Hi again. 
We completed our fishless cycle and did a water change yesterday to lower the nitrates and were planning to add fish today. The first change was about 80% and the nitrates were still high and overall, we did about 3 more partial water changes to finally get the nitrates down to acceptable levels. The nitrates were not quite at 5 yesterday after the 4 change.
I also decided before adding fish that I wanted to add more substrate so I put a new layer of aquasoil, and I dosed some excel because we had some Rhizoclonium which was totally taking over everything. http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166205
After all was said and done, my levels were ammonia 4 (directly after dosing it from 0), nitrites 0, nitrates a bit below 5.
Today when I did my tests, my ammonia had only fallen to 3. There were nitrites. (very low but they were there)
and the nitrates were at 20.
The water was also still very cloudy from adding the aquasoil.
We did a 50% water change and the levels are now ammonia 2, nitrites .25 and nitrates 10.
I thought that since my tank had cycled, the bacteria would be in my filter so covering the gravel would be ok, but maybe it wasn't? This is the first time in 3 weeks that the ammonia didn't fall to 0, and the first time in 4 or 5 days that the nitrites were not at 0, so obviously something that we did yesterday sent the cycle off kilter.
I know that currently my nitrates are too high. Should we do another water change or just stop messing with things and go back to waiting for the levels to come around again?
Why isn't the filter clearing the water? I haven't cleaned the filter since it was purchased and installed (August 27th), because we are cycling. Does it need to be rinsed out or should I just leave that alone? We have a Rena XP1 on a 29 gallon.
Thanks so much for all of your help!! I'm just so glad that we are going through all of this with no fish.
We completed our fishless cycle and did a water change yesterday to lower the nitrates and were planning to add fish today. The first change was about 80% and the nitrates were still high and overall, we did about 3 more partial water changes to finally get the nitrates down to acceptable levels. The nitrates were not quite at 5 yesterday after the 4 change.
I also decided before adding fish that I wanted to add more substrate so I put a new layer of aquasoil, and I dosed some excel because we had some Rhizoclonium which was totally taking over everything. http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166205
After all was said and done, my levels were ammonia 4 (directly after dosing it from 0), nitrites 0, nitrates a bit below 5.
Today when I did my tests, my ammonia had only fallen to 3. There were nitrites. (very low but they were there)
and the nitrates were at 20.The water was also still very cloudy from adding the aquasoil.
We did a 50% water change and the levels are now ammonia 2, nitrites .25 and nitrates 10.
I thought that since my tank had cycled, the bacteria would be in my filter so covering the gravel would be ok, but maybe it wasn't? This is the first time in 3 weeks that the ammonia didn't fall to 0, and the first time in 4 or 5 days that the nitrites were not at 0, so obviously something that we did yesterday sent the cycle off kilter.
I know that currently my nitrates are too high. Should we do another water change or just stop messing with things and go back to waiting for the levels to come around again?
Why isn't the filter clearing the water? I haven't cleaned the filter since it was purchased and installed (August 27th), because we are cycling. Does it need to be rinsed out or should I just leave that alone? We have a Rena XP1 on a 29 gallon.
Thanks so much for all of your help!! I'm just so glad that we are going through all of this with no fish.
