bmacd, if you are cycling with fish you need to keep ammonia and nitrite levels virtually nonexistent. Any level of ammonia/nitrite is harmful to them so you should be doing wc's whenever it is detected on your test kit. Water changes will not harm bacteria at all...
bmacd, if you are cycling with fish you need to keep ammonia and nitrite levels virtually nonexistent. Any level of ammonia/nitrite is harmful to them so you should be doing wc's whenever it is detected on your test kit. Water changes will not harm bacteria at all...
Yeah, that is what I thought. Sounded weird them saying not to do water changes. Ammonia has been my biggest problem. I would test and have a .25 ammonia reading. I would do a 80% change and test immediately afterwards and still have a .25 reading. (I tested my tap water before putting it in the tank and 0 ammonia). Now that I put the Safe Start in though, my ammonia reading has dropped to almost 0. There is still the slightest tint of green in it, but it has definitely gone down.
Ok...for recap. Before using Safe Start and with two fish, was getting .25 ammo/0 nitri/0 nitra. 2 days ago (24 hours after putting in Safe Start): 0-.25 ammo/.25 nitri/5.0 nitra. Today my readings were: .5 ammo/1.0 nitri/10.0 nitra.
tA huge jump from two days ago. I am excited to see things happening, but the high ammonia and nitrite levels have me worried with two fish in there. Could these be higher due to fact that I tested water approx 40-45 minutes after feeding the two fish? Also, I purchased the tes kit in 2007 but did not open it until Feb of this year. Would the chemicals have gone bad and be giving me false readings? I would do a water change, but it has only been three days since putting in the safestart and Tetra advised not to do a water change for 2 weeks. I have amquel+ which is supposed to remove ammo. Should I put that in or buy some AmmoLock and put that in?:help:
Well, based on lack of knowledge and lack of time, I did not conuct a water change. I put in the amquel+ (which states it will remove ammonia/nitrites/nitrates/ without hurting the biological filter) and added some aquarium salt for possible stress relief of fish. Not sure if this was the correct route..most here will probably say I should have done a water change and you are probably right. I will be testing again before work tomorrow morn and will do a water change then if levels still high.
So my readings came out a little better this morning. After adding the amquel+, ammonia came in at 0 and nitri came in at .5. Not sure if the amquel+ was responsible or because I took the reading several hours after feeding the fish unlike the night before when I took my readings 45 mins after feeding. Will keep updating as tests continue/change.
Yeah. Even though Tetra said not to do one for 2 weeks, I think I will still do one also. Biggest reason used amquel+ was for quick fix..did not have the time to do a water change. I am wondering how much doing the water change will slow my cycle down though?
