Urgent Need Of Help After Bad Advice

[steve26-2008]

I'm glad that I found this forum before I got to the lfs. I fish less cycled my tank, added fish a few at a time to avoid stressing the filter(didn't want to stock a lot a first). I keep up my week water changes and my tanks being running for 13 week and problems. I was reading in my lfs that they recommend that a tank is running for three days before adding fish.

 

[leanne2389]

Ok went to new LFS today that I found and they were brilliant (i think) they told me I had received bad advice from MA but that they think I should be ok with all the plants being in now. He advised I get a few small moss balls as these apparantly absorb nitrates??? so I did. Today noticed that so far everything is still looking ok (crossed fingers)

 

[Miles_hot]

Did they suck their teeth and say "ohh who did this shocking work then...just look at the state of that.." - oh sorry I was thinking of dodgy mechanics there for a moment

 

[brian2708]

Hi.

Moss balls do soak up nitrates, like all of the plants will, however, if your tank is not cycled then any ammonia released into your tank will not be turned into nitrites, which will not be turned into nitrates, so your tank could be sitting in a state of lethal ammonia and nitrite levels.

Have you got your test kit yet? This is what you need to be doing ASAP is testing your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

From here on you should be able to tell if your tank is cycled or not.