Brett_CR

Hi all, Wow, I'd totally forgotten about this thread! The answer is it did and it didn't. The tank did, of course, cycle eventually, but continued to be a _disaster_ with random die-offs and algae, until I figured out it was silicates leaching out of the substrate (so probably not the cycling, to be fair). Moved everything over to a new, larger tank with more inert gravel, only to have it split a seam. The poor fish are now in their -third- tank, which is actually going pretty well, to be fair.

That's a good point - I didn't even think to look at garden supplies! Oh well, noted for next time lol

Hello all! I have a 69 L (60 L actual) that I'm about to start stocking. Traditionally for my tanks, I've gone for one or two 'centrepiece' fish, and then a whole lot of schoolers. What I wanted to try with this one was a small group of individual fish - i.e., one per species, but on the larger side for this tank (say, up to 6 cm-ish). I've been reading up quite widely, and watching a (vast) number of YouTube videos for ideas but the problem I'm running into is that most of the suggestions have one of two issues: The fish has very different water chemistry requirements to virtually all of the other suggestions (e.g., bumblebee gobies) and/or needs to be kept in a species-only environment. It's debateable as to whether or not the fish will reliably get along with any of the other suggestions (e.g., GBRs/Dwarf Apistos/Gouramis etc) I'm not wedded to the idea, so I could definitely get one centrepiece + some schooling fish if I had to, but I wanted to try something a bit different this time. Any thoughts / experiences would be very much appreciated Tank is ~ 70% of the way through its cycle (ammonia 0.25 ppm, nitrites 2 ppm, nitrates 2 ppm), so it'll probably be another week to ten days before I buy the first inhabitant, and I'm in no particular rush. I currently have the water (non-phosphate) buffered to pH 6.8 / 4 dKH, and the plan is that it will be moderately well planted.

Awesome, well I'll give the food a couple more days and if there's still nothing I'll try that (after vac'ing the food out, of course).

Oh that's good to know! I assume we're talking the generic Homebrand stuff?

Right, so it sounds like I'm being a bit impatient. I'll just keep this up for at least another few days, and see what happens. Brand new test kits (expire in 2020, I believe). I've been giving them a bit of a stir every second day.

Hello all! I'm in the process of starting a new tank, after having had to give up my previous baby after a string of house-movements about eighteen months ago. Although I've historically cycled with fish, this time I figured I do things 'by the book' and attempt a fishless cycle. Having read a number of posts and articles both here and on overseas websites, I decided to try it with fish food, due to the difficulties in getting pure/non-cloudy ammonia here in NZ. The issue I'm running into is that I've been dutifully adding fish food to the tank every day for the last six days, and I'm still getting no detectable ammonia. There are definitely heterotrophs developing, in that the water is cloudy, so I'm fairly confident that the food is actually decaying. If anything, I honestly thought I was overdoing it - there's a lot of food on the substrate, and the amount I've been adding has been a large pinch (far more than I would ever actually feed fish in a tank this size). The product is just the generic Nutrafin flakes. I'm not in any great rush - I'd rather do this right than quick - but I figured that it was strange not to have any ammonia after putting so much organic material into the tank. Does anyone have any thoughts? Should I just keep it up, or do I need to change tactic? I've heard good things about shrimp or shrimp pellets, so my next tactic would be to vacuum the excess flakes up, and start using shrimp/shrimp products instead. Readings Ammonia 0 ppm Nitrite 0 ppm Nitrate 0 ppm KH 4.0 dKH pH 7.8 Temperature 26 °C (increased the heater setting to 28 °C last night, so will be warmer by now) Tank Profile Total Volume: 69 L Actual Water Volume: ~ 60 L Heater: Aqua One 100W Filter: Hailea BT700 Internal (2 x sponges instead of the usual 1 x sponge + 1 x carbon cartridge) Livestock: None Plants: Macrandra, Java Fern, Java Moss, plus a couple of generics