Demobanana

I knew there was some kind of connection between ph and ammonia, I will definitely try testing the water the day after to see if it got different results

never knew that but I'll remember to keep it in stock

ok great

I just have a tetra air pump thats meant for 10g and the tank is a 10g. And no I dont have a gang valve, but a little bit of the air going to the sponge filter is going to a tiny airstone on the other side of the tank. And for the cycled media I thought my media was cycled but I guess it wasn't because nothing happened with it. But wouldn't the chlorine and chloramine destroy the bacteria then? I use prime as a dechlor too Just added an airstone inand I do dose more dechlor when I water change but if I may ask, what would the salt do if its an ammonia problem?

Yes, I think it was on the right track but I added too much ammonia (unintentionally, when I water changed and the tap had high ammonia) and now its kinda all out of whack. I think my tank will cycle eventually but its going to take a lot more time since I have a lot more ammonia.

My plan was to wait it out and let my bacteria build and have the plants eat more and more ammonia but its taking a lot longer than expected and I know Im going to have to water change or top off soon, I think I'll just water change it so the ammonia lowers and vac some mulm

forgot to mention I dont know what I was saying when I said that, I don't actually think something was leeching, my previous thought was that maybe the molm I had was leeching all the ammonia in my tank (before I tested it and found all the ammonia in my tap). Also I do have a small-medium sized pothos thats doing pretty good in there. I would say all my plants are doing pretty good. Tank is a 10g Oh thank you i didnt know that. will be a bit more cautious in the future with dechlorinators hmm...but if theres no fish its fine,right?

Honestly I think my issue is that the ammonia in my tap is lowered, but when I've been water changing my tank with tap that previosuly did have a lot more ammonia in it and it was too much for my tank. Will water change but I already have a buttload of plants in there and for the feeding/stocking there isnt anything in there except for what I mentioned in my comment above. i understand the water changes, but what do you mean by "Prime is a bandaid"? Other than an ammonia detoxifier I use it as a dechlorinator too

Oh no I 100% know there is def. chloramines in my water, I live in a big city so its to be expected. I always double dose my dechlor before adding in water to my tank but I will try maybe adding an airstone to my tank? The actual filter in there is a sponge filter, and I dont know how I would overkill the filter without getting a bigger air pump. Substrate is a thin layer of sand a gravel, but there's some big rocks in there too and a bag of gravel from another (cycled) filter. Stocking is nothing but snails, detritus worms and cyclops, and the only "feeding" is some of the plants and organic mater breaking down in there.

Im not trying to add bacteria, my initial plan was to add the prime so the ammonia would be temporarily locked into nitrate, except I would keep adding it until all the nitrate was taken up by my plants and all the ammonia was gone. And I estimate around a good half of my 10g is all plants, and they've clearly been taking some of the ammonia. I set up the tank around a month or 2 ago and I threw some plants (for which plants, look above) and some rocks in a bag from an already cycled HOB to hopefully get some life going in there, and I put in a dual sponge filters and that's been set up for a month. Honestly I thought the media from my other filter would've been enough to help it, but around the same time my county put a big amount of ammonia in the water so I just had to wait and I've been water changing it (big, ~40-50%) every few weeks to suck up some excess molm thats been on the ground, but I guess it was just too much ammonia that was coming in at one time. But if I really cant drop the level soon I think Im just going to pop my other filter in there, which would leave my other tank filterless. Yeah that seems like a good first step, just dont want to do it too much because of whatever might happen to my plants.

maybe, I'll try it and test it. The test kit is the API master kit, nitrite and nitrate are like 0 (I thought a few months was enough for a filter to cycle, guess something's going on with mine) and if it helps Ph is around 6, which is weird bc the last time I tested it was around 8. Im pretty sure my county lowered the ammonia level recently and that must've affected my tanks Ph, as well as the weird water change schedule I had. I'm up for trying it but do you think that much water changes so fast would affect my bacteria (that either isn't there or isn't converting any ammonia) in my filter/substrate? The biggest thing I'm worried about is my bacteria colony and all my plants growing in there. For context theyre all fast growing stems like foxtail, rotala, and bacopa. Also have java moss, and I've heard plants dont do well to fluctuating conditions.

oh ok forgot you could just dose more than the label said. And I have no idea whats leeching ammonia, I'm assuming its the water changes on the tank since the tap comes out to .5 ppm ammonia, and my tanks not converting it to nitrates fast enough the thing is I have done water changes, its just the water from the tap that I change with has ammonia in it, even testing it now. There is some molm here and there but I doubt its the main cause, I think my plants and filter just arent converting the ammonia fast enough, and I was putting more in when I water changed the tank

Can I continuously use ammonia detoxifier for an indefinite time span (or like 3 weeks) if I have something to take the nitrates out and small water changes or top offs to take care of whatever might be building up in the water? Also I know a lot of detoxifier directions only specify the ratio of detoxifier needed with gallons, but I have a truckload of ammonia, do you guys think it would work the same for 3 and 10 ppm f ammonia? Or is it just different for every manufacturer?

Ohhh ok thank you maybe it is the cold causing the appetite thing. Since my main tank is a couple degrees higher and my other cories eat fine I imagine it’s a mix of the sickness and temp. And is garlic guard just garlic? Have plenty of that at home, didn’t know fish were into it

After hearing so many horror stories of boiled fish while you’re away on Amazon, I’m kinda wary, especially since it’s either 5 or 1 star reviews there but it’s not too expensive compared to the seemingly high quality ones going $50+ so I’ll probably just get one. I’m assuming every fish in my main tank has ich too, will the gradual heat affect snails or plants? also I got the heater and ich x on the way but what do I do about his appetite? Don’t think I’ve seen him eat once since I got him and I’m afraid he doesn’t have enough energy to go through the treatment. Is loss of appetite an internal parasite or ich thing?