bought new tank dec. 30. clean with water only washed everything water only several times. filter and heater ran 2 days filter ok heater ok temp steady at 78 f. jan. 1 added 5 bs tetra. jan 6 added bio spira also added 6 serpae tetra and one more b skirt for atotal of 12 tetras along with biospira. it came out fridge at lfs and was cold. several days was reading amm. 0.25 to 0.50, nitrite 0.25to 0.50 and nitrite 10 to 20. jan.8 added large piece of driftwood that droped my ph from 7.0 to 6.8. jan 10 amm spike to 1ppm and nitrite zero, nitrate 10. added another dose of bio spira. yesterday amm. still 1ppm , nitrite still zero, nitrate 15. today water had a film on it at surface and bubbles (clear) some would get as large as a quarter.wc cleared this up. have performed probally 10, 20 to 30 % wc in last seven days.trying to control amm. is the bio-spira working ? why are the nitrites gone and the ammonia will not go away. btw i am feeding once a day and not much. the tetra and looking for scraps in the gravel.the fish are schooling and darting and don't appear to be under stress, although they do seem to appreciate the water changes.the only plants in this tank are 5 java fern that were very poor and yellowish a week ago . now they are very green.
cycling with bio-spira (long)
- Thread starter ncfishguy
- Start date
i have a private well no chlorine or additives used stess zyme one time 4 days ago. i think it is crap and will not use again.
keep it simple.. the tress zyme might be killing the bacteris in the bio spira.. but do a 50 percent water change.. and dump in a bag of bio spira and leave it alone.. dont add anything else to it or take anythign out.. within a day or 2 you should be done
IMO you should definitely switch to Seachem's Prime or API's Tap Water Conditioner.
do i need a tap water conditioner? i only used the stress zyme b/c it claimed to be a booster for bio filter.