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Newbie needs your help!

1580 Views 16 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  scrivlet, 
scrivlet
Hello planted tank people! I am just endeavoring into the world of fish tanks and am cycling my first tank ever. I plan on having Cherry red shrimp. I am 4 weeks into the cycling process and my parameters are all over the place. For reference I have a inert substrate, java moss, java fern, and anubias planted. I have some starry night rocks, and a piece of spider wood. The tank is a 15 gallon fluval flex. I am using RODI water and salty shrimp to reionize. OK, so I thought I was doing everything correctly, adding 15 drops of ammonium chloride every day. But my pH is hanging at 6 (possibly below, the test kit only goes as low as 6), my ammonia is at 2 ppm, nitrite 0, nitrate 0, GH way too high at 13 and KH really low at 1!! Should I add soemthing to bring my pH up so the bacteria can survive?? why is it so low? why is my GH so high and my KH so low (the salty shrimp should be adding them at a 1:2 ratio). I have no idea how this happened and would realllllly appreciate any help you guys have so I can get my tank healthy enough for some shrimps!

P.s. I did a 30% water change yesterday and that did not seem to help

-Scrivlet
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scrivlet

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Discussion Starter · #11 ·
Thank you all for your suggestions!! Things seem to be getting worse!! I brought my pH up a little with some baking soda, so my bacteria wouldn't die in the really low pH. That seemed to help for a while and I was having pH around 7.6 and the ammonia was going down. I went out of town and my mom was adding ammonia to the tank and I tested the water today and i have an ammonia level of 8!! and 0 nitrite or nitrate :( :( my pH went down to 6.4 which I believe is expected with that much ammonia.

I am using RODI water because I live in Missouri and we have a lot of limestone in our water, I was thinking maybe I was adding too much salty shrimp, so just cutting the water with tap water instead might be a better solution! thank you! I will also try to add some Hornwort.

You guys are so awesome! thank you so much for your brain power!!! Hopefully I can get this baby with some shrimps sometime soon... :)
 
scrivlet

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Discussion Starter · #14 ·
Thank you!

Here is a piture of Starry night rick:
The rock on the bottom is starry night. It's a blueish purple rock that has mica throughout it that sparkles. For my stratum I'm using Seachem Flourite.

I've been cycling my tank for around 7 weeks now... which is why I'm a little worried. But I will do a water change and give it more time. Thanks again for your help!!
 
scrivlet

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Discussion Starter · #17 ·
Yes that's it! The purple-ish one on the bottom. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to add a photo.

As for a tank update... The ammonia level is hanging out around 8! I keep doing a water change every day in the hopes that I can get it to come down, but it isn't working. The pH is coming down too. As for NO2 and NO3... nothing!

:crying::crying::crying:
 
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