Stop me if you've heard this one, but I'm brand new tall of this and may or may not be posting in the wrong forum. I apologize in advance if that's the case.
I believe what I'm trying to do would be considered the low-tech method. I'm not sure.
So for Christmas Santa brought my daughter 3 goldfish. The guy at the pet store told Santa that this would be fine for a 5 gallon tank. Then Daddy did some research (daddy likes to do things right) and found out that goldfish really need a lot more space.
So the neighbor was throwing out a 29-gallon tank. I took it and because I can't do anything easy, immediately decided that we'd make it a planted tank. And so I did some light reading and bought a pack of 25 plants from Amazon. I also bought appropriate substrate. I don't really know what kinds of plants they are. Amazon swords and some other basics. Only 2 have died in 3 weeks which is a lot better than I thought I'd do.
I'm not injecting CO2. I only have a T8 bulb (I've used tin foil to try and reflect as much light as possible into the tank), and I have the light scheduled to go on for 6 hours in the morning, off for 4, and then on for 5. This coincides with my daughter's waking/bedtime schedule and I read somewhere that this was a decent way to create some CO2 in the middle of the day? There's a lot of conflicting info out there....
Anyway, I'm trying to cycle the tank before moving the fish in there. I used a bottle of ammonia, turned up the heat, and waited. It was going very slowly, so I took the filter out of the established tank and just tossed it in there for a day. Sure enough- nitrites. I then took it out. I tested for 2 days and found that the ammonia hadn't gone down, but the nitrites continued to spike. Weird, right? So then I decided to put the filter back in and see if I don't get nitrates quickly- and I did. But now ammonia is around 2ppm (which is where I had it originally), nitrites are at 5ppm, and nitrates are at 10ppm. It's been 2 days that the ammonia doesn't seem to have gone down- which is the main thing that makes me think something is wrong.
Does this make any sense?? I'm so confused. Also, it's possible that I got those numbers wrong but trust me that ammonia and nitrites are high and nitrates are very present.
Oh..and I did make one mistake. At one point I got worried about PH and got a bottle of Proper PH. It required 3 scoops. After 2 scoops I noticed that you aren't supposed to put it in a planted tank. But it seems like it won't kill the plants, just maybe stunt growth? So I figured I'd leave it in there until the tank cycled and then do a big water change. Is it bad to do a water change right now?
I'm sorry for the wall of text. I suck at this whole fish tank thing it would seem....
I believe what I'm trying to do would be considered the low-tech method. I'm not sure.
So for Christmas Santa brought my daughter 3 goldfish. The guy at the pet store told Santa that this would be fine for a 5 gallon tank. Then Daddy did some research (daddy likes to do things right) and found out that goldfish really need a lot more space.
So the neighbor was throwing out a 29-gallon tank. I took it and because I can't do anything easy, immediately decided that we'd make it a planted tank. And so I did some light reading and bought a pack of 25 plants from Amazon. I also bought appropriate substrate. I don't really know what kinds of plants they are. Amazon swords and some other basics. Only 2 have died in 3 weeks which is a lot better than I thought I'd do.
I'm not injecting CO2. I only have a T8 bulb (I've used tin foil to try and reflect as much light as possible into the tank), and I have the light scheduled to go on for 6 hours in the morning, off for 4, and then on for 5. This coincides with my daughter's waking/bedtime schedule and I read somewhere that this was a decent way to create some CO2 in the middle of the day? There's a lot of conflicting info out there....
Anyway, I'm trying to cycle the tank before moving the fish in there. I used a bottle of ammonia, turned up the heat, and waited. It was going very slowly, so I took the filter out of the established tank and just tossed it in there for a day. Sure enough- nitrites. I then took it out. I tested for 2 days and found that the ammonia hadn't gone down, but the nitrites continued to spike. Weird, right? So then I decided to put the filter back in and see if I don't get nitrates quickly- and I did. But now ammonia is around 2ppm (which is where I had it originally), nitrites are at 5ppm, and nitrates are at 10ppm. It's been 2 days that the ammonia doesn't seem to have gone down- which is the main thing that makes me think something is wrong.
Does this make any sense?? I'm so confused. Also, it's possible that I got those numbers wrong but trust me that ammonia and nitrites are high and nitrates are very present.
Oh..and I did make one mistake. At one point I got worried about PH and got a bottle of Proper PH. It required 3 scoops. After 2 scoops I noticed that you aren't supposed to put it in a planted tank. But it seems like it won't kill the plants, just maybe stunt growth? So I figured I'd leave it in there until the tank cycled and then do a big water change. Is it bad to do a water change right now?
I'm sorry for the wall of text. I suck at this whole fish tank thing it would seem....