Fish in cycling

FishForums.net Pet of the Month
🐶 POTM Poll is Open! 🦎 Click here to Vote! 🐰

Deano715

New Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2021
Messages
17
Reaction score
5
Location
US
Hi folks. Ten gallon running a week with 1 platy, anacharis (not as much as i would like) and 1 amazon sword which i doubt has any affect. Anyway. Ammonia is testing 0.25 for a 4 days or so. Today it looked a bit less and yesterday a bit more. Zero nitrites and zero nitrates. Been using Quickstart at a rate of a dose a day. Oh, temp is 78 degrees. I remember a few years ago using some bacteria in a bottle in a heavily planted tank and dont recall ever seeing nitrites. Just telling my story so far.
 
Forgot to mention that the tank is somewhat cloudy today. Hoping for a bloom.
 
Curious - why do you want a bloom? Most people can't wait to get rid of it......
 
Hmmm, most people want to know how to make the bloom go away :)

But as the bloom bacteria won't do any harm, except make it harder to see the fish, if you want a bloom ......;)
 
How are you planning on stocking the tank?
A single platy will not produce much of a BB colony...
 
Once i see nitrites and or nitrates i will get another fish or two. More platies maybe, not sure.
 
it would be better wait till you have zero nitrites before getting more fish. Until there are enough bacteria to remove the nitrite from one fish, getting more will just increase nitrite and we need to keep that as close to zero as possible with fish in the tank.
 
Nitrite binds to the fish's red blood cells and stops oxygen binding which is why it needs to be kept low. It basically does the same to fish as carbon monoxide does to us.
 
None has show up yet nor nitrates. As i said, a few years ago cycling a heavily planted tank i never did get a nitrite reading. Nitrates showed up after a few weeks. Of course this tank doesnt have near the plants it had.
 
Plants take up ammonia as food and they turn it into protein rather than nitrite. When there are enough of them, they take up all the ammonia made by the fish so nitrite never shows up. It is possible that the plants you have will be enough for 1 platy, it's when you add more fish that you might see nitrite appearing. But 10 gallons is a bit small for many more fish, so you may be OK.
 
I figure 4 or 5 total platies or guppies maybe. Not in a hurry as like other threads mention the selection is prett slim right now.
 

Most reactions

trending

Staff online

Back
Top