A Cycling Log

[gregswimm]

Shoot me ><

Well, I want to come in with the rough of what has happened over the last few days.

- My cycle completely crashed.
- I didn't notice.
- I have 5 harlequin rasboras and two mystery snails
- I am now keeping the fish safe in some "surprise" fish-in that I'm now doing, by use of detoxifiers, water changes, and consistent monitoring.

Earlier today, the water levels were 0.5ppm ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 0 nitrate.

The risky behavior of "dump some dechlorinator on it" didn't seem like a good streak, so I went ahead and did a 50% water change today, and now it rests at >0.25ppm ammonia.

Seachem prime and API stress coat are being used. (API is nearly finished, in-bottle).

I'm being honest... I did not mean to charge into this fish-in cycle... I've brought in a filter pad from the local LFS that seemed very well established, with no notable results.

The fish have been showing very healthy signs, and I have been feeding them very conservatively, keeping them under guard of ammonia-locking dechlorinators, but I know it is not enough. I really wish that this mature media would work out for me, yet it's showing no change so far. This is scary, to say the least... The intense death of all my media came to me by surprise, but I'm more than aware of how acidity gradually kills bacteria, so I should have made my pH tests dozens of times more frequent ><

I would let it fish-in cycle from here on out. Do 2 water changes a day 1 when you get up and 1 before you go to bed. Keep your tank a bit on the cool side. Acidity wont kill your bacteria, its large swings in PH that can kill your bacteria. It is only when you go past 4.5 ish that a different bacteria will grow and the higher PH bacteria cannot survive. Your bacte colony can double in size in 24h. It prolly wasn't any acid that killed them, they may have died from the sudden drop in the amount of available ammonia in the water column (ie you fed them too much liquid ammonia).

Edit: the water changes; don;t do more than 40% at a time, even 40% is a bit much.