Sounds very, very close! How's the 5.5 coming? With those plants & a few shrimp, should be OK, huh? RCS are pretty hardy for shrimp...
Jpappy's planted 20 gallon long "build" thread
- Thread starter jpappy789
- Start date
Was thinking RCS since they're cheap/easy. Just need to decide on a small filter first.
Nitrite seems to have bottomed out (fingers crossed) for good this time. Dosing some NH3 and we'll see what happens overnight.
:wall:
Tested today...
NH3: 0.25-0.5 ppm
NO2: 2-5 ppm?
NO3: 40 ppm
Nitrite looked to spike again to 5+ ppm but it's hard to discern the purples on the API kit. I did a series of water changes (25% then 50%) and it brought the nitrite down to 0.25 ppm so unless my math is off I should have started more around 2 ppm instead.
Either way, I'm apparently not there yet...which is very frustrating seeing as both NH3 and NO2 have already spiked and subsequently dropped.
But the plants are doing well.
Tested today...
NH3: 0.25-0.5 ppm
NO2: 2-5 ppm?
NO3: 40 ppm
Nitrite looked to spike again to 5+ ppm but it's hard to discern the purples on the API kit. I did a series of water changes (25% then 50%) and it brought the nitrite down to 0.25 ppm so unless my math is off I should have started more around 2 ppm instead.
Either way, I'm apparently not there yet...which is very frustrating seeing as both NH3 and NO2 have already spiked and subsequently dropped.
But the plants are doing well.
Looks like you may have some ammonia leaching from the substrate. Not really that uncommon. You probably are about there with the cycling. Dose the tank up again for the next couple of days and you should be pretty much on target. I'd plan on adding fish next weekend.
Nice layout BTW. Its going to be a real jungle in there in very little time.
Nice layout BTW. Its going to be a real jungle in there in very little time.
looks awesome. i really like the dark substrate, it makes the plants pop more. cant wait to see it stocked
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Yeah, that's a possibility with the MG substrate even though it's not very high in N, but could be some decomp occurring. I would think the release would be a bit more consistent though, the ammonia spike last week happened very suddenly and then it dropped off again quickly. Which is why I'm not sure why I still have residual ammonia today after only a 2 ppm dose last night. And then the nitrite spikes/drops haven't been very consistent either. Who knows...
Was hoping that the levels bottoming out yesterday before the wc meant I was in the clear...but apparently not.
Thanks all!
For a "low tech" setup the plants have certainly been growing well. Good thing too as I'll be using the trimmings to setup my 15 gal soon. Big fan of the EC/MGOCPM combo so far.
