Hey all, I recently aquired an 80L tank, which is sitting on my left churning away as I wait for it to cycle.
I have in it, an Aquaclear 50 with Sponge, Carbon and Bioblocks, a Jager 100w heater set to 27DegC, an Aqua-Glo Flourescent (30"), between 5mm and 30mm of gravel at any one place, and... Some rapidly dying plants.
I bought the tank 8 days ago, and on Monday bought some Ammonium to do a fishless cycle with. At that time, the tank had been doped with some dechlorinator/chloraminer, Seachem Flourish, and a chelated Iron supplament. I poured in 10mL of the ammonium, which gave me a reading of 4ppm, and happily went off to bed.
The next day, when I got up, the plants looked terrible, and another examination of the ammonium reading gave 8ppm. I guess I'd not read the scale correctly. The wysteria was going transparent, the red plants had gone motley green, and the green thing with long thin leaves (I did know the name, and I've forgotten) is going DARK green from the tips in.
I freaked, did a 50% water change, added some new Flourish and tested the water, which was safely down at 4ppm.
This morning, over half my leaf mass is either sitting on my gravel or clogging my filter. I've had to remove 2 wysteria all together, my other's still look sick, and my water has a brown tinge.
I think I am the suck at aquarium setup. Did I poison my plants with ammonium? What's the best recovery strategy, remove all the plants and plant mass are start again, or wait till the tank cycles and start again, or sell the whole damn lot so I don't subject fish to the same fate? (Joking
)
Seriously though, I'd like to know what I did wrong.
I have in it, an Aquaclear 50 with Sponge, Carbon and Bioblocks, a Jager 100w heater set to 27DegC, an Aqua-Glo Flourescent (30"), between 5mm and 30mm of gravel at any one place, and... Some rapidly dying plants.
I bought the tank 8 days ago, and on Monday bought some Ammonium to do a fishless cycle with. At that time, the tank had been doped with some dechlorinator/chloraminer, Seachem Flourish, and a chelated Iron supplament. I poured in 10mL of the ammonium, which gave me a reading of 4ppm, and happily went off to bed.
The next day, when I got up, the plants looked terrible, and another examination of the ammonium reading gave 8ppm. I guess I'd not read the scale correctly. The wysteria was going transparent, the red plants had gone motley green, and the green thing with long thin leaves (I did know the name, and I've forgotten) is going DARK green from the tips in.
I freaked, did a 50% water change, added some new Flourish and tested the water, which was safely down at 4ppm.
This morning, over half my leaf mass is either sitting on my gravel or clogging my filter. I've had to remove 2 wysteria all together, my other's still look sick, and my water has a brown tinge.
I think I am the suck at aquarium setup. Did I poison my plants with ammonium? What's the best recovery strategy, remove all the plants and plant mass are start again, or wait till the tank cycles and start again, or sell the whole damn lot so I don't subject fish to the same fate? (Joking
)Seriously though, I'd like to know what I did wrong.
