Beginner Needs Help

[verdamper]

Hi everyone

Im new to this and need some help!! My tank is now completely set up and after having problems with an uneven floor is now level!! I bought an tropical starter kit from pets@home the tank is 24x12x13 with a 60 litre (15 gallons US) capcity.

The kit included filter and heater. The heater is fine and curently heating the water to 27 degrees the filter is in and working but looks a bit cheap and not very effective! The filter is a Rena Filstar I1 should this be ok for the size of the tank?

Also i have been adding stress zyme as indicated on the bottle of stress zyme to increase bacteria growth!! is it ok to use stress zyme rather than ammonia?

the tank has been set up for about a week but im going to leave if three weeks before i introdue fish!!

sound ok so far?

 

[zoekin8yg]

im not an expert but you will need to measure the levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, and should only add fish, slowly after the levels are at zero, the pinned topics are good to read

 

[cujoho78]

Hi. It sounds like your tank is coming together! If you are trying to do a fishless cycle, then you need a source of ammonia, and a test kit for ammonia. I don't believe stress zyme is going to do that for you, but the only way to know is to test the water for ammonia. If after using the stress zyme you don't see any ammonia readings (which is what i would suspect), then you either need to introduce some source of ammonia, or a couple of fish at a time to get the cycle going. If you test often, you'll eventually see the ammonia rise, then fall to zero. Nitrites will do the same, and when the cycle is coming to an end you'll see the nitrates begin to rise. Remember to keep doing water changes if you have fish in the tank; you don't want really high ammonia readings. Good luck.