Do you have any plants? I haul out a surplus of plants every month. That cleans up the water a bit too.And enough plants keep the algae under control. Any algae yet?Amonia still about .25-.50.
Ha ha, no, no algae. I wish!
The bacteria will mostly live in the gravel anyway. So the light will not matter much at all. The light will cause the algae to grow unless you have lots of plants already. But algae is both a curse and a blessing. It removes some nitrogen but it can look ugly.
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2 weeks seems reasonable. I think when I had aquarium growing up we didn't wait any longer than 2 weeks & our first batch of fish did OK.
Several months? No!Being honest I have planted tanks that happen to have fish in them, rather than fish tanks with plants, so take what I say with a pinch of salt
Have you been staying around the 0.5-1ppm range daily for the last two weeks? Sometimes it takes time, a lot of time. People commonly say 2-4 weeks, but it can take several months.
What is your pH, has it been stable since setting up?
Mine is 5 gallon. I feel like a smaller tank shouldn't take as long? Or would it take longer? IDK.
It all 'depends'. It's not a science as much as an art. One can only generally map out what happens but it can't be put on a timetable.2 weeks seems reasonable. I think when I had aquarium growing up we didn't wait any longer than 2 weeks & our first batch of fish did OK.
Several months? No!
Yes, it's been .5-1 the last 2 weeks. Does even a 5 gallon tank have to get up 2-3 ammonia before it goes down?
Today was back down to .5-1.00. I'm so confused. I put some decrease-ammonia bacteria in it yesterday, but no nitrite or nitrate.
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How many fish do you have in there now? Are they eating the food all up?I'm so confused.
Today's test:
Liquid ammonia test: looks to be about 3
Liquid nitrate test: 5, maybe? (first positive test for nitrate!
Nitrite test strip: .5 or 1 (first positive test for nitrite!
Nitrate test strip: nothing
Was definitely a mistake putting the ammonia killer in last time my ammonia got high.
So how am I coming? Seems close if you get positive tests for nitrate? Ammonia probably needs to get lower? Should I keep adding food?
The normal way is get a fish, wait a while, get another fish, wait some more, get another fish or two, then be happy. The thing NOT to do is buy two dozen fish on day one. That is asking for a disaster as the water chemistry goes crazy.
It's just a filter that comes w/ the tank.
Can you describe it? Or even upload a picture? No worries if that is harder than it's worth it.
