Trying to hurry this cycle along...again!

[Alesha]

If you've missed my saga up to this point, here are the details: I needed to treat my tank with Levamisole last month to try to save my guppies. The treatment seemed to have worked, however, it killed the cycle of my 55 gallon tank.

We've been doing water changed quite frequently, just to keep the ammonia, and then the nitrites, within tolerable ranges, for the sake of the guppies. The tank still looks like this:

So I'm racking my brain to do anything possible to help the balance fall into place. We added a sponge filter already seeded from another tank, and hornwort just last week. Today, I worked on the following project. 

I took these 2-inch hydroponic cups and cut the bottom out.

I added small rooted groups of pothos into each cup and held them in place with the rockwool. I made sure the roots came through the bottom of the cups.

I still had a gap in the back of the glass lid from where I removed the HOB. Four of these cups fit perfectly in the opening. And the roots all dropped right down into the water.

I really, really hope these roots will help pull some of the nitrates out and help this tank get back to normal! 

I had 3 pieces of the pothos left, so I submerged them in a couple of my other tanks. I'm interested to see if I can get it to grow there.

So, that's what I did today. Any other ideas that I could try to help hurry this cycle along?

Alesha

[Cory]

Stop feeding for like a week will allow the tank to catch up as well.

[Alesha]

3 hours ago, Cory said:

Stop feeding for like a week will allow the tank to catch up as well.

Ok, @Cory. Will do. Thanks for the additional step. Of course, it will kill me not to feed my babies, but I can do it if it will save them some pain in the end.👍

[RovingGinger]

10 hours ago, Cory said:

Stop feeding for like a week will allow the tank to catch up as well.

[Alesha]

6 hours ago, RovingGinger said:

Ohhhhh, @RovingGinger, that is incredibly accurate! 🤣

[Alesha]

UPDATE: Soooo much clearer today! And nitrites falling daily, too.

The hornwort, pothos & no feeding must've been the triple-threat needed.

Thanks, everyone!