RowdyBub50
New Member
sorry meant trite.
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Big question is do you want plants? Some people make beautiful scapes with great success, its just another thing for me to kill after it deposits god awful amounts of snails and algae to my tank LOL.
I'm doing fish in but I've got a 75G with 3 Danios. I'm sure I've got SOME ammonia in there but API master kit picks up nothing (no nitrite or rate either) but its only been about 2 weeks too.
I used API Quick start and small water changes. I'm in no rush though, fish look great and I plan on getting 1 oscar one day after several months of happy Danios (they'll get a new home).
The directions on this site are pretty good I think to do a fishless with ammonia (get Dr Tims). If you had 4pp ammonia and now its 2 and stalled you may want to add more ammonia to bring back to 4pp.
Look at the bacteria as 2 fish species that can't survive without the other. If you starve one (not enough ammonia) it dies. Then the second nitrate dies without the first. If its stalled you may not have enough of the 1st.
If the cycle is stalled, adding more ammonia is the last thing to do. The more ammonia that's added, the more nitrite that is made and we know that nitrite stalls a cycle at around 15 to 16 ppm. With fishless cycling, sometimes a water change, redosing enough ammonia to get a reading of 3ppm works. 4 ppm is a bit on the high side.
And as this tank will contain just 1 betta, 1 ppm is more than enough ammonia.
H0pefulDad does want plants - he said
@H0pefulDad if you would rather finish the fishless cycle and you still have a reading of 2 ppm ammonia, you could try doing a 50% water change to get it down to 1ppm and see if that 'unstalls' things.
A further though occurs to me - have you tested the pH? In very soft water with low KH, that small KH can be used up and the pH can crash. Below 6.5, the bacteria stop multiplying. If the pH is above 6.5, that's fine but if it's below 6.5, this might be the cause.
No. Nowadays we add 3 ppm ammonia to start the cycle, then wait until certain targets have been reached before adding more ammonia. The cycling method on here was written so that if followed properly nitrite can never get high enough to stall the cycle.
Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First!
Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank What is Cycling and Why is it Important? Fish waste, and especially fish breathing, plus uneaten food and other organic matter breaking down in a tank all produce Ammonia. This can quickly become toxic to fish if it is allowed to build up to any measurable...www.fishforums.net
It iused to be thought that 5 ppm ammonia should be used and that ammonia should be added every time it dropped to zero. But studies have shown that a sensibly stocked tank makes less than 3 ppm ammonia per day and that the bacteria don't starve to death in 24 hours as used to be thought. TwoTankAmin took this research and wrote the method on here so that stalled cycles no longer happen.
No. Nowadays we add 3 ppm ammonia to start the cycle, then wait until certain targets have been reached before adding more ammonia. The cycling method on here was written so that if followed properly nitrite can never get high enough to stall the cycle.
Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First!
Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank What is Cycling and Why is it Important? Fish waste, and especially fish breathing, plus uneaten food and other organic matter breaking down in a tank all produce Ammonia. This can quickly become toxic to fish if it is allowed to build up to any measurable...www.fishforums.net
It iused to be thought that 5 ppm ammonia should be used and that ammonia should be added every time it dropped to zero. But studies have shown that a sensibly stocked tank makes less than 3 ppm ammonia per day and that the bacteria don't starve to death in 24 hours as used to be thought. TwoTankAmin took this research and wrote the method on here so that stalled cycles no longer happen.