Tank Cycling Question.

[zodiak245]

I'm new to the aquarium hobby. I have a planted tank with ada amazonia substrate. Everything is fresh so I added some  seachem stability to help with bacteria growth. I have been letting the tank run on its own for 4 weeks now. The PH has dropped to a 6.0. I have low ammonia, high nitrite and nitrate. 

Should I leave it be or do a water change? if so how much? Will changing the water increase my PH? should I buy crushed coral to increase it? 

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by zodiak245

[CT_]

yeah thats a ton of nitrate.  I'd do a 50% WC before adding fish.  there will still be plenty of nitrite to keep your bacteria colony going.

 

Where did your ph start and what fish do you plan on keeping?  My generic advice would be to just throw some crushed coral in your HOB (or some other place with flow) and not worry about ph anymore.  But if you're keeping something special you may want to do something different.  Also since 6.0 is the bottom of the scale the most you can say is the ph is <=6.0

 

 

 

[Edsland]

If your going fishless I wouldn't waste your Prime. All thats for is to make ammonia and nitrites safe for 48 hours for fish. If your fishless it serves no purpose for the bacteria. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@zodiak245there are commercially available bacterial cultures and supplements to help with cycling, I have used Fritzyme 7 and I've hear good things about Turbo Start. Prime is a dechlorinator that also can neutralize ammonia, nitrite and nitrate - they are still in the tank just in bound forms. You still need to export them through bacterial growth, water changes, plants, etc. 

In terms of cycling you have a ways to go. ADA Amazonia is notorious for leaching ammonia for a period of time, some say weeks some say a month or 2. This is beneficial in setting up a planted tank or a shrimp tank as this gives a lot of food for beneficial bacteria and plants as they settled in to the tank. Until your ammonia and nitrite are 0 I would not add fish. 

[zodiak245]

On 3/21/2022 at 7:09 PM, CT_ said:

yeah thats a ton of nitrate.  I'd do a 50% WC before adding fish.  there will still be plenty of nitrite to keep your bacteria colony going.

 

Where did your ph start and what fish do you plan on keeping?  My generic advice would be to just throw some crushed coral in your HOB (or some other place with flow) and not worry about ph anymore.  But if you're keeping something special you may want to do something different.  Also since 6.0 is the bottom of the scale the most you can say is the ph is <=6.0

 

 

 

It started at 7.4 PH but i heard that the ada soil will lower the ph. I plan to have ember tetras first then add some  pygmy corydora cat and cherry shrimps later.

On 3/21/2022 at 7:49 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@zodiak245there are commercially available bacterial cultures and supplements to help with cycling, I have used Fritzyme 7 and I've hear good things about Turbo Start. Prime is a dechlorinator that also can neutralize ammonia, nitrite and nitrate - they are still in the tank just in bound forms. You still need to export them through bacterial growth, water changes, plants, etc. 

In terms of cycling you have a ways to go. ADA Amazonia is notorious for leaching ammonia for a period of time, some say weeks some say a month or 2. This is beneficial in setting up a planted tank or a shrimp tank as this gives a lot of food for beneficial bacteria and plants as they settled in to the tank. Until your ammonia and nitrite are 0 I would not add fish. 

woops i meant seachem stability. I plan to have ember tetras first then add some  pygmy corydora cat and cherry shrimps later.

[CT_]

Ohh if you have ada soil I wouldn't add crushed coal.  They'd just fight it out together

Also if you're going shrimp with Ada soil you could do caridinia if you want