Am I ready for fish?

TxChic

TxChic

newbie
Sep 9, 2007
92
0
0
Texas
My tank has been cycling for about 3 weeks and I just planted it over the weekend.

PH is steady at 7.2
Trites are between 2 and 5
Trates are between 5 and 10
Ammonia is at 0

Please tell me I am ready for fish.
 
Looking over my test results for the last 2 wks my nitrites have risen. How do I get them to go down?
 
I believe you need to keep adding a source of ammonia until not only ammonia reads 0, but the nitrites as well.
 
Keep adding ammonia and the NO2 will takes care of itself. Ammonia and NO2 are consumed by different bacteria. You don't want to cease the ammonia source or you could lose that colony and have to basically start over.
 
Here's the thing though....I haven't been adding ammonia. If I do add ammonia won't that harm my plants? I also still have that fuzzy brown stuff accumulating in the corners of my tank and it's starting to find it's way onto my plants...what do I do about that?

I can't seem to get two answers that match about how to get my tank going properly and it's extremely frustrating.
 
Last edited:
TxChic said:
Here's the thing though....I haven't been adding ammonia. If I do add ammonia won't that harm my plants? I also still have that fuzzy brown stuff accumulating in the corners of my tank and it's starting to find it's way onto my plants...what do I do about that?
Click to expand...

Ammonia won't harm the plants. The brown stuff is probably just diatoms (I'm still a bit algae challenged so other people may have more info) and will go away on it's own. It's a new tank thing due to silicates from glass tanks, I think.
 
I knew this was going to be more complicated than simply adding fish to tap water but I didn't know I was going to need a degree in chemistry. LOL
 
It's good that you have plants though, you're off to a really good start and have little chance of failure. The cycle is absolutely necessary. It's all about the water consuming the fish's waste. Just add some source of ammonia and wait.. you can even add fish food.
 
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