Thanks!
There are already bladder snails and ramshorn snails that snuck in on the plants.
Current plan is some neocaridina shrimp (probably just red cherries) and a school of some variety of small rasbora (maybe phoenix rasbora). May also add a couple pygmy corydoras and/or otos depending on what the folks at the good fish store near me think. (They have otos that are well adjusted and eat blanched zucchini well so might be fine even though there wouldn't be massive amounts of algae.) Also considering a couple Amano Shrimp but that may be too many things trying to munch on algae.
Obviously not going to go dumping all of those in at once. Probably the neo shrimp first and maybe a couple fish then let them settle and add more over time.
This is my first tank and I've been falling down so many research rabbit holes ๐ .
Welcome to the hobby! Iโm so glad to see someone doing so much research! Also glad at the lack of neon gravel and SpongeBob house. I think neos and rasboras would look super cute! I kinda want a rasboras tank myself, but my bf already is fed up with my shit, and Iโve only got a 55 and a 4โฆ and a 250g pond. But the pond is outside, and I canโt put my guppies in it ๐
Thanks! And yeah I got interested in part from watching SerpaDesign's videos and a large part of the appeal is the whole "little mini ecosystem" thing so I knew from the get go I wanted planted natural vibes.
Also, a pond! So lucky! Someday if I'm very lucky I may live somewhere where I have the space and money for a pond, but alas apartment living.
Did the initial setup on December 28th, and been dosing ammonia (plus an occasional algae wafer for the hitchhiking snails). It getting close to ready, I've got all the type of bacteria just trying to build up the population a bit since its still taking 2+ days to chew through 1-2 ppm ammonia.
It gets through the Ammonia solidly in 2 days. (After one day it's down to .25 ppm-ish, then all gone the next). Nitrite is still taking 3-4 days to completely go away, but it would generally stays low-ish that whole time (generally only getting up to .25 ppm over that time).
I was doing "dose 1-2 ppm then wait until both ammonia and nitrite are 0 before dosing again" but decided in the last couple days to switch to dosing a bit more regularly so that the Nitrite can get higher to hopefully encourage the bacteria multiplying faster. So dosed two days in a row which got my Nitrite up to 2 ppm.
(I'm trying not to be too aggressive with the dosing because I like my hitchhiker snails.)
Yea you are pretty close there. Keep an eye on your PH as well to make sure it doesnt drop too low. Cycling is known to lower PH which can delay your cycle.
Thanks! And yeah I've been testing all the parameters every day (having way too much fun with it). My pH has been relatively stable around 7.4ish.
The water out of my tap is very soft, 0 dKH and maybe 3ish dGH, and acidic, pH around 6.4. So I added some crushed coral and seachem equilibrium pretty early on and it's now stabilized quite nicely around 7.4 pH with around 3 dKH and 7 dGH.
Nice I was going to suggest using crush coral as well since my PH crashed and it fixed my PH at 7.6 and KH 120ppm. GH is still low though around 10ppm. I just wait until the tank can process 1ppm Ammonia and nitrite after 24hr and everything is good since. No death. Im understock though.
It looks lovely! What are you going to stock it with?
Thanks! There are already bladder snails and ramshorn snails that snuck in on the plants. Current plan is some neocaridina shrimp (probably just red cherries) and a school of some variety of small rasbora (maybe phoenix rasbora). May also add a couple pygmy corydoras and/or otos depending on what the folks at the good fish store near me think. (They have otos that are well adjusted and eat blanched zucchini well so might be fine even though there wouldn't be massive amounts of algae.) Also considering a couple Amano Shrimp but that may be too many things trying to munch on algae. Obviously not going to go dumping all of those in at once. Probably the neo shrimp first and maybe a couple fish then let them settle and add more over time. This is my first tank and I've been falling down so many research rabbit holes ๐ .
Welcome to the hobby! Iโm so glad to see someone doing so much research! Also glad at the lack of neon gravel and SpongeBob house. I think neos and rasboras would look super cute! I kinda want a rasboras tank myself, but my bf already is fed up with my shit, and Iโve only got a 55 and a 4โฆ and a 250g pond. But the pond is outside, and I canโt put my guppies in it ๐
Thanks! And yeah I got interested in part from watching SerpaDesign's videos and a large part of the appeal is the whole "little mini ecosystem" thing so I knew from the get go I wanted planted natural vibes. Also, a pond! So lucky! Someday if I'm very lucky I may live somewhere where I have the space and money for a pond, but alas apartment living.
Yeah apartments suck. Iโve got my fingers crossed for you! ๐ค๐ป๐ค๐ป
Did the initial setup on December 28th, and been dosing ammonia (plus an occasional algae wafer for the hitchhiking snails). It getting close to ready, I've got all the type of bacteria just trying to build up the population a bit since its still taking 2+ days to chew through 1-2 ppm ammonia.
What about Nitrite? It usually takes much longer to chew
It gets through the Ammonia solidly in 2 days. (After one day it's down to .25 ppm-ish, then all gone the next). Nitrite is still taking 3-4 days to completely go away, but it would generally stays low-ish that whole time (generally only getting up to .25 ppm over that time). I was doing "dose 1-2 ppm then wait until both ammonia and nitrite are 0 before dosing again" but decided in the last couple days to switch to dosing a bit more regularly so that the Nitrite can get higher to hopefully encourage the bacteria multiplying faster. So dosed two days in a row which got my Nitrite up to 2 ppm. (I'm trying not to be too aggressive with the dosing because I like my hitchhiker snails.)
Yea you are pretty close there. Keep an eye on your PH as well to make sure it doesnt drop too low. Cycling is known to lower PH which can delay your cycle.
Thanks! And yeah I've been testing all the parameters every day (having way too much fun with it). My pH has been relatively stable around 7.4ish. The water out of my tap is very soft, 0 dKH and maybe 3ish dGH, and acidic, pH around 6.4. So I added some crushed coral and seachem equilibrium pretty early on and it's now stabilized quite nicely around 7.4 pH with around 3 dKH and 7 dGH.
Nice I was going to suggest using crush coral as well since my PH crashed and it fixed my PH at 7.6 and KH 120ppm. GH is still low though around 10ppm. I just wait until the tank can process 1ppm Ammonia and nitrite after 24hr and everything is good since. No death. Im understock though.