Tank is cycled, but waiting on fish...what to do?

[Creature From The Tank]

Hey all,

I just wanted to double-check something. My tank finished cycling this past Thursday. It's a 5-gallon planted tank. I cycled it using ammonia, with plants in...dosing to 2ppm every night. I am waiting for a betta to be delivered hopefully this week. Meanwhile, I was told to keep dosing the ammonia every night up to 2ppm to keep the tank cycling along. Is that correct? I'm worried about my plants. All this ammonia being added after cycling. Having some algae issues and don't want things to get worse. I did finally add some Easy-Green at the end of the 3rd week. My Ammonia is 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 20-40ppm. My lighting is 7 hours, with peak 4 hours in the middle at 35% brightness.

Any advice?

Edited June 26, 2023 by Creature From The Tank

[nabokovfan87]

What is your substrate you're using, is it an aquasoil or active substrate?

[Lennie]

I would do nothing and add fish when it arrives. And monitor the water parameters after it being added. If you tried your cycle many times to see if it works, and you are reading 0 ammonia and nitrite, and your tank is growing plants. 
I don’t think you need anything else

[Andy's Fish Den]

Whenever I have an empty tank, I "ghost feed" it. What I mean is that I throw a little bit of food in the tank as if I am feeding fish in the tank. The food will sink to the bottom, decompose and go through the nitrogen cycle. It doesn't take much food, I'll just throw a flake or a pellet or two in the tank. It's a trick I learned years ago when I worked at an LFS, the guy who owned it would throw food in tanks that were empty, because it would keep the beneficial bacteria going until he got his next order of fish in and would be feeding them. 

[MattyIce]

On 6/26/2023 at 1:23 AM, Creature From The Tank said:

Hey all,

I just wanted to double-check something. My tank finished cycling this past Thursday. It's a 5-gallon planted tank. I cycled it using ammonia, with plants in...dosing to 2ppm every night. I am waiting for a betta to be delivered hopefully this week. Meanwhile, I was told to keep dosing the ammonia every night up to 2ppm to keep the tank cycling along. Is that correct? I'm worried about my plants. All this ammonia being added after cycling. Having some algae issues and don't want things to get worse. I did finally add some Easy-Green at the end of the 3rd week. My Ammonia is 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 20-40ppm. My lighting is 7 hours, with peak 4 hours in the middle at 35% brightness.

Any advice?

for just one beta, id cut back on the dosing, you are building up a lot of bacteria, when you add the fish, stop the ammonia, and start feeding your fish like 5 hikari pellets a day, you aren't going to be generating anywhere near even 1 ppm of ammonia a day.  Alot of the bacteria that you've built up is going to starve and that can cause issues too.

I'd cut back to around 1 ppm, or even stop with the ammonia and just feed the tank appox what you would feed the beta each day so you build an amount of bacteria that is closer to what you need.

Id also probably do a water change a a few days before to take out anything that might have built up over the cycling process while giving a day or 2 for the tank to stabilize from the water change prior to adding the fish.

All in all though, I'm sure you can keep doing what you are dong and you'll be fine.

[Creature From The Tank]

On 6/26/2023 at 3:16 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

What is your substrate you're using, is it an aquasoil or active substrate?

I'm using CaribSea Super Naturals Peace River substrate. It's a very fine inert gravel. The only plant I have in the gravel is a bit of Dwarf Sag with some root tabs underneath it. Other than that, all of my plants are epiphytes.

[Creature From The Tank]

Lots of good advice here. I'm going to do a water change today. I'll try the ghost-feeding and see what that does.

[Lennie]

On 6/26/2023 at 11:16 PM, Creature From The Tank said:

Lots of good advice here. I'm going to do a water change today. I'll try the ghost-feeding and see what that does.

Decaying food is messy. Yes it releases ammonia but also gets moldy and leeches other stuff to the water column.

If you already cycled with ammonia, I would not ghostfeed in the tank myself.

 

When I ghost feed with bottled bacteria and/or filter gunk, I cycle filters in a seperate barebottom tub so the messy food particles don't end up being everywhere in the tank. I just squeeze the cycled sponges and put them into their new tanks, so the decayed food dont end up being in the tank stuck between everywhere.

[Galabar]

Nitrifying bacteria can live a long time without ammonia or oxygen (that's why they can be put in a bottle).  If your tank is cycled, you can wait a week without adding additional ammonia sources.

https://www.drtimsaquatics.com/blog/nitrifying-bacteria-arent-human/

https://academic.oup.com/femsec/article/58/1/1/468326

“Strategies of Aerobic ammonia-oxidizing Bacteria for Coping with Nutrient and Oxygen Fluctuations”, Geets et. al. 2006:

“Nitrosomonas europaea cells starved for weeks, months, or even almost a year of ammonium were able to regain their ammonia‐oxidizing activity within minutes in batch and retentostat experiments (Wilhelm et al., 1998; Tappe et al., 1999; Laanbroek & Bär‐Gilissen, 2002)”

[Galabar]

I've also had luck just throwing a jumbo shrimp from the grocery store into the tank (for ammonia production).

[Creature From The Tank]

On 6/26/2023 at 6:01 PM, Galabar said:

I've also had luck just throwing a jumbo shrimp from the grocery store into the tank (for ammonia production).

I'm assuming it's dead?

[Galabar]

On 6/26/2023 at 3:09 PM, Creature From The Tank said:

I'm assuming it's dead?

Yes, frozen... 🙂

[Creature From The Tank]

Bad day with the tank...

I probably should have done my water change this past Friday, exactly one week after the last one, but I let it go a couple more days. OMG, the algae that popped up today in the back of the tank. Long story short, I lost 3 of my big anubias today. I went to trim the yellow/brown leaves off the Congensis Minis, and as I was trimming, the leaves just started falling off. The rhizome was all brown, I yanked it from the tank, and when I started playing with the rhizome, it literally turned to goo and disintegrated in my hands. My other Congensis on the front of the large rock did the same thing. Luckily, the one Congensis between the rocks is still okay. My big Anubias Nana under my tree branch...well, I went to wipe his leaves free of algae and they too started falling off. The rhizome was all gray. This one was glued to a small rock, so I pulled it out, and it's rhzome was mush too. So 3 of my big Anubias are gone and the tank looks a bit emptier today.

[Lennie]

On 6/27/2023 at 1:21 AM, Creature From The Tank said:

Bad day with the tank...

I probably should have done my water change this past Friday, exactly one week after the last one, but I let it go a couple more days. OMG, the algae that popped up today in the back of the tank. Long story short, I lost 3 of my big anubias today. I went to trim the yellow/brown leaves off the Congensis Minis, and as I was trimming, the leaves just started falling off. The rhizome was all brown, I yanked it from the tank, and when I started playing with the rhizome, it literally turned to goo and disintegrated in my hands. My other Congensis on the front of the large rock did the same thing. Luckily, the one Congensis between the rocks is still okay. My big Anubias Nana under my tree branch...well, I went to wipe his leaves free of algae and they too started falling off. The rhizome was all gray. This one was glued to a small rock, so I pulled it out, and it's rhzome was mush too. So 3 of my big Anubias are gone and the tank looks a bit emptier today.

you can glue the roots but never glue the rhizomes, otherwise it will die.

usually whatever you do, try to leave the rhizome part alone.

That being said, I find sticking the roots between driftwood pieces and rocks work the best for myself. I never use any glue or lines to attach them myself. They hold insane after some time anyway

 

[lefty o]

getting 1 betta, start feeding the tank just as if you had the betta.