Hi from Sweden

First of all welcome to ac,

Second, since your tank is cycling, i would do a few water changes a week to keep the ammonia and the nitrites to a safe level for the fish until the cycling process is complete.

I have to agree with coach...
 
Thanks people for making me feel welcome and less confused now. Uploaded few pictures and will wait for your views on what shall I do with molly babe.

A question though: After 50% water change, can I still add EasyLife filtermedium solution as well as Sera Nitrivec(liquid biofilter solution to break down ammonium and nitrate compounds as info reads). This is critical as now there are 3 kids in there.

Before, when first time I added water, I added these two (20ml each- 10 ml for 30 Lit) in water.

Tusen tack folks.
 
Welcome to AC! Does your water supply have chlorine or chloramine in it?
 
I am not sure about chlorine or chloramine. How do I check it?

Also, now as I gather I am stuck with In fish cycle. I guess it will be a week or so before I get my ammonia test kit, so by that time, how do I go ahead?

Just keep on changing water every alternate days??

I only have pH and kH test kits. I also have two plants in my tank(please see the pictures in gallary section). Shall I add some more plants?

Update on molly: she died today morning. So now 3 ones left. Hope they are alive by the time I am home. :( They seemed fine to me after water change and ate pretty fast/well in morning during feed time.

So what approach shall I take in this situtaion?
As suggested above, shall I add a pair of hardy types zebras now and keep on doing water changes alternate days??

Thanks mates.
 
Do not add fish to your tank right now.

The best thing that you can do is a 50% water change every other day. Use water conditioner with every water change according to the instructions on the bottle.

What kind of plants do you have in your tank? Adding a few more aquatic live plants will help control the ammonia a bit
 
OK, after a long silence here is update. Have been a bit busy and trying to get as much knowledge as possible about how things suppose to work. Came across couple of nice readings. One of them is in Swedish by someone called as Eva on planted aquariums.
http://goto.glocalnet.net/obasko/akv/art/jordsv.htm

Also got a book by Diana Walstad Ecology of the Planted Aquarium. Very very good ones.

So finally decided to go on planted aquarium way and then tried to set planted aquarium.
Basic setup: Normal planting soil(yes all the fancy soils being suggested on most of the forums are not in local market , only found one by JBL which is freaking expensive. )

Bottoms 2inch layer of normal planting soil.
Then 2-3 mm gravel pressed on top of it so as to keep soil particles down.
Then 3-5mm normal gravel layer and then plants.

Plants I have plantes in so far are:
Amazon, Gymnocoronis, Zosterrifolia, Wistaria, Pollyseprma and couple of other names of which escape my fish brain.

I am doing water changes in 2-3 days. Did one previous Sat, then on Monday changed to planted one and changed water and then might do water change today again depending upon the water parameters.

Will post pics a bit later.

The testing results so far: Got ammonia and No2, pH, kH kits.
kH remains almost 6.
pH: between 7-8

No2 and Ammonia is stumping me from the day I got kits. On the color charts for readings, my readings for both reads on levels of **** as per Saint Gabriel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD1HWwCj0Qg&feature=search

I am clueless on this one. I reduced feeding to once a day. Changing water and still Ammonia n No2 seems to beating it. Fish do not appear to be stressed as of now.

Load is: 4 Platys 4 Zebra Danios (yes they are toughest mean little ones. Very very active) and 2 dalmetian mollys. Total 10. So far no casualties in gas chamber.

Will post todays test readings when home.

How how how how how long does this need to cycle???

To add complication, yeah I rigged DIY co2 system with Nutrafin ladder attached in this.
Number of bubbles per minutes ranges from 6-8 BPS. Running it round the clock. Just read in planted aq forum that I shall take off c02 at nights else fish wll be gasping for air in the absence of much of oxygen unless I have airpump on.

Airpump is off as it is ANNOYING sound as well as noticed that fish are running around when bubbles start. When bubbles stop they hang around more pleasantly in relaxed pace. Don't know what is normal? Zebras run all the time as if tail end is on fire. :) Also couple of them amused me yesterday by running through c02 ladder like c02 bubbles. I am not MAKING this **** up. It had happened. :)

So this is situtaion as of now.

Later, few pics and test parameters.

Do not hesitate to kick me if I am doing wrong. I wanna do it right and want babies in comfort.
 
ohh one more things: A week back or so found 5 fry platys hiding behind filter. Got a cheap 20 Lit tiny tank with all setup 25 USD. They were using it as fry tank and gave it to me with their gravel , so brought it home, filled it water and ran filter and put fry in there. 4 of them still surviving. Have a plant in there too.

I am feeding them normal fish food but not sure if they are able to eat it. Any ideas what they eat? read somewhere they eat algae.

I have this smart idea, don't know if it shall work.
As this tanks filter have already developed bacteria, I was thinking of moving this filter into my other tank and run that tank for few weeks with two filters and then bringing back this filter to tiny one. In meantime got another filter pump for this fry tank.

Just idea, not trying anything dramatic to kill little things. They seems to be doing good.

Pics later.

Question: Shall I do frequent water changes in this one too like once after 2 days. SO far have not changed water for 1,5 week or more.
 
Here are the test results. Draw your own conclusions.
Pic1) Ammonium NH test
Pic2) Nitrite NO2 Test
Pic3) Left pH Test (7.5) and kH (5) Right
Planted Tank along with my cool co2 ladder.
The layered substrate mix in last photo. Normal planting soil + 2-3mm Gravel + 3-5 mm on top.

The strange thing is: No matter when I take test the color of ammonium solution remains on darker side. (Even after changing water and taking test immediately) The pleasant change I noted in last couple of days is NO2 test is becoming lighter in pink/rose shades.
Before it used to be on **** side. Now it moved between 0.4 to 0.6.

So what you people think? What is happening? Is there something fundamentally wrong in this whole thing or, it is being cycled and I just need to sit tight and keep on repeating.

My worry is: If i change lets say 70% water and take tests, why why why on earth my test results still swing towards right hand extreme??

I did NO2 test on smaller fry tank and there results around 0,025 and 0,05 BUT Ammonium results shows very darker shades strongly towards right side of the charts you can see on pictures.

In both the cases, the fish seems to be doing allright. Do not look stressed.



The fish look ok. They do not seem to hover near top gasping for water.
 
Any inputs please??? Or may be silence from everyone is indication that I have done everything wrong and no one wish to say anything??
 
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