# Constantly rising TDS and other weidness (seeking advice)



## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Do you have any stone in the tank? Not all of them are inert and can cause problems.

A cycled tank has nitrates as it is the end of the nitrogen cycle. 

How long did you wait between doing all those changes to the tank? Recommended time frame is anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month for each change.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

No stone in the tank, no. The tank sat completely dry after the breakdown for a week.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Let me try this again.

How long did you wait between each change when the betta was in the tank? Did you did them all at once? A few days apart? A week apart? 



> I have a Fluval Spec V that I had set up for a betta last year. I cycled it fishlessly and like with my other tank, I did not read nitrates or nitrite in it at any point, which I had attributed to having a decent number of live plants in the tank. I had been struggling for a long time, however with hair algae in the tank. It doesn't receive any natural light. I changed the lighting schedule down to 2 3-hour cycles a day. Tried dosing a bunch of different ferts and anti-algae supplements, and then switched to 50% RO water for my water changes. I then tried adding the poly-filter media that removes things from the water and it was showing that it was only removing organic material. My tap water was horrifically high in phosphates (3.0ppm as I measured it) but the tank itself, after the RO mix was OK (a little under 1.0). My Dennerle 30L tank had no problems at all, using the same water with the same 50% RO mix. Many of the plants in the Fluval simply melted and died during this time, but the usual ammonia, nitrite and nitrates were all reading 0ppm. Then the betta in the Fluval started showing symptoms of dropsy, which got progressively worse and I made the decision to euthanize. Again; no traces of anything in the water that indicated an underlying issue, but the hair algae was engulfing the entire tank by this point.


If you did all of these things in a short period of time, that is a lot of the tank to handle. Since you were getting a 0 nitrate reading, the tank wasn't cycled which is why you lost the betta. Now that you've torn the tank down and started it again, it needs to be recycled.

What are you using for substrate?


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Ah, I see, sorry. 

Those changes were made over a period of over 6 months, one at a time with about a month in between each, some much longer. I don't know the exact timeline but I stopped using anti-algae meds and ferts before I switched to 50% RO in December last year. I tried adding the poly-filter media to the filter in early March if I remember right. I lost the betta about 4 weeks ago. Between December and now, the plants were mostly doing fine. I had to throw out some java moss because the hair algae had completely entangled it but other than that, the rest were surviving. I was doing 1/3 water changes every fortnight. I still tested ammonia, nitrite and nitrates before the water changes but was never able to read anything. It's entirely possible that the tank never cycled but I did add in and read ammonia during the attempt to fishlessly cycle, which was gone with no trace on further readings. I've been told that having live plants could potentially explain this but maybe that's not the case. I'm positive that the tank was not high in ammonia at any point while the betta was in it, though. Is there something else that the bacteria should be breaking down that might explain the condition of the tank if the cultures never grew?

EDIT: Substrate is gravel that was recommended for shrimp by the LFS. I'm fairly certain it was from Dennerle's Shrimp King range but I didn't take a note of it and don't have the packaging.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Kanped said:


> Ah, I see, sorry.
> 
> Those changes were made over a period of over 6 months, one at a time with about a month in between each, some much longer. I don't know the exact timeline but I stopped using anti-algae meds and ferts before I switched to 50% RO in December last year. I tried adding the poly-filter media to the filter in early March if I remember right. I lost the betta about 4 weeks ago. Between December and now, the plants were mostly doing fine. I had to throw out some java moss because the hair algae had completely entangled it but other than that, the rest were surviving. I was doing 1/3 water changes every fortnight. I still tested ammonia, nitrite and nitrates before the water changes but was never able to read anything. It's entirely possible that the tank never cycled but I did add in and read ammonia during the attempt to fishlessly cycle, which was gone with no trace on further readings. I've been told that having live plants could potentially explain this but maybe that's not the case. I'm positive that the tank was not high in ammonia at any point while the betta was in it, though. Is there something else that the bacteria should be breaking down that might explain the condition of the tank if the cultures never grew?
> 
> EDIT: Substrate is gravel that was recommended for shrimp by the LFS. I'm fairly certain it was from Dennerle's Shrimp King range but I didn't take a note of it and don't have the packaging.


Ammonia cannot be broken down without nitrites. If you never got a reading of those, that means you wouldn't get a nitrate reading. Nitrogen cycle is: Ammonia ---> Nitrites ----> Nitrates. Nitrates are the least toxic of the three as long as the number doesn't get too high. Yes, plants can help with ammonia and remove it, but it isn't likely you had that many plants that were growing that fast enough to make that much of a difference. If they were growing that fast, your algae issue would have been minimal, if at all. 

Fishless cycling requires patience. For some people it goes faster than others. It all depends on the makeup of the water being used. 

The hair algae thing is annoying, but all new tanks break with some type of algae or many in some cases. Yes, it is ugly, but it can be dealt with fairly easily once the tank is stable biologically. I had to look up the substrate you're using, or believe you are using. Was it this one? https://www.aquaristikshop.com/aquaristic/Dennerle-Shrimp-King-Active-Soil/907065/

I'm confused by it. It says it reduces hardness, but adds 'trace elements', whatever that means. Shrimp do not need special substrate. They like clean water and things to graze on. 

What does your R/O water test at for TDS? Do you buy it or do you have a R/O system? If you have your own, how often do you change filters? 

If your TDS is stable from the tap with R/O mixed in and you are getting these increases in TDS in the tank, I'd say it is the substrate putting stuff back in the water. This is simple enough to figure out with some experimenting.

Take the water mix you have been using ( tap water plus R/O) and put it in a bucket. Let it sit for 24 hours and test it. Do the same thing with some of the substrate added to a different bucket. Let it sit for 24 hours and test.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

I *think* it was this substrate; Dennerle Shrimp Gravel Sumatra Brown 2kg - Pro Shrimp UK

Yeah, the 'cycle' played out much the same way in the other tank. Never any nitrite or nitrates, tested with multiple different test kits and after a while, never any ammonia either (that one was a fish-in cycle with another betta, who is alive and well; I read ammonia and did not add it to the tank). 
It leads me to think that there could be something else in the water throwing off the tests, maybe? I've heard stories from the LFS that people using the same water source as me have turned up with water that was 9.0 pH out of the tap and all other sorts of things, so god knows what's going on. What's odd is that with the same tap water mixed with the same RO, the other tank doesn't have the same algae or TDS problem. I'm well aware that going from 2.0ppm to 0 ppm in 24 hours with no added bacteria or anything else in a brand new tank should not be chemically or biologically possible, and that ammonia should break down to nitrite then nitrates but I have nothing to go on bar these tests. I also haven't been able to work out what 'solids' are making up the rising TDS and it's frustrating that I only got the TDS meter after breaking down the tank, because I suspect it was probably high beforehand but I'll never know. 

The 30L tank did have diatoms a bit during the first weeks but settled down. The 19L had black beard algae at first, then brown hair algae that was out of control, then after switching to RO, green hair algae that took over the tank but in the 10 months I've had it, it has always been an issue. I'll get a reading on the TDS in the RO and run the bucket test and report back; the RO is bought from the LFS.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

The substrate you posted a link to is different from the one I found. The one you posted said it is inert and makes no mention of adding things to the water, so that's out. Do the bucket experiment anyway. If everything comes up clean, then it is on to more brain storming unless this is something else in the tank that you haven't mentioned. 

You did use straight ammonia to cycle with, right? If it has bubbles from surfactants, that will kill the bacteria. Here's the link to fishless cycling that I recommend and have used in the past here if you want to read it. Ammonia instructions for a fishless cycle | 19627

Is the 30L still set up? If so, can you grab some filter media from it? This doesn't provide a 'instant' cycle as bacteria colonies still have to grow on the substrate, glass, ect.... but it should get this tank off on a good note. If you have shrimp in this new tank, you need to monitor it closely. Ammonia and a uncycled tank kills shrimp. 

Do you use water conditioner? If stuff is being added to your water, that can kill of bacteria as well.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

The 30L is still set up and doing well. Only thing going into it is Seachem Prime during water changes, which I'm also using with the other tank. Good plant growth, no algae, fish is healthy. In the past, I've left it for up to 4 weeks with no water change and still read 0 ammonia, nitrite and nitrates. I've gotten 0 ammonia since about this time last year and have never read nitrite or nitrates despite regular testing with different kits. 

The filter is a Dennerle corner filter, so there's no removable media unfortunately; it's a cotton core with a spray bar, everything's pretty much built-in.

I used Dr. Tim's ammonia to cycle; no bubbles and the dropper is attached to the bottle, with recommended dosage listed there, too. I have added his 'One and Only' bacteria product to the 19L tank after the breakdown. I also used it in the initial fishless cycle on the 19L tank, but not the 30L.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Prime and Dr.Tim's do not mix. You said you used it for the 19L, but not the 30L. How did you cycle the 30L?

The reason Prime and Dr.Tim's do not mix is because the bacteria that is responsible for breaking down ammonia needs ammonia to feed on to grow. That ammonia can come in a few forms. If you 'starve' that bacteria, it won't grow and colonize as it does in a tank that has healthy bio-media along with all the bacteria that lives in the substrate, ect...

When I do a fishless cycle, I do not use water conditioner that converts ammonia. It takes about a week to see nitrites and the conversion from nitrites to nitrates is always the longest part of the cycle as it for most people. That specific bacteria takes longer to grow. From start to finish, the process takes about a month. 

I haven't forgotten about this thread being about TDS by the way. Through the process of discussion, we're figuring out what is going on with the 19L.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

OK. Seachem's blurb did say at the time that locking in the ammonia did not discourage the bacteria colonies from developing, that it only made it safe for the creatures in the tank. Or it may have someone on another forum said that... 
The 30L was 'cycled' fish-in using a single betta, with Prime and doing a 1/3 water change when the ammonia read 0.25; at one stage, that was daily changes but I never let it get much higher than 0.25. Then, I stopped reading ammonia altogether after a while. Actually, the LFS has their own brand bacteria booster called AquaCare Bio Boost and I did add that, but it was added 2 weeks before there was any source of ammonia in the tank, so I can't imagine it was doing any good (first tank; I also planted an anubias rhizome in the substrate for a few days). I did get the cloudy bacteria bloom at that stage, though.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

I like Seachem and use their products, but like with anything sold in this hobby, sometimes one has to look past the PR speak and let their tank or tanks do the talking. Your 19L has had a lot to say. 

The ammonia source for the 30L was the betta. Prime was okay to use in this case because there was a constant source of ammonia being produced by the fish. Fish food, decaying and or dead plant matter are also sources of ammonia. Since you were not consistent with testing and stopped, you didn't see the full cycle as it were.

If a person were to take a cycled tank, remove the fish and do nothing else to the tank other than possibly top it off occasionally, the tank would eventually revert back to it's uncycled state. How long that would take, I don't know, but with no ammonia, the bacteria dies.

I have never used Dr.Tim's, so I don't have a opinion about it. From what I've read, it does work, but like Seachem, they don't tell you the whole story on the bottle. A person has to go to their website and dig through their FAQ to find information. That is a rant in and of itself, but that is not what we're talking about. To make Dr.Tim's work, you would have to use a water conditioner that does not convert ammonia. A lot of people use Tetra Safe Start, but any of them will do.

I've tried Fluval and a few other so-called 'instant' tank cycle products and they are crap. They're a total waste of money. People can get results from a bottle of pure ammonia for a dollar at the Dollar Store assuming they are in the US. They don't even need a tank set up to do it. All they need is a bucket, filter, water and a few test kits and have a cycled filter in a few weeks.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Smooch said:


> The ammonia source for the 30L was the betta. Prime was okay to use in this case because there was a constant source of ammonia being produced by the fish. Fish food, decaying and or dead plant matter are also sources of ammonia. Since you were not consistent with testing and stopped, you didn't see the full cycle as it were.


Actually, I still *haven't* stopped testing. When I said I stopped reading ammonia, I mean the results were consistently showing 0ppm on any test I did. Initially, I was testing daily, I still test weekly. There's still never been any measurable nitrite or nitrates. I'll admit, a few months after I stopped reading ammonia in the results, I wasn't doing the full suite of liquid tests, I was just using the JBL strips weekly and doing liquid tests maybe once a month. 

The idea that Prime might be preventing the colonies from developing could be a good idea. I still needs to run the other tests you suggested but since there's nothing in the tank that could be harmed from doing so, I think I should stop using Prime in the next water change and try dosing to 6.0ppm ammonia and waiting, as recommended in the link you provided. I'll do the full suite of tests daily to see what happens.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Since there are no fish or critters in there, you can experiment as much as you want to.

If you wanted to and trust that your LFS is selling you RO water that has nothing in it, you could skip the water conditioner and use RO water only to cycle with. Some people do this, others think it is a waste of RO. Choice is yours. The more options you have, the better. 

Cycling a tank with the link I posted works. There is a lot of testing involved though so a person can see where they are in the cycle. There is no way to tell by just looking at a tank if it is cycled or not. Once nitrites drop, a person is done, All they need to do is a massive water change to remove all the nitrates, perhaps do some clean up of algae if they have any and fill the tank with clean, treated water.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

They're a fairly popular shop and they sell a lot of RO, I can't see it being an issue (I'll check it out anyway; could even be an issue with the container I use to bring it home). I'm used to regular testing and a massive water change in a 19L... well it's not so massive. Sounds like a plan.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

As hobbyists, we cannot test for everything without the help of a lab if we want to know everything about the water we use. If you are fortunate to have a LFS near by that keeps things real with you and does the right thing, consider yourself lucky. The LFS I have like that is a half hour away in one direction. This is assuming that it is dead of winter with no traffic. This time of year it can be a 2-plus hour round trip as tourist season is upon us yet once again. Everybody feels the need to cram themselves on to Cape Cod like sardines. 

If you use RO water, here is a few things to keep in mind. 

There are no hard rules about pH, but bacteria does better with a pH of anywhere from 6.8- 7.2. The pH for the RO water I use is around 6. If I were cycling, I would increase it. It isn't that a tank won't cycle with a lower pH, but it will take longer. 

Water temp whether you use RO or not also makes a difference. I cycle my tanks with a temp of between 80-86. If the water is too cold, it slows the process down. If the water gets too hot, it has been said that it can cause bacteria die off. I've never experienced this, so I don't know.


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## Riekk (Apr 3, 2017)

Smooch said:


> I like Seachem and use their products, but like with anything sold in this hobby, sometimes one has to look past the PR speak and let their tank or tanks do the talking. Your 19L has had a lot to say.
> 
> The ammonia source for the 30L was the betta. Prime was okay to use in this case because there was a constant source of ammonia being produced by the fish. Fish food, decaying and or dead plant matter are also sources of ammonia. Since you were not consistent with testing and stopped, you didn't see the full cycle as it were.
> 
> ...


Dr. Tim's is ammonium, not ammonia. Doesn't Prime lock up ammonia and convert it to ammonium to make it less toxic to fish? 

I used Dr. Tim's with Tetra SafeStart and it worked really well for me. I also used aged tap water treated with Prime. So maybe the fact the tap water was a minimum of 24 hours old before adding it to my tank kept the Prime from interfering with my cycle.

I do still get a .25ppm reading on ammonia but 0 Nitrite and increased Nitrates every week. I think my API kit is throwing a false positive.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

That's correct, the Dr. Tim's solution is ammonium chloride. One of my API kits shows 0.2ppm ammonia, actually but the other one doesn't and neither does the salifert or nutrifin test. I've heard that it's fairly common.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

OK; Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride states that you should add 1 drop per gallon to reach 2.0ppm ammonia. Yesterday, I put 20 drops in the 19L (5.5g), as adding 15 was only reading 4.0ppm. Bear in mind, I haven't done a water change since adding the Prime so if it is causing some unknown issue, the Prime is still in this water;

Ammonia (API): 8.0ppm (top of scale)
Ammonia (Hagen/Nutrifin): 6.1 (top of scale)
Nitrite (API): 0.5-1.0ppm
Nitrite (Salifert): 0ppm
Nitrite (JBL): 0ppm
Nitrates (JBL): 0ppm
TDS: 410 (slight increase but not as marked as previous)

I'm definitely measuring some rising nitrite using the API kit, which is a first. The other kits still show 0 but the JBL test is strips and generally less reliable, so I'm inclined to believe the API test. 

The hair algae's starting to get really bad again, too. If there's a lot of algae in the water, could that cause the TDS to rise?


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Use the directions for the Dr.Tim's more of a guideline than a rule. Everybody has different water in terms of hardness and all of that, so getting to a specific PPM is going to be different. Don't be bothered by it. Just use however many drops you need to get to where you need to be. 

Just be sure I know what I'm talking about, I went to their website to see what it said. Based on their instructions, you may want to do a water change. Prime supposedly doesn't hang around long, but I have yet to see anybody actually prove that.

Don't worry about the algae, If it bothers you, you can manually remove it. Algae is going to show up in some form due to all the excess organics in the water. It will get worse before it gets better when nitrates appear and rise. 

For whatever reason, they make no mention of nitrates. I have no clue why that is. 



> MATERIALS NEEDED:
> 
> You will need an ammonia solution, ammonia and nitrite test kits (a pH test kit is also a good idea) and a little patience.
> 
> ...


A Quick Guide to Fishless Cycling | DrTim's Aquatics


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

I have been doing the recommended dosage since the breakdown, but I was still getting 0ppm on ammonia, nitrite and nitrates when tested 24 hours after adding it at that dosage. Mine was bought from a batch made before they changed the formula, so was still dosing 1 drop/gallon BTW. 

That other guide you linked mentioned dosing to 6ppm and just leaving it and testing regularly. I might risk crashing the cycle at that dosage but I'm not on any kind of schedule here and early indicators seem to be positive. I'll see how this plays out for at least a week; if it starts to get problematic, I'll reboot with 100% RO; no Prime and no mystery tapwater to worry about. I may do this anyway, introduce it over several water changes up to 100% before adding shrimp.

I also realised, reading your post, that I didn't test pH previously. It's 7.4, so should be fine, although it is quite a bit higher than the other tank that uses the same RO/tap mix (around 6.8). The 19L has a gas CO2 kit on it, too, which should lower the pH. Not sure what would account for that.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Kanped said:


> I have been doing the recommended dosage since the breakdown, but I was still getting 0ppm on ammonia, nitrite and nitrates when tested 24 hours after adding it at that dosage. Mine was bought from a batch made before they changed the formula, so was still dosing 1 drop/gallon BTW.
> 
> That other guide you linked mentioned dosing to 6ppm and just leaving it and testing regularly. I might risk crashing the cycle at that dosage but I'm not on any kind of schedule here and early indicators seem to be positive. I'll see how this plays out for at least a week; if it starts to get problematic, I'll reboot with 100% RO; no Prime and no mystery tapwater to worry about. I may do this anyway, introduce it over several water changes up to 100% before adding shrimp.
> 
> I also realised, reading your post, that I didn't test pH previously. It's 7.4, so should be fine, although it is quite a bit higher than the other tank that uses the same RO/tap mix (around 6.8). The 19L has a gas CO2 kit on it, too, which should lower the pH. Not sure what would account for that.


Nitrites take awhile to grow, so you wouldn't see that or nitrates that soon unless you had them in your water aleady. 

Pick whatever method you are comfortable with and stick with whichever one you choose. Trying to mix the two of them would make things confusing. As a FYI, the reason the second set of instructions mentions using higher amounts has to do with stocking the tank once it is cycled. If you are heavy with the pure ammonia at the beginning, the tank will be able to handle a bigger bioload of fish once cycled. People don't have to do it that way, but they do have to keep in mind that they cannot heavily stock their tank with fish once the tank is cycled. 

7.4 is fine. Adding a airstone helps as bacteria likes a lot of oxygen, It can be removed once the the cycle is complete.

You mentioned previously that you are now getting nitrite readings which is good. It does mean things are working like they're supposed to.


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

It may help to see pictures of the tank in question.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

I actually left my phone in work over the weekend but I'll upload some new pics tomorrow night. There's a video I took last December that shows the hair algae issue pretty well. it's not back to being this bad again but it's getting there;

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-6Krh8_3VSHS2ZXU2xGV1JCamM/view?usp=sharing


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

That's not hair algae. That looks more like biofilm run rampant... or something else.

Aquarium Algae ID (updated May6th '10 Surface Skum)


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

Another thought....

filamentous diatoms

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/2...rid-filamentous-diatoms-brown-hair-algae.html
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/23-algae/402425-best-way-eliminate-filamentous-diatoms.html
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/2...gae-filamentous-diatoms;-thread-diatoms;.html
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/23-algae/124665-rhizoclonium-what-do-i-do.html


When I think of hair algae, it's green hair algae, which is completely different to what you have.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

I have no idea what that is. I've never had it in my tanks. That said, I did notice dead plant leaves. If they haven't been removed yet, they should be along with any leaves that are on their way out. Plants will waste energy trying to make those leaves grow and such leaves contaminate the tank.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Hmmm... early on, before I added the betta, I had a number of plants die in that tank, and more continued to die. When I broke down the tank, some of the (previously light) substrate was completely black deep in the substrate, which I attributed to root structures that had formed dying off. Basically, a lot of rotting organics. If what has previously been said about the cycle never completing properly is true, then those bacteria weren't breaking down those organics. The temperate was kept at 28c, higher than it strictly needs to be. The filter was on the lowest setting with some extra baffling as it was knocking the betta about too much, meaning that the circulation was low and the oxygen level was likely also low. Fine for the betta, with a labyrinth organ but I never really thought about the effect of the rest of the tank. I also had a thick surface scum over the water surface before the breakdown; exactly as described, could not be broken and paper towels took care of it. I could drop food pellets down and it wouldn't break the surface sometimes. 

So, if whatever that structure is that is hanging off the plants could potentially be causing high TDS (or be a result of the same issues), the only question left is what's happening to the ammonia in the tank; if it wasn't being broken down to nitrite, what else could be happening?

I think it may be a good idea to try an air stone in here and see what the effect is.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Where the roots of the plants black? If so, that indicates that they were not getting oxygen. When plant roots turn black, they're dead. 

Bio film is usually made up of protein. Fixing water flow issues, reduce feeding the fish if they are being overfed and general overall tank maintenance keeps that in check. Without the tank being properly cycled which I still think it wasn't, all of that stuff in the water wasn't being broken down which would lead to a higher TDS reading. 

As for the ammonia, try a different kit or have your LFS test your water. I get a lot of lip service about test kits because they can and do give bad readings which makes figuring out problems really difficult. When a person is having a problem with their tank and the test kits being used are constantly spitting out results that says their is no problem, but they are losing fish, ect... it is time to try something else.

I just recently went through this myself. I've been having diatom issues for almost a year now in my 10 gallon. Long story short, the test kit I was using was giving me bad results. I used a different kit, made changes to how I treat my RO water ( it has ammonia) and the problem cleared up.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

I've been using 3 different kits and having the LFS test it from time to time; it's always been the same. The plants that I pulled out during the breakdown were all fine as far as the roots were concerned but 7 months before that, I was losing a lot of plants and I guess the roots structures rotted under the substrate and never got cleaned out.
I knew about the risks of overfeeding but since it's a single betta on a pellet diet, it was never an issue. I don't think he missed a pellet in his life until he started getting sick, then I took it out with a turkey baster. I probably could have done better with trimming off dead leaves and things; I'll need to make sure I do better with that in the future. I wasn't ignoring it completely but definitely could have been more zealous in that regard.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

I wasn't suggesting any malice on your part. Bettas don't like a lot of water flow, so getting it right to make sure there are no 'dead spots' so stuff doesn't accumulate is a lot of trial and error. 

My point was, if your eyes are telling you one thing and test kits are saying something else, there is a conflict that needs to be dealt with.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Oh, no you're absolutely right. Just saying that I actually *didn't* believe the results myself, so I got different kits and had the LFS run tests as well, but they all showed the same thing. 
I'm beginning to wonder if that hair-like growth might be something that's actually feeding off the ammonia? Is that crazy? it kinda lines up; ammonia isn't in the water and suddenly there's this hair stuff all over everything? I never considered that it might not be algae before.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

No, not crazy. As for the specifics of it, I couldn't tell you. There are so many ways to spark algae growth in a tank that it could make a person crazy if they think about it too much. I don't. My personal policy is keeping a clean tank means less problems. It isn't a guarantee that there will never be a problem, but staying on top of things helps.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Tested again today;

Ammonia (API) = 4.0ppm
Ammonia (Nurtifin) = 4.0ppm
Nitrite (API) = 0ppm
Nitrite (JBL) = 0ppm
Nitrite (Salifert) = 0.1ppm
Nitrates (API) = <5ppm
Nitrates (JBL) = 10ppm
Nitrates (Salifert) = 5-10ppm
TDS = 410 (no rise)

Don't seem to be getting more nitrite, but I definitely have measurable nitrates. Not a lot, but it's there (I have been adding ammonia for 3 weeks now, as well as adding Dr. Tim's live bacteria shortly after starting, so maybe Nitrates this 'soon' isn't too surprising). Not sure what I should be doing at this point. Could add more ammonia and see what happens but I don't think I should. I think I should grab a toothbrush and get rid of the growth in there. If it is feeding off the ammonia, it'll compete with the bacteria. Here's some pictures (if anyone has any scaping tips while we're at it, I'm all ears. Don't have an eye for it at all);


































EDIT: fixed pics so they're embedded, gimme a minute


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

If I were you, I'd just take the plants out and clean them in a bucket with RO water. Any dead stuff can go, anything that is lanky that doesn't have healthy growth on top should be trimmed. 

Patience with the nitrites is required. You are getting nitrates which means the cycle is being completed, but nowhere near where it needs to be to sustain fish and or shrimp.

Adding more ammonia at 4 ppm at this point will make the process longer. Leave it be, for now.


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

Kanped said:


> Ammonia (API) = 4.0ppm
> Ammonia (Nurtifin) = 4.0ppm
> 
> Could add more ammonia and see what happens but I don't think I should.
> ...


Here goes scaping tips!
4ppm of ammonia can cause burn to lots of plants.
Cycling with plants at 1-2ppm may save your plants.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

More tests today. Given the relative consistency of some of the results, I didn't do every version of everything

Ammonia (API) : 2ppm
Nitrite (JBL): 0ppm
Nitrite (API): 0ppm
Nitrite (Salifert): 0ppm
Nitrates (JBL): 10ppm
Nitrates (Salifert) 25ppm
TDS: 410 (no change again)

The ammonia is clearly dropping and my nitrites are slowly rising but I'm concerned about the complete lack of any detectable nitrite. I feel like I should still be getting nitrite this early on? 

Don't have enough RO left to wash the plants right now, so I'll pick up an extra bit and an air stone at the weekend (don't get back from work before they close during the week) and get that done. It's a hassle but I think you're right that it would be worth doing. 

I also left a bit of the hair I removed to dry out, thought it might help with ID-ing it;


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

You can't have a ammonia drop without nitrites. A cycle doesn't skip any part of the process. I don't know what is up with your test kits, but that isn't possible.

You don't have use RO water to clean the plants. Since you've been having issues I figured it was the safest way to do it. Feel free to use tap water if you want to. The important part is getting all that stuff off of the leaves so they can get some light and photosynthesize.

I have no idea what that other thing is. Hair algae doesn't have what looks like a stem in your picture.


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

Smooch said:


> You can't have a ammonia drop without nitrites. A cycle doesn't skip any part of the process. I don't know what is up with your test kits, but that isn't possible.


There are two ways for this to happen.

#1 The right healthy plant mass can absorb nitrogen from NH3 or NH4.
Heck people even dose urea which forms ammonium(NH4) and can be a direct uptake for plants.

#2 The right colony as in AOA Ammonia-oxidizing archaea as opposed to Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) can be the dominants ammonia oxidizer in freshwater aquariums. AOA can directly oxidize NH3 to NO3.
This is typically only seen in a mature tank, the normal bacteria we all talk about are almost always the first to arrive.
But who knows maybe an oxidizer in a bottle could affect this???


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Smooch said:


> I have no idea what that other thing is. Hair algae doesn't have what looks like a stem in your picture.


That's just how it clumped together; it's a bunch of thin strands that have joined together like a fibre, basically. You can roll it into a ball.

I did have a quick google, but I assume there's no way for the hobbyist to test for the presence of AOA? It may be possible given that the plants were all in the previous setup; maybe they could have provided enough surface area for AOA to develop and and transferred it over? They were in an active tank for almost a year.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Maryland Guppy said:


> There are two ways for this to happen.
> 
> #1 The right healthy plant mass can absorb nitrogen from NH3 or NH4.
> Heck people even dose urea which forms ammonium(NH4) and can be a direct uptake for plants.
> ...





Maryland Guppy said:


> Here goes scaping tips!
> 4ppm of ammonia can cause burn to lots of plants.
> Cycling with plants at 1-2ppm may save your plants.


Which is it? I'm confused. If plants are ammonia sponges as suggested, that would mean a person should be able to be heavy-handed with ammonia from the bottle and not have any problems. They should be able to dose and have zero ammonia readings within a few short hours.

This is not a healthy tank right now and it hasn't been. OP has already discussed having issues with plant die off. Do you know of any plant species that effectively removes ammonia from a tank that isn't healthy? 

I'm not chasing this rabbit down the hole. Newbies around here are told this kind of stuff all the time. It doesn't matter that they may only have less than a handful of slow growing plants. As long as there is some green in a tank, no problem. That is until the fish start dying and then everybody jumps on said newbie for not doing a fishless cycle. 

Do plants break down ammonia? Yes, some. They however are not vacuum cleaners. Sticking some poly-filter in a tank to remove ammonia would get the job done faster than a tank that is not healthy and is having issues. 

So what you are telling me is that a tank can go through a cycle and never show any nitrites and be fine, even with ammonia readings? You must have some magical water as I've cycled many tanks and have never seen one skip the nitrite phase.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

I really don't know what's going on but as nice as it would be to think that I got some kind of super-cycle going on, I think the explanation that whatever that growth is it's just absorbing the ammonia, preventing the bacteria from developing and I'm only seeing nitrite or nitrates when I add more ammonia than it can absorb seems more likely. I had a living creature in that tank for the best part of a year and saw nothing but a load of that growth; no ammonia, no nitrite, no nitrates for that entire time. It's one small fish, low bioload and I maintained regular water changes but still; I saw nothing in the test results. 

Now that I've added a huge amount of ammonia (more than the stuff can absorb, maybe?), I'm finally seeing nitrite and nitrates for the first time. It kinda makes sense; the growth seems to me to be organic matter of some kind, and it grows fast; *really* fast, a lot faster than any plant would. The big tank has a water sprite that went from a few stems to engulfing 1/3 of the water column in 2 months. This stuff can take the whole tank in 2 weeks. 

Anyway, here's today's continually confusing results;

Ammonia (API) = 1ppm
Ammonia (Salifert) = 1ppm
Nitrite (Salifert) = >0.25ppm
Nitrite (API) = 0ppm
Nitrite (JBL) 0ppm
Nitrates (API) = 10ppm
Nitrates (JBL) = 10ppm
Nitrates (Salifert) = 10-25ppm
TDS = 400 (dropped slightly after manually removing parts of the hair growth)

Ammonia is down, TDS is down, everything else is the same. I'm only seeing anything when I add quantities of ammonia that the tank will never actually endure (I wouldn't dream of stocking a tank this size with something capable of producing that much waste in that time frame). My current plan of attack is still to add more oxygen to the tank with an airstone, wash the plants and go to 100% RO and re-mineralize. 

When the ammonia drops to 0, which I'm guessing will likely be tomorrow, I'll redose and monitor it. Don't think it would be worth doing a water change beforehand (?) and I'm not sure what I should redose it to; 2ppm or 6ppm+?


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Again, when nitrates and nitrites are present, it means ammonia is being processed. I don't know of any other way to explain it. I'm not going to say it anymore as I sound like a broken record. 

I spent all morning looking for articles, videos, ect.. about tanks that skipped the nitrite phase that were cycled with ammonia, Dr.Tim's ect... based on that what Maryland Guppy had to say about it. I didn't find any. I found endless videos and articles from people complaining about nitrite toxicity ( most of these people liked to thump their chests about how water testing is a total waste of time...) but I didn't find any miracle tanks. I guess I'm going to have to wait for Maryland Guppy to post some links. 

As for the rest of it, Maryland Guppy takes offense to anybody that questions API test results. API is the holy grail of water testing according to Maryland Guppy. Instead of simply agreeing to disagree because nobody gives a rats, we have go through this stupid thing. I can deal with monkeys on my back. Whatever! I'm still going think and say the API test kits are POS. 

I must have had a 'miracle' in my tanks yesterday. My beloved Seachem Nitrate / Nitrite test threw me bad results. It said both tanks had nitrites even though absolutely nothing changed over a week. I cleaned the tray a second time and retested. Boom! No nitrites! No shaking of stupid bottles required. A drop of one thing and a scoop of powder. Mix and wait. No BS involved, second guessing, ect... 

The games people love to play over test kits no less. I wonder what would happen if we were talking about Big Pharma giving people things like thyroid cancer. That said, remember when something sounds too good to be true, it is.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

There's a reason I own at least 3 different tests for everything; I don't trust them and I was getting results that seemed inaccurate. I have absolutely known API tests to be inaccurate at times, particularly the nitrates test that involves shaking the bottles and test vial to break up solid matter to get the result. The longer it has been sitting, the harder this is to do. Different people will achieve this to different extents on different days and get different results from the same sample. It literally cannot be completely accurate.

All I'm doing is testing the water, posting up the results and doing my best to make any kind of sense of it. The Salifert tests use the same powder/liquid mix; I'll happy pick up a Seachem one and add it to the collection and run a 4th set of tests but I can't see it giving different results but, who knows? Maybe it will. 

I was getting nitrite, definitely, for one day. The nitrates have barely risen since then but the ammonia has dropped significantly. 

That's what every test I can throw at it is saying. I don't see it as a miracle, because the tank's not doing well. If I was testing every hour and all the tests were saying my water is the most perfect water that there ever was and my plants were all rotting to nothing, it's not a miracle, it's a giant hard-to-fix problem because the tests aren't telling me where the problem is. 
I'm not trying to get in the middle of anything here and I'm certainly not trying to disagree with you or post up impossible test results to try to put froward any 'proof' of anything, I'm just trying to make sense of this thing. I know I shouldn't have 0 nitrite and I know the ammonia shouldn't be dropping with no rise in anything else but all available evidence says that it is; I also know that this is not a good thing, it's big problem, and like you said, there's no cycling guides out there that say 'hey, if your ammonia disappears for no discernible reason, just do this...'. I can either believe what the evidence is telling me or get better evidence.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

You're not in the middle of anything. This dumb thing has been going on for awhile now. It has nothing to do with you. 

I want your tank to be healthy so you can keep shrimp or whatever you want to put in there. A healthy tank does not look like what you have right now. In order for it to get healthy, there is work involved. You could go the route that many around here do which is dump a bunch of Excel in there. I don't like Excel, I will never buy it or recommend people use it. Despite what Seachem says, it is not a form of CO2, it is a algaecide that can kill fish and plants. Chemicals used to sterilize surgical equipment has no place in a fish tank from where I'm sitting. 

If you're concerned about burning plants, increase the ammonia level back up to 2 ppm. It will be fine and keep the tank 'fed' which you need to do.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

I'm in total agreement about the chemicals. I've got a whole big box of different bottles I've used at various times to try to fix this tank. The other tank? Dechlorinator, that's it; it's algae-free, the plants are growing and my fish is healthy. I'm not about to dump stuff in to short-cut around underlying problems, I do want to do this right. It should be stable from the start, not balanced out by additives. I tend to find when you leave things balancing, sooner or later they fall over. The longer this has gone on, the more glad I am that the TDS was so screwed because as far as I was concerned, ammonia went in and then it's gone, so the tank's good to go. At least it's a now a problem I have all the time in the world to deal with.

Read a few articles there and SeaChem's tests seem to be regarded as the most accurate you can get for the hobbyist, so I've ordered the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate kits just to add to the mix.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

The only things I use in my tanks are Seachem Safe and ferts, I do have a bottle of Paraguard on hand, but I haven't used it in over a year. 

The nitrate / nitrite kit will make your life so much easier. It is one kit and super simple to use. When you get it, do a comparison to the other kits you've been using. I'm not a sales person for Seachem and make nothing recommending them, but once you get used of using their kits, you'll wonder why you spent time and money on other kits. 

As I said, the only thing you have to worry about is the trays. If you don't clean them, they will give you bad results. If I had a gripe with Seachem kits, that would be it and it isn't much of one. If I fail to clean a tray, that's my fault.


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

@Kanped I only recommended that too much ammonia can burn plants.



Maryland Guppy said:


> Here goes scaping tips!
> 4ppm of ammonia can cause burn to lots of plants.
> Cycling with plants at 1-2ppm may save your plants.


 @Kanped it was related to these high ammonia levels and cycling with plants.


Kanped said:


> Tested again today;
> Ammonia (API) = 4.0ppm
> Ammonia (Nurtifin) = 4.0ppm


 @Smooch I don't work for API, sorry for the aggravating humor.

Minimal ammonia dosing could go unnoticed with a healthy plant mass.

It has also been proven that archaea(single-celled microorganisms) can oxidize NH3 directly to NO3, passing the visibility of nitrites.

I don't have magic water, but maybe the future of those snake oil bacteria in a bottle solutions could evolve to a live colony of archaea.
That could expedite aquarium cycling to the utmost for many. 


Maryland Guppy said:


> There are two ways for this to happen.
> 
> #1 The right healthy plant mass can absorb nitrogen from NH3 or NH4.
> Heck people even dose urea which forms ammonium(NH4) and can be a direct uptake for plants.
> ...


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

No, that's definitely good advice regarding the ammonia; something I hadn't considered. Most of the things I have in there should be hardy enough but there's no reason to take a risk. I'm just concerned because when I dose to 2.0, I'm not getting nitrite or nitrates when the ammonia hits 0, as far as I can tell. I dosed higher and then I'm getting nitrite for the first time, so it seemed like the way to go but I don't want to risk the plants if I can avoid it. AOA may be a possible explanation but it seems unlikely; the only hold-overs from the old tank were the plants and I did wash them before adding them back in. I had 5 drops of ammonia (2.0ppm) vanish with no trace in 24 hours *before* adding the bacteria, so Dr. Tim's miracle claims probably don't account for it, either. If there was some way to test for the presence of AOA, I would definitely check it, though.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Your wonky nitrite readings are driving me crazy. I'm hoping the new test kits will solve that problem. Nitrites once they appear during a cycle shouldn't up and disappear like that. If anything, they should be growing in numbers. Same applies with nitrates. Unless you are doing water changes or messing with the tank somehow, those don't up and disappear either. 

If you think the plants can handle a little more than 2 ppm, you could try bumping it up to 3. Anubias and those types of plants can take a lot of abuse. If you have more delicate stems, then stick with 2. 

Any bacteria that was moved from one tank to the other from the plants isn't going to make that much of a difference. If you wanted to do that and actually get somewhere, you could take substrate from your other tank and move it to the 19L.. That would make a difference as there is tons of bacteria that lives on substrate. 

I apologize for not mentioning the substrate idea before. It would have made sense to suggest after the filter media idea. I have a sick rabbit that is going to the vet today. My brain isn't where it should be.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

I binned the substrate. Dropsy is no joke and I will probably never find out the cause for sure. Not work the risk IMO. Plus, big parts of it were black (started out a sandy cream colour), I guess from dead root structures. 

The anubias, java moss, Eleocharis acicularis and moss balls would all likely be fine. My vallis is fragile as it is; had to nurse it back from the brink a few times, but it's always come back. The Bacopa amplexicaulis and Lobelia cardinalis could be touch and go. They were doing OK before the breakdown but have seemed more fragile since. I'll play it safe until I get the air stone and go 100% RO; I think the higher oxygenation might actually be what makes the difference here but that's just a hunch, of course.

Good luck with your rabbit; hope things work out.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

What do you use for substrate in your other tank? What is it... a 30L? Your healthy tank. 

Thanks. We've had a round of what my vet calls 'cluster deaths' in the pet dept. 3 guinea pigs and the cat in less than a year. I was already salty about those and now the rabbit is acting up. I'm not feeling optimistic, but we'll see.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

It's a Dennerle Cube 30, it comes with substrate. 

It's dark, fine, inert gravel with plant nutrient-rich stuff in a separate layer underneath. Shrimp Gravel Black Sulawesi and DeponitMix nutrient medium.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

It would messy to do, but if you had enough new substrate left over, you could take some from the 30L and put it in the 19L. The new substrate would go to wherever you took it from in the 30L. The previous sentence makes sense in my head. Typing it makes it look like a gabbled mess. Hopefully you know what I mean.

Another option is to just use some of the gravel layer from the 30 and toss that into the 19L. You would still have to replace what you took from the 30 if that is what you decided to do.

I'm just running ideas up the flag pole. You may decide that this is far more work than what it is worth, but it is cycled media which would greatly help the 19. If you do decide to do it, make sure you do a water change on the 30. If you don't vacuum your substrate, you may find that you have a bigger mess on your hands than what was expected. Also, the 19 would have to still be fed ammonia until fully cycled.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

I didn't get to test yesterday; straight out after work and back late, so this is 48 hours after the previous test:

Ammonia (API) = 1.0ppm
Ammonia (Nutrifin) = 1.0ppm
Nitrite (API) = 0ppm
Nitrite (Salifert) = 0.1-0.25ppm
Nitrite (JBL) = 0ppm
Nitrates (JBL) = 10ppm
Nitrates (API) = 10-20ppm
Nitrates (Salifert) = 50ppm
TDS = 400

Yeah... so, I dunno. At least the Salifert tests are showing me acceptable numbers for all these things, even if the nitrite still seems low. No drop in ammonia might actually be a good thing; at least it's not disappearing without a trace. I'm thinking testing inaccuracies might be playing a bigger role here than I previously thought, though. 

Regardless, I'm thinking this is more the kind of numbers you would expect to see during a cycle. I'll get to the LFS tomorrow and pick up RO and an airstone and see how we go from there.

I really don't want to go digging substrate out of the other tank. It's kinda dense with stuff. The water sprite is fragile to handle but it's floating and takes up the whole surface area of the tank, about 2 inches thick with twisted leaves; I can brush it aside with a gravel vac for maintenance but any big work like that, it think I'd risk losing a fair chunk of it and it would be really awkward to do but more than anything, I don't want to disturb the tank at all too much, for whatever little the benefit it might bring.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

This is going to messy, but it's for comparison sake. I took out the test strip results. They're not helping anything.

5/24

Ammonia (API) = 1ppm
Ammonia (Salifert) = 1ppm
Nitrite (Salifert) = >0.25ppm
Nitrite (API) = 0ppm
Nitrates (API) = 10ppm
Nitrates (Salifert) = 10-25ppm 

5/26

Ammonia (API) = 1.0ppm
Ammonia (Nutrifin) = 1.0ppm
Nitrite (API) = 0ppm
Nitrite (Salifert) = 0.1-0.25ppm
Nitrates (API) = 10-20ppm
Nitrates (Salifert) = 50ppm
TDS = 400

There is stuff going on, although it is minimal. I'm not convinced that it is accurate though. That being said, I'm more inclined to believe the Salifert results if for no other reason than it is being consistent. The API tubes tend to get gunked up and sometimes that can throw results all over the place. Cleaning them may or may not help. Some people use vinegar, others just scrub them out with hot water. You can give it a try or not.

I don't have any other tricks up my sleeve in terms of how to jump start this cycle short of you getting your hands on some cycled filter media from somewhere and squeezing it into this tank. The more brown and gross it is, the better. 

Have you checked the expiration dates on the kits you are using? I know API prints those on the bottles themselves, I'm not sure about the Salifert. I haven't used one their test kits in years. My preferred back up when I don't have Seachem test kits is Nutrifin. They are impossible to find locally, so I have to rely on Amazon to send me them if they don't have Seachem test kits in stock.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

The kits are all in date as far as I know. Salifert doesn't have them on the box (maybe the powder doesn't expire) but they were bought in the last few months, can't see them going out this quick, if they ever do. The API ones are in date; Nov 2020. Not too worried about jump-starting it, as long as it actually goes well; no rush.

I've gotten an airstone and today did a large (>80%) water change with remineralized RO. I'm using Tropic Marin's Pro Discus Mineral. The ammonia was down to a trace and the nitrates seemed to have risen a little bit, but no nitrite before the WC. I've dosed the ammonia back to around 3.0ppm. Also got rid of a few plants that weren't doing so good and cleaned the others in the old tank water.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Sounds good. The waiting game continues...


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Oh, forgot to mention; TDS is 160, was 144 before I added it to the tank so after a few more water changes, that should be what it settles at unless there's something causing it to rise, but it hasn't been rising lately. Seems good to me.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

No worries. The increase is probably from the Tropic Marin's Pro Discus Mineral. Those kinds of increases are to be expected and shouldn't cause alarm. It is when the TDS skyrockets from low to high that the reason should be looked into.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Oh, it's it's 0 before the mineral goes in. It was 390 before the water change and while it was a big change, it wasn't 100%, so I imagine a little bit of whatever was in there before is still in there., I'll be doing another few changes before anything goes in there, anyway.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Things seem to be going OK. Just going to avg. the ammonia and stick to Salifert for the rest 

Ammonia: 1ppm
Nitrite: 0.25ppm
Nitrates: 10-25ppm

Bigger issue; TDS is at 210 now. Risen by about 50 overnight. Hopefully it stabilizes again and more water changes bring it down and keep it steady.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Are you keeping tabs on your test results? With water changes it skews things. Did the ammonia drop from 3 ppm yesterday or is the 1 ppm today from water changes? 

If you have been stirring things up in the tank, that could be creating a increase in TDS.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Yeah, the airstone floated off and I had to get it into a better position and use suction cups on the airline to keep it in place, so there was some movement in the tank. We'll see if it settles. 

The ammonia has gone from 3ppm yesterday to 1ppm today without a water change. I really don't know how accurate the ammonia reading on these tests is, in fairness. Still awaiting the arrival of the Salifert tests, should be next week some time, maybe as soon as tomorrow.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Ammonia is being processed. Cool! This is actual progress.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Seachem tests arrived, here's what they're showing:

Free ammonia: 0ppm
Total Ammonia: 0.2ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrates: 10ppm
TDS = 213 (very small rise, explained by evaporation)

All looking pretty consistent with the Salifert tests. IMO easier to read, though. Still no nitrite, which is unusual and it looks like the nitrates haven't risen while the ammonia has pretty much gone. I have been dosing ammonia for a while now (4 weeks, I think), so it's possibly just at that stage where the nitrite part of the cycle goes by quickly. Given that I saw it significantly only after a very large ammonia dose, I think it possibly makes sense that some nitrifying bacteria had developed but they couldn't cope with the 6.0 ammonia dose, and more developed or it took them longer to break it down than usual. Although, I would expect more nitrates at the end of the cycle. 3.0 ammonia to 0 and only 10ppm nitrates at the end of it seems low to me. 

Dosing back to 3.0 now; can't see any signs of damage on any of the plants from the last time.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Honestly, at this point I don't know what advice to give. Yesterday you had nitrites, today you don't. Your nitrate numbers shouldn't be decreasing unless you are still doing water changes. 

I can only speak from personal experience and I've never seen a cycle behave this way. It is always nitrites increase as does nitrates. Nitrites peak at around 3 weeks and by that time, nitrates are through the roof and the tank or filter is being fed 3-4 ppm of ammonia every other day. Within the last week is when the tank continues to be fed 3-4 ppm of ammonia and nitrites literally drop over night to zero. At that point, the tank is almost completely drained and filled. If I'm cycling a filter, I take it out and plunk it on a tank. Whatever bucket I used is drained, cleaned and stuck back in the closet.

I'm not willing to say whether the tank is cycled or not. I don't want the responsibility of possibly hurting or killing something for a tank that may or may not be ready. The Dr.Tim's stuff is supposed to work in a week. I don't know if that has a expiration date. I also don't know if chemical ammonia could do anything to a product like that. I'm completely useless at this point because nothing makes sense, at least in my mind it doesn't.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Well, the Salifert tests can be tricky to read at lower values; the water stays very translucent and the light you apply to it can drastically change the reading. Me saying 0.25 is basicaly 'it looks kinda pinkish, if the light catches it. It's definitely pinker than it was before I added the powder... I think'. API and JBL were both saying it was at 0. We should more know by the time it hits 0 again. 

Before that last water change, it had 6.0ppm ammonia go to 0 and about 50ppm nitrates, as best as I could tell from the tests. Despite the oddness in the middle of all that, the overall values in that sense seem OK to me. We're at 10ppm nitrates and 3.0ppm ammonia; I'd say if I get to 0 ammonia with a sizable increase in nitrates, it's likely safe enough. 

Once I'm happy with where the TDS is at, I'll add a conservative number of shrimp and continue with daily tests. If the ammonia ever goes above 0.25 (dozen shrimp in a 5.5g? that would take a while even in an uncycled tank), I'll do a 25% water change and carry on like I would with a fish-in cycle. If it all stays good, I can add more shrimp later.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

I don't keep inverts anymore, but when I did, I always made sure they went into a established tank. Shrimp like to graze on biofilm and other things. I've never tried keeping them in a tank that hadn't been or may not have been cycled.

If you do decide to go that way, my advice would be make sure you test daily and if there is any hint of ammonia, do daily water changes until it comes up zero with consistency.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Lots of people seem to think neocardinals are bulletproof but I heard a lot of the same with betta and I don't like the 'They can live in X conditions' arguements. Sure, they can; but what you really mean is 'they might'. In saying that, they're hardy and adaptable, there's a good bit of debris in there for them to graze on and I have food if needed

I decided to test the healthy tank with the Seachem tests; 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0.4 nitrates (other tests were never sensitive enough to pick that up). 
Last water change was 30% 3 weeks and 3 days ago; the tank's been running just over a year in total. It seems to have been like that after about 2 months of a fish-in cycle (daily water changes at 0.25 ammonia, gradually decreasing); nothing ever goes up. I never got any measurable nitrite or nitrates in there. Maybe there's something weird with my water. I'm in Ireland, within a few miles of the reservoir (I walk the dog round it) and I have no idea what kind of treatment the water board does. I know they don't add ammonia because I asked but other than that, it's a mystery. 

I think go 100% RO from day one next time I set up a tank; fishless cycle, no prime, no Dr. Tim's, no plants, no tap water; pure H20 and pure ammonia.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

How are your plants doing in the healthy tank with nitrates that low? I love the Seachem test kits because they are that sensitive. 

I'm uber anal about clean water and clean tanks. I stock my tanks light, keep a low TDS, dose lean ferts and pile in the plants. I just finished doing weekly changes. Testing the 40B barely made a difference in terms of water quality, but I did it anyway. The 10 gallon had some plants that needed to go, so I pulled them and replaced with new plants that were ready to go from the emersed tank. 

Fish and plants are happy. Tomorrow we're going to make the trip to our healthy fish store to see what they have. It has been almost 2 years since we've been there last. We're long over due for at least a visit.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Ah, happy days; have fun. 

The plants in the 30L are very undemanding.
The water sprite just grows and grows, needs pruned all the time. Takes over the whole surface of the tank and the roots grow down to the substrate unless it's trimmed regularly. It does block a lot of light from the rest of the tank, but the fish likes it like that and he's the priority in there. Any little bit of damage and that stalk just dies off, though. If I'm rough with the gravel vac, it'll brown and die off where it's gotten knocked, then grow back in a day or two. Or if the betta attacks it. He's kinda like that. 

Anubias doesn't do much and doesn't need much. Very slow growing, but I still get some new leaves now and then.

I added some Nymphoides Taiwan a while ago and they grew very quickly in the beginning but doesn't seem to be developing much any more; still green and healthy as far as I can tell.

The vallis is much the same; doesn't seem to grow very much but doesn't seem to be suffering for it, either; still green and healthy looking.

I've got some EasyLife carbo and ferro I could try out, as well as dennerle root tabs but I've never really felt like it needed it. Maybe worth a try to see if I can get some more growth out of the nymphs and vallis.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

I love my healthy fish store. Problem is they are family owned and only have one store that is a half hour away on no traffic days. I've spent the past 8 or so years trying to convince them to open a store closer to me and they haven't done it yet. LOL Their tanks are spotless, not overstocked, no fish with deformed gill plates and it doesn't stink like a swamp like all of the local chain stores.

I'm not telling you what to do, but be gentle with the root tabs. They leech nutrients into the water column and since you don't have demanding plants, there is a chance that your tank will become overdosed for lack of a better word. Anubias feed from the water column, so they're easy to please.

I looked up Nymphoides Taiwan as I didn't know what it was. Tropica is pretty good about giving information without writing a wall of text. Here is what I found if you're interested Nymphoides hydrophylla 'Taiwan' - Tropica Aquarium Plants 

Bumping up nitrates a bit might help. As a FYI, it is a myth that root feeders need root tabs. They do fine taking ferts through the water column as long as they are not planted too deep. You would know if they were as they would die eventually.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Well, it continues:

Free Ammonia: 0ppm
Total Ammonia: 0.5ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrates: 10-20ppm
Nitrates (Salifert): 25ppm
TDS: 222 (another slight rise)

I mean... yeah. Barely any nitrates rise and 2.5ppm ammonia gone.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Have you tried testing this tank with the Seachem test?


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

That is the Seachem test


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Alright, well then it is up to you to make a judgement call at this point. I still think it is weird that nitrates are hanging where they with that much ammonia going in. That said, if that is the only sticking point, water changes will fix it. 19 liters if my conversion chart is correct is just over 5 gallons. Then you take away from that due to substrate, plants, ect... and you're left with a tiny bit of water. 25 ppm nitrates is definitely too high for that tank. 

In your healthy tank, you mentioned you have water sprite. There are plants in this hobby that act like nitrate sponges. People even put the roots of certain house plants in their tanks which in turn act like nitrate filters. One of most common plants used for this is a pothos or Devil's Ivy. I have big pots of them all over my house, but not in my tanks. My nitrates max out between 10-20 ppm, most of that is from dosing ferts which I do once a week at half the recommended single dose. They drop to almost nothing after a water change. Floating plants are also good nitrate busters, although some are less of a pest than others. Never put duckweed in your tanks. It will remain a unwanted 'house guest' for a long time.

I've got nothing else leaping out me and anything else that comes to mind is theory, so I won't bother. Your TDS meter is suggesting something going on. I don't know what it is.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

I'm not quite getting something here. PPM is parts per million. How does the size of the tank come into play? 25ppm in a 5g is way less actual nitrates than 25ppm in a 120g. 
If it's OK for one, it should be OK for all, surely?


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

It has to do with volume of water. The smaller the tank, the higher risk for problems to develop. I'm not being critical of small tanks, it's just how it is. It would take a lot for a big tank to reach that level of nitrates assuming it wasn't overstocked, fish were not overfed, tank was maintained, ect.. It wouldn't take much of anything for a small tank to reach that level. Overfeeding for a couple of days could make that happen in a small tank, especially if pellets or wafers are used. They are nutrient packed unlike flakes which feed the fish, but they are not nearly as dense.

You could definitely play around with this if you wanted to. Keep one tank at a lower nitrate level while keeping another at a higher level. Be careful though. Too much free nitrogen in the tank without plants to soak up the excess will cause problems.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Ah, yes. In fairness, the nitrates that have come about through fairly heavy ammonium chloride dosing. There's no way I'm ever letting that tank get to anything close to 3.0ppm ammonia! I tend to water change at 0.25ppm, or fortnightly, whatever comes first but even then, I can't see it getting that high. The ammonia I'm adding is dropping rapidly, whatever process is at work. It's at least consistent with what I had seen with the 30L tank, and the last setup with this one, so I'm expecting to get the same kind of levels I was getting with those (basically 0 on everything consistently). I won't be taking that for granted; it'll be daily testing for a long time. Of course, that last setup before the breakdown had a lot of problems but so far since adding the airstone, I haven't seen that hair growth making a comeback and I'm actually measuring the TDS this time. There's no way for me to prove it but since I got those 600+ readings, I really suspect that is what killed my betta.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

It could be the air stone is creating current which is allowing your filter to work better which is always a good thing.

The water from my tap last time I checked was close to 400. Even if it wasn't full of lead and all kinds of nasty things, I still wouldn't use it. I won't even cook with it anymore. It is fine to take a shower in and do laundry with, but that is the extent of it.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Yeah, I think even just the surface agitation it's providing is really helpful; the old setup was really bad for thick biofilm (creating low oxygen) and none can form now. My tap water's actually pretty good; 160 TDS, trace aluminium, iron and manganese. Relatively low chlorine (0.15ppm), 7.6 pH. 

This tank may be actually trolling me...

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0.02ppm
Nitrates: 15ppm
TDS: 225 (very minor rise, more evaporation probably)

Yeah, so the nitrite test went pink in a very minor but definitely noticeable way. So, there's nitrite tonight from that 0.5ppm of ammonia that was left, where none was produced by the rest of the 2.5ppm. Well... yeah. Ammonia's gone, still no hair growth, that's good.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

There are a few exceptions where things happen fast in this hobby and none of them are good. 

As for you being trolled by your tank, I'd rather see it now than when there is shrimp in there. The question is, will it become a trend. I'm still scratching my head over how you were getting nitrite readings before only to have them disappear the next day. That is a first time I've ever seen that.

Just keep doing what you're doing. I'm hoping that things will be straight forward from this moment on, but who knows.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Took a sample to the LFS and had them run some tests. They use API, Salifert and JBL. The Seachem and Hagen tests are mine but the samples were taken at the same time.

Ammonia
API: 1.0ppm
Hagen: 0.6ppm
Seachem: 0.2ppm
Salifert: 0ppm

Nitrates
Seachem: 25ppm
JBL: 10ppm
API: 5ppm
Seachem: 2ppm

The nitrite was 0 on everything. They've no idea, either. Also, after previously dropping like a stone consistently, my ammonia doesn't seem to be going down any more. 

They recommended a big water change and see what happens from there.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

That's a big hot mess. Which one was the Seachem nitrate test as you have it listed twice.

When ammonia stops dropping, there is a problem. Under normal circumstances, a small water change will help to 'reset' a stuck cycle, but yours never got to that stuck point. It starts to ramp up, then it crashes and the process has been to started all over again. 

The only thing I can think of to prevent that is not to allow the ammonia to drop below 1 ppm until nitrites peak and then disappear out of sight taking the ammonia with it. You can certainly do a water change if you want to.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Seachem was 25ppm. 
Salifert was 2ppm.


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

Thought I'd come back for an update on this. I decided to add a single amano shrimp just to make sure he'd do alright for a few weeks before trying to put a colony together. He managed to get out somehow, a lot of the plants died and the algae took over the whole tank. 

I gave up on it, got a new, bigger tank, built some reinforcements for the table and set it up. It cycled normally, no weird algae or TDS issues, using bottled bacteria and 100% remineralized RO and is currently home to a dozen black neon tetra. I'm very happy with it;


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

That's pretty normal amano behavior if they don't like the water parameters.... plenty of stories about finding amanos 10, 20 or even 30+ feet away from the aquarium! Some are lucky and found alive, if not covered in dust and gunk... where-as others have shriveled up...


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## Kanped (Dec 3, 2016)

I never found him; the tank's dry with nothing in it and I didn't come across him while emptying it. I do have a yorkshire terrior, though. I've heard those stories, too.


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