Sorry if this is the wrong place to put this. Figured since it’s a filter question it would belong to equipment.
anyways, I had 10gallon with about 2-3 dozen itty bitty bladder snails. No fish as I am breeding the snails for live food. Was running a hang on back filter with sponge, carbon, and bio balls. Cycle completed and ran beautifully with minimal water changes. Then I bought infested hornwort with planaria that ate entire new generations of my snails. I removed the snails that I could find and treated with fenbendazole. Sanitized tank and filter because I’m ocd and those worms gave me nightmares. No more worms yay. I restarted with a 10 gallon sponge filter with airstone instead of hob to reduce tank noise. Half my bladder snails turned white and died. Now I have maybe a dozen adults and a dozen juveniles. I also added a dozen ramshorn. Sponge has been running 7 weeks. Ammonia and nitrites dropped to zero. Nitrates climbing. All good. Now the reason for my post:
Every 5 days I see faint nitrites. I’ll suck up some snail poop and give 2 gallons fresh water and it drops back to zero. Then exactly 5 days later I’ll see creeping nitrites. All the while the nitrates are increasing like they should. I know I have a cycle just not sure if I have enough space for the nitrite eaters. I have about 2 cups of pea gravel in middle of tank that I took from my fish tank, 2 crushed eggshells, 1/4 cup crushed coral and a cuttle bone, but no decor. Half the bottom is bare. 1/4 of top of tank is cover with hornwort and some splash of tiny 3 leaf floating green plants. Only difference seems to be the sponge filter vs the hob. Should I give it more time? Or does it need more filtration? My water is clear. Tank is clean. But those nitrites got to go. This summer I’ll be traveling for 3 weeks and there won’t be water changes. I don’t want to come back to a swamp
anyways, I had 10gallon with about 2-3 dozen itty bitty bladder snails. No fish as I am breeding the snails for live food. Was running a hang on back filter with sponge, carbon, and bio balls. Cycle completed and ran beautifully with minimal water changes. Then I bought infested hornwort with planaria that ate entire new generations of my snails. I removed the snails that I could find and treated with fenbendazole. Sanitized tank and filter because I’m ocd and those worms gave me nightmares. No more worms yay. I restarted with a 10 gallon sponge filter with airstone instead of hob to reduce tank noise. Half my bladder snails turned white and died. Now I have maybe a dozen adults and a dozen juveniles. I also added a dozen ramshorn. Sponge has been running 7 weeks. Ammonia and nitrites dropped to zero. Nitrates climbing. All good. Now the reason for my post:
Every 5 days I see faint nitrites. I’ll suck up some snail poop and give 2 gallons fresh water and it drops back to zero. Then exactly 5 days later I’ll see creeping nitrites. All the while the nitrates are increasing like they should. I know I have a cycle just not sure if I have enough space for the nitrite eaters. I have about 2 cups of pea gravel in middle of tank that I took from my fish tank, 2 crushed eggshells, 1/4 cup crushed coral and a cuttle bone, but no decor. Half the bottom is bare. 1/4 of top of tank is cover with hornwort and some splash of tiny 3 leaf floating green plants. Only difference seems to be the sponge filter vs the hob. Should I give it more time? Or does it need more filtration? My water is clear. Tank is clean. But those nitrites got to go. This summer I’ll be traveling for 3 weeks and there won’t be water changes. I don’t want to come back to a swamp
