging out the top of the tank and lots of salvinia minima (I think) which is supposed to suck up nitrates from what I understand. I'd assume it's not cycled yet but I know shrimp don't have a huge bioload.
There are a few hitchhiking snails who have been leaving trails all over the glass. There's algae growing and biofilm building up. I've been using seachem stability and a tiny bit of Bacter AE. I'm just worried that my tank is no where close to cycling and I would hate to make a very expensive mistake (let alone potentially hurt the shrimp).
