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Yes, it's me again.

Tomorrow will be 1 month since I added the 5 Serpae Tetras to this 10 gallon tank. Then 2 peppered cory were added about 10 days later.

Also to refresh your memory, last week I spend about 6 days treating for something that resembled ich, and it has not returned.

My concern is over my water conditions. I'm not very good at reading colors in vials of water, but best I can tell, these are my levels:

ph: around 7.6
ammonia: around 6.0
nitrIte: around 1.0
nitrAte: around 5.0

The pH and nitrAte levels have been the same for the last 3 weeks, and the nitrIte level has fallen since 10 days ago. But the Ammonia appears to be climbing still, or at best, not declining.

I've been alternating between adding "cycle" and "amrid" for the last week, hoping to establish the bacteria needed and still protect the fish from the ammonia.

So, does all this sound relatively normal for a 10G, or do I need to take steps to lower the ammonia manually? If I do need to get the ammonia down, how do I do it? Are the other water levels acceptable?

Thanks in advance.

Not sure if amrid messes with the ammonia test but it probably does. I know ammolock causes false readings. Since your fish are alive and probably wouldn't be if they'd been sitting in 6ppm ammonia water for days and your tank appears to be through most of the cyle I'd say it's probably a false reading. I might do a 25% water change just in case and stop adding the amrid but watch the fish very closely. Then see if looks more normal or else do another 25% water change in 12-24hours and check it again.

I agree with sham, that has to be giving you false readings. If your ammonia levels were at 6 I doubt your fish would really be swimming around.

Justin

Colts Fan For Life
30g platy tank: 2 sunburst wag platys, 2 redtailed white calico platys, 2 red wag platys, 1 fry(not sure who it belongs to), 1 Golden CAE.
Bettas:1 VT male

Yeah 6 ppm ammonia would be crazy, equal to at least 240ppm nitrate and most fish would survive a day or two at best in that. Has to be a misreading, youd be seeing them literally start so suffocate before your eyes and they would all have raised tail veins, pop-eye, and skin slime problems.

If ammonia is present its probably 2 ppm or less given the circumstances.

Ok guys. Thanks for the responses. I'll lay off the cycle and amrid stuff for a week or so and see what happens.

And as for water changes, I did a 20% change over the weekend. I'll give it a few days and if the levels don't start declining, I'll do another one.

Ok, I have a question that may be related to my high ammonia levels.

Every time I do anything in the tank, such as re-plant a plant that had come loose, I kick up a ton of junk from the substrate.

My substrate are medium size gravel, not the real fine stuff. This was a recommendation by the LFS.

So, what I'm wondering is, am I kicking junk up because I'm not cleaning the tank well enough? Or is it over-feeding? Or both? Neither?

And if it is poor cleaning, or over-feeding, can you post some recommendations?

BTW, regarding feeding, I have only been feeding once per day because of the water issues, with the hopes that less food would bring the ammonia down. All the packaging I read states to feed enough that the fish will finish it in 3 minutes.

So I typically drop 4 sinking pellets per day for the Corys, and a medium sized pinch of flakes for the tetras. I've also been subsituting the flakes with 1 serving of frozen blood worms or frozen brine shrimp, so they get those foods about once per week each. In other words, 3-5 days a week they get flakes, one or 2 days a week they get shrimp, and one or 2 days a week they get worms, depending on my mood.

I really need to get this tank under control quickly before I start loosing fish, and being new to the hobby I'm just trying to figure out how to do it right.

Thanks in advance.

what are you doing to clean it? Are you doing gravel vacs all the way to the bottom glass? Stirring the planted areas? If all your doing is water changes then you definitely aren't doing enough. If you are doing gravel vacs I'd step them up a little and make sure to stir up any junk around the plants and suck it out during a water change. You might also need stronger filtration if the detritus is all settling on the bottom and not staying suspended long enough for the filter to pick it up.

I have been using a gravel vac, but based on the results I saw this morning, I probably haven't been doing it well enough. As for filtration, I'm inclined to agree that this filter isn't strong enough. It's the one that came with the "starter kit", and is very small. In only a month, I've had to replace it's cartridge 2 times now because they get clogged so easily.

I guess it's back to the LFS.

If you are replacing your filter cartridge, that probably explains why you're not cycling very quickly. Every time you replace your filter you are essentially starting over with the cycle. While it's true that some bacteria will populate the gravel and walls, I have completely stripped down tanks and replaced all the gravel and cleaned down the walls with a scrubbing pad, and not had any detectible ammonia spike afterward, which tells me that the vast majority of the good bacteria are in the filter.

Also I'm not sure what you used to treat ich, hopefully you used salt and increased heat only, and no medications. Medications will generally kill your cycle too.

I don't know what kind of filter you have, but if it's similar to my 10g setup I bought as a cheap startup kit, it's probably a hob (hang on the back) filter with a vertically placed filter cartridge consisting of filter wool filled with carbon. I had major trouble trying to cycle my tank with mine until I finally threw out the filter cartridge and substituted a 1" thick plain sponge from the dollar store. It cycled great after that. If you do this just make sure that the sponge has open pores (try breathing through it) and has not been treated with antibacterial stuff (it will usually say on the package, and you can smell it).

Now something else you can do to avoid ammonia is use zeolite in your filtration. This is commonly sold as "ammocarb" or "ammochips" and is a white rocky substance that otherwise resembles carbon. This will effectively absorb any ammonia in the water but the good bacteria can still grow on the surface of the zeolite and start cycling. It won't do anything about nitrites, so what will happen is that you will see an ammonia reading of 0 for a while and then all of a sudden you will see nitrites. You will have to control the nitrites with water changes etc. if they get too high but ammonia is usually the biggest fish killer so you can totally avoid this.

The only issue with this is that if you then remove the zeolite right away after the month is up (it works for about a month), you will probably see an ammonia spike again since most of the good bacteria will be on the zeolite which you have removed. But there is no need to ever remove the zeolite, or at least not for a long time until your tank is established. By the time the zeolite is exhausted from doing it's job of absorbing ammonia, your good bacterial colony will already be established on it, so you will probably not ever see ammonia readings or at least very low ones.

I am using the zeolite method on a new 32g I am cycling and I have 6 large fish in the tank and have not seen one bit of ammonia on my test kit yet. I am, however, seeing nitrites, so therefore I know that it is cycling.

Anyway to make a long story short here's what I would do: Take out your filter cartridge, open it up and dump out the carbon, and fill it as full as you can with rinsed ammocarb/ammochips. Do a 50% water change as well, vacuuming the gravel as much as you can. Rinse the cartridge in tank water only if it gets clogged. If you continue to have problems with clogging, replace the cartridge with a plain sponge or replace the filter if you would rather. If you put a sponge in, find some way of still using the zeolite (invest $3 in an air powered corner filter if you need to).

Continue to do 30 - 50% water changes with a gravel vac every week. Don't add any chemicals/medications/etc. other than aquarium salt. Hope this will help you.

Zeolite will interrupt the cycle. It's something that's better used as a backup than constantly. If the zeolite is binding up the ammonia then there is no food for the bacteria. When something happens to the zeolite(just forgetting to change it) or to the filter your gonna have a huge issue because you'll have a weak biofilter.

In my experience most of the bacteria is in the substrate first and the filter 2nd. You can completely change out a lightly stocked tank and so long as you keep the filter you may not see a cycle. Often times though you will see a minicycle until the new substrate gets populated. It's usually recommended to keep a small amount of the old substrate and hang it in the new tank until the bacteria populates the new substrate. Your more likely to have better luck completely changing out a filter and not seeing a cycle even on a heavily stocked tank. I have to say this does not hold true for silica sand. I have horrible cycling issues with a tank I just setup using silica sand. Whereas with my tanks that have eco complete I dump all the media out of the cannister every time without issue.

We are talking about a cycling tank though and so you want to preserve as much bacteria as possible while still keeping the tank clean. Rinse the filter cartridges or other media in tank water or dechlorinated tapwater to keep the bacteria while removing the detritus. You can do this many many times even with filter cartridges. Most hob filters seem to require near weekly rinsing of the media. I haven't had too many tank setups where filters like that didn't clog up after 1-2weeks. You have to seriously overfilter in order not to have to do frequent cleaning on those filters. Reason I love my cannister.

I really think you need to get more of that detritus out of the tank. The bacteria have to process all of it which will increase ammonia, nitrites, and eventually nitrates causing the tank to appear to take longer to cycle. It's probably cycled for your bioload but is trying to play catchup on all the junk that's floating around. Up the filter to something around 100gph or more(your current stock can handle quite a bit of water flow) and do a 25% gravel vac with a small water change. Gravel vacs over 25% have caused mini cycles even on completely cycled tanks so you want to go easy on the gravel vacs with a cycling tank so you don't remove too much bacteria. At the same time we want to get rid of that extra junk that's at least unhealthy but probably extending the cycle so I would do no more than the 25% gravel vac and wait at least 5-7days in between gravel vacs.

Then we have to discuss the fact that peppered cories do not fit in a 10g, more like a 29g, and all cories should be kept in groups since they are social. They are gonna end up overstocking your tank and won't be happy. There aren't really any cories suitable for a 10g unless it's in the hands of someone really experienced and it's pretty much only stocked with cories. I'd take them back for some applesnails, shrimp, kuhli loaches or similar. No other loaches, cories, or schooling/shoaling fish.

Zeolite will interrupt the cycle. It's something that's better used as a backup than constantly. If the zeolite is binding up the ammonia then there is no food for the bacteria. When something happens to the zeolite(just forgetting to change it) or to the filter your gonna have a huge issue because you'll have a weak biofilter.

Actually this is not exactly true. It will bind with the ammonia, but it won't prevent the beneficial bacteria from forming on the zeolite itself where the ammonia is still available. After the month of usefulness of actually absorbing ammonia is up, the zeolite bascially becomes biomedia because by that time you have all your benefical bacteria on the surface of the zeolite. The structure of zeolite is such that it provides a lot of good surface area for beneficial bacteria to colonize. This is why I said that it should NOT be changed for quite some time, if you remove it too quickly you are also removing your good bacteria which will have formed on the zeolite and then yes, you will be stuck in a cycle of changing zeolite all the time.

I have proof of this in my 32g I am cycling right now with zeolite, I have never had any ammonia readings at all since I set up the tank, but now I have nitrite readings. Therefore cycling is taking place in the tank even though the ammonia is not out floating in the water, it is trapped in the zeolite.

To get other filter media to colonise as well, if possible with the type of filter, the zeolite should come last. This will allow a small amount of ammonia coming from the fish to be filtering past the rest of the filter first before any remaining ammonia is bonded with the zeolite.

Thanks for the great feedback guys.

First off, the 2 peppered cories are VERY small, which is why the LFS said they'd be ok in a 10G. They are about half the size of the tetras. I don't know if it's because they are young, or if I just got small fish. However, I am considering taking them back anyway, or moving to a bigger tank in a month or so, due to everyone here stating the cories were a mistake.

Now, as for the cycle issues, I think I'm on the right track. I believe it was a combination of a little bit of overfeeding, and a lot of poor tank maintenance. I did a very thorough gravel vac the other day, and this morning I kicked up the substrate that was under some of my decorations.

With all the junk that I'm getting out of the tank, I think the ammonia level is coming down.

I also am happy for the advice about rinsing the filter cartridges. If I was going to have to replace them 3 times a month, I doubt I could afford it in the long run. That should help a lot.

Also, I've not yet had any issue with nitrites. They've never gotten very high.

Speaking of decorations...

When I do a water change, should I take them out and clean them, or would that kill the bacteria? I've noticed quite a bit of junk that builds up both on and under the decorations, and I suspect that's not helping things, but I don't want to distrupt things that shouldn't be messed with.

It's good to clean off the decorations now and then, and I don't think it will disrupt the cycle much if any. You're right on, doing very regular water changes (2x/week or more if the ammonia gets too high) is the single most important thing for keeping a healthy tank. It's good to get into the habit of at least one good (40% or better) water change a week and stick with it for the life of the tank, you'll save yourself a lot of headaches and fish deaths by doing that one simple thing.

I've never seen nitrate levels at all in tanks I've cycled the traditional way, I think that the bacteria for nitrites must grow faster or be more efficient than the stuff that breaks down ammonia at least in my water conditions.

All fish you buy in stores are babies. The tetras will grow and the peppered cories will definitely grow. What fits now may not fit 2 or 4 months from now. Peppered cories are some of the largest cories and will reach nearly 3" in length with plenty of width. You need to look at adult sizes not the current size of the fish. For example a 4" pleco may surpass 2' after a couple years of growth. It may fit in a 10g for a few weeks but eventually it's going to need closer to 200g. Cories aren't that extreme but yours are going to get rather large and like I said they prefer company so 2 is not enough. Anymore definitely will not fit. That makes them unsuitable for your tank.