[Stock my empty tank!]

The Aqueon 15 gallon column was our first tank. We got it for my son, got the whole kit including the stand for it, but had a lot of trouble with a betta in it because to keep the betta happy, the flow on the filter needed to be so low that it didn’t do much filtering. Finally, we moved the betta out to a more suitable tank for his needs…. But now we have an empty tank.

 

So, what does well in a taller than it is wide, smallish tank??

[Pruning techniques for Amazon sword]

My Amazon sword doubled in size over the past few weeks and I wanted some guidelines on trimming so I don’t make it ugly or accidentally prune it to death (if that’s a thing). The tallest leaf has its tip out of the water.

 

so what’s the best way to trim an Amazon down?

[Nitrogen Cycle crash (rinse, lather, repeat)]

Oh my gosh, I just figured it out and feel like a total idiot!

 

we got the RO around the time the first crash happened. I thought “I tested the water, there’s no chlorine in it, so I won’t waste my water conditioner.” And completely forgot all the other benefits of water conditioner. Won’t make that mistake again.

[Nitrogen Cycle crash (rinse, lather, repeat)]

That’s a good thought. If that’s the cause, then maybe it’s a good thing that I’m really bad at remembering to add it very often, lol! But it’s possible that I’ve added it a few times since this all started!

[Help identifying illness on betta]

Salt baths, lots of fresh water and the 3 med combo from Aq Coop.
 

Do his scales always stick out like that? Or is that new along with the lesion?

[Hello!]

Pinocchio!

 

He’s really big for a Crowntail, and one of my kids remembered the whale and… here he is.

[Nitrogen Cycle crash (rinse, lather, repeat)]

I have tested the tap water. It’s RO water, as stated in op. It’s soft and slightly acidic, but has no latent nitrates/nitrites or ammonia, nor any chlorine to break down.

[Nitrogen Cycle crash (rinse, lather, repeat)]

Slowly over time. First it was just 6 emeralds, then I pulled the pandas out of another tank and moved them in a few weeks later. The pandas moved over next and betta just went in before all this crashing started.

 

I’ve been through 2 whole bottles of stability in the past few weeks trying to control this. So unless both were expired, I don’t think that’s it. And isn’t Fitz pretty much the same as Prime in regards to detoxifying?

[Hello!]

Hello! 
I’m Alie, a mom to 3 boys on the Carolina coast. I currently have three running tanks (though one of them is hobbling along right now) housing two male bettas (in separate tanks) named Monstro and Swiss, a female betta (matriarch of tank 3h named Harley Quinn, 14ish Cory catfish in an assortment of colors, and 2 mystery snails.

[Nitrogen Cycle crash (rinse, lather, repeat)]

Oh, one thing I forgot, it is a planted tank. Amazon sword, El Niño fern, pink Ludwigia, Rotala and some kind of dwarf hair grass. I use liquid CO2.

 

[Nitrogen Cycle crash (rinse, lather, repeat)]

I have a 29 gal high with an AquaClear 50 HOB filter and an sponge filter that *was* established and doing awesome… until it wasn’t. It houses 13 cories (6 pandas, 5 albino, 2 emerald), a mystery snail, and a female betta.
 

I can’t pinpoint what caused the crash, but at some point my nitrogen cycle crashed with fish in the tank. I’ve lost 4 fish in two weeks because of high nitrITES. (I capitalized that on purpose) 

Filter media is:

course sponge,

crushed coral

Aquarium Co op bio rings/Fluval bio beads

and I had SeaChem Purigen in there, but I decided to switch it out for a piece of fine poly pad today since nothing else is working.

When this saga started, ph was very low, but thanks to some crushed coral, that’s come up.

Water parameters are:

Ammonia 0

pH 7.4 

nitrate 5

nitrite currently at 1.0, but if today is like all of the past 14, it will be back up near 4.0 by bedtime and I’ll spend the night berating myself for not doing a water change at midnight and hoping my fish are alive when I wake up. 

I’m going through SeaChem Stability at a ridiculous rate with no results.
 

Every day, I do my water check, do a 30% water change to bring the nitrites back down, dose with Fitz water conditioner and Stability, check parameters again (water change usually gets me to a nitrite level of 1.0) and by night it’s back up to danger level.

What am I doing wrong?

 

This tank was cycled fishless for almost 4 weeks, until parameters were spot on and stable for over a week. I added fish, everything was great for a month or two and then it stopped breaking down Nitrites. My water is RO water, it is a little soft, but has no nitrite reading alone.