What Am I Doing Wrong?

[fish nutter]

hi every one,
I am doing a fish-in cycle (i didn't know about fish-less cycles until it was too late and couldn't return my fish .

My tank is 5 weeks old and have an eheim pro 3 2073 i a 250 liter / 55 gal tank. Currently i have = .20 ppm of ammonia, 0 ppm nitrites and 0 ppm nitrates, ph of 7.5 it has been like this for the last 4 weeks, In the first week of starting my tank (with fish) i had 0 ppm of nitrites, nitrates and ammonia, in the last 3 weeks my ph has risen from 7.1 - 7.5

i am doing a fish-in cycle and was wondering if a ph of 7.5 matters for 10 rummynoses and the bacteria i am trying to grow?

Also wanted to know if air stones are good for something or just 4 look?

I also have brown spots / patches of algae growing all over my plants and rocks... should i be worried?

My plants don't seem to be that happy, they have wrinkled leaves and algae on them... i am not sure what i am doing wrong? ... I have a double tube T8 light hood producing around 37,000 K for 11 - 10 hours.



Thanks

 

[fishinadish]

im newish to fish keeping also but from the sound of the algae id say lights are either on too long or in too much direct sunlight

air stones add oxygen to the water to help the fish breathe i have also been told that it helps get rid of certain chemicals in the water not sure how true this is

hope that helps in some kind of way

also are you using anything to get rid of the chlorine in your tap water and regular water changes

 

[fish nutter]

im newish to fish keeping also but from the sound of the algae id say lights are either on too long or in too much direct sunlight

air stones add oxygen to the water to help the fish breathe i have also been told that it helps get rid of certain chemicals in the water not sure how true this is

hope that helps in some kind of way

also are you using anything to get rid of the chlorine in your tap water and regular water changes

Hi, yes i am using stress coat and stress zyme, and doing water 30% changes whenever the ammonia gets above .25 ppm

 

[Bebobb]

The airstone is not needed. A bit of surface displacement from the filter outlet does the same job as an air stone does. For the most part, it is completly for looks. Do you have any C02? That might be the problem with the lights. Your lights are on for quite a long time everyday. Maybe you should cut back the lighting to 8 hours a day? A pH of 7.5 is a fairly netrual pH, and it will be fine for the Rummynose Tetras. What plants does your tank contain?

 

[fish nutter]

i have no co2, will cut back lights, I have no idea what plants i have, sorry

 

[waterdrop]

Personally I would try getting a small bottle of Prime and perhaps put the StressCoat on the shelf for sometime if you run out of Prime. I used StressCoat for years but during my fishless cycle I got a feeling from both my experience and some posts of others that it may somehow not be as good during cycling. Technically this shouldn't be the case but I still have the feeling. Later, after cycling it won't matter as the colonies will be robust.

Basically though, just have patience. Slow fish-in cycling with lots of water changes is good fish-in cycling.

Different types of plants need significantly different conditions. Begin working on identifying your plants (you can use google images to see pictures of plants whose names you find.) What is the wattage of each of your T8 tubes? Its good to see where you are with watts per gallon. The height of your tank is also a factor.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fish nutter]

hi, thanks

My tank is 45cm high 45cm deep and 120cm long or 17.7 inches deep 17.7 inches high and 47 inches long. i will upload pictures shortly so someone might be able to help as i can't find the names of them . As for the prime i cannot find it in any of the online shops for New zealand (a long way away i know) however i heard the brand Cycle is good?

As for the tubes one is a Power-Glo 40 W (new and just replaced about a week ago), and the other is a brand i can't read however it says: tri-power light 15,000 K - 40W

 

[fish nutter]

How do i upload images?

EDIT: no it's fine i signed up to Photobucket... I will add link soon

 

[waterdrop]

Ok, you've got 243L/64USG tank and 80 watts of T8 light which puts you at 1.25 watts per US gallon which is an excellent lighting level for what we call "low-light" approach to growing plants. The 15,000K may have been a marine type of light and I'd recommend 6700K as a better color for freshwater but that's not terribly important. The 17" is not too high I don't think, meaning no special worries about the light fanning out too much from being too high above the substrate. So one of your basic worries is out of the way.

Since you've got good light for low-light technique you will not want to use CO2 (kind of advanced anyway for now) and you will want only minimal "nutrient dosing" (which is our fancy term for giving the plants some fertilizer.) The next important think will be sort of the dual thing of figuring out your plant species and/or learning about species that are good for low-light technique (java ferns, java moss, anubias, crypt.wendtii, swords, many more.) Once you get the pic thing figured out you may need a post in the planted section to get the species figured out.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[sam9953]

How do i upload images?

EDIT: no it's fine i signed up to Photobucket... I will add link soon

its very simple. i will tell you how you can do that. just take a photo using a camera then transfer those photos to the computer. Now go to www.tinypic.com, in this website you need to upload the photo and after upload you will see several links coming up, the link which says "IMG Code for Forums & Message Boards" just copy that link and paste the link here in your post or any other post. That will do it.

 

[fish nutter]

ok wow thanks,

I am using flourish Seachem... 5ml per week

this is the link:

http/i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx37/fish_nutter/Fish%20tank/DSC_0004.png

 

[sam9953]

ok wow thanks,

I am using flourish Seachem... 5ml per week

this is the link:

http/i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx37/fish_nutter/Fish%20tank/DSC_0004.png

I had suggested you the website : Tinypic but its ok that you have used photobucket but the photos are not appearing in the post.

 

[fish nutter]

YAY I got it working !!!!!!!!!!

 

[fish nutter]

Thanks,

I am using flourish Seachem... 5ml per week

I will make a post in the plants section and once it is figured out i will update this post with the plant species

 

[sam9953]

Wait i will give you better directions.

Just upload the photo in tinypic then once you are done out of the links which come up you will see a link which is stated as IMG code for forums and message boards. Now below this there is a link so just copy the link. If you cant find it then the link will start with the word "