Please Help

[EmilyC]

Hi all

Two weeks ago I got a lovely new fish tank I set it up with some lovely sand and some plants I brought from the fish shop, added some ammonia and began the journey of fishless cycling. I already have a Biorb so I rinsed out the filter into the tank to give it a bit of a head start. All was fine, and then I went away for 4 days and left my friend in charge of looking after the tank and taking all the readings- which she dutifully did. Trouble is, by the time I got back from my holiday all the plants where more or less dead and we can't work out why.

Initial thoughts where prehaps the light wasn't on, but nope, she said it was on all day and only off at night. I also thought perhaps she had had to add some ammonia to the tank to increase the levels, but nope she says she didn't. In fact the only thing she did with the tank was to take 5ml of water out each time to test it.

Any ideas anyone?



I'll post below the reading I have for the last 10 days, all taken 24hours apart, PH is around 7.6 and the water temp is 25

Ammonia Nitrite
0----------- 0
3----------- 0
3----------- 0
3----------- 0.25
3----------- 0.5
4----------- 0.5
4----------- 1
3----------- 1
0.5--------- 5

 

[Carter]

You tank is going through a typical Cycle... it is doing what it is suppose to be doing...

When the Ammonia levels increase, Nitrate will also increase because it feeds off the Ammonia.

As the nitrate eats away off the Ammonia, you will see that the Ammonia levels will decease and the Nitrate levels will increase...

When there is not enough Ammonia for the Nitrate to live off, the nitrate levels will decrease.

When the Ammonia levels are 0 or close to, like you have seen, that is when you do a 25% water change to get the Nitrate down. Wait a few days to see if the Ammonia goes back up. if it does not, repeat the process until it works its self out... This can, in some instances, take up to a moth to do...

If the nitrate levels stay low and the Ammonia is close to 0, then you can add in a few more fish, but not to many as it will cause an ammonia spike when you add to many at one given time.

As for the plants dyeing... did you do a ph test?

i hope this helps.