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To go straight to qualifying week, one needs to be testing from the first day and adding a set amount of ammonia every day. On the other hand, skipping the qualifying week can be as dangerous as fish-in cycling to the fish as bacteria can be tempremental with fluctuating water parameters. The...

What is the salinity in the tank now? What type of salt did you use? Can you list all your fish by species and number? You could be losing *some* of the fish because of the salt, as some of the species you mention do not tolerate salt. What maintenance do you do? (Usual and special for the...

The easiest thing to do is remove the Betta, filter and heater to a bucket, then change the substrate, and finish off by moving the fish and equipment back to the tank. If you really cannot remove the fish for a little while, then remove the gravel with a fish net (be careful not to damage the...

In "fishkeeper" terms, you seeded (added media from an established filter) the new filter and now you are feeding the bacteria (ammonia is food for nitrifying bacteria). The basic idea is completely right, but I can suggest a few improvements… Firstly, you can use pure household ammonia instead...

My answer to your questions is always "until the filter is processing the right amount of ammonia for 7 days, giving your 0 ppm ammonia and nitrite readings for those 7 days". The *last* filter that I fish-less cycled took around 6 weeks including qualifying period. From what I have observed...

Unless both filters have identically flows in practice (not just identical ratings), then one pump is likely to be stressed more than it would normally be, which will increase the chance of at least that pump (and maybe both) braking sooner rather than later.

The tank is looking much better now :good: No, you do not have a pH problem, although your KH may be low. The wood and rock are affecting your pH, and will cause it to change. pH will also change throughout the day, so you should aim to test it at the same time every day. p.s. would you mind...

I think I read somewhere that Ace should stock it, you might want to call up beforehand and ask about it. You should be able to use it for your tropical fish, as long as you feed them a varied diet (which they would benefit from anyway). For example, if you have only tropical and goldfish...

Yes, but it is quite expensive, you cannot control the amount of ammonia going in and it can take days for it to start showing up. Also, you would likely need to do a number of vacuums unless you have a bare-bottom tank for cycling. If you do not use household ammonia, then frozen prawns would...

As Bignose said, it is unlikely that the *whole* culture had died off, but between the three days and the chlorine, I would estimate that you have around 10% of the culture still alive (die off from lack of food is estimated at 50% per day). So based purely on food, on day 2, the filter would...

Do you have KH and GH test kits? If not, it would be well worth investing in them, with your water! Large water change is fine… but you obviously need to take the extra precautions and treat it like acclimatisation. In other words, you're probably going to have to drip the new water into the...

Which one would you like? I will PM you soon with more information!

It should be ok then. I still do wonder what it actually is… might be worth asking next time you visit your LPS! As long as it is a liquid kit and contains tests for at least ammonia, nitrite and pH, then it is good. I have never used the Interpet ones myself.

That tank is a good step forward. In case you did not know, you will need to move all old media from the old goldfish filter to the new one or at least run both filters in parallel for at least 4 weeks, and preferably for 6+.

A DIY shop or something similar: I paid around 10 GBP for 80+ litres of sand from B&Q and Homebase, instead of the closer to 100 GBP that I would have spent at an LFS.

If you want just sand, then any is fine. I have used white play sand, plain play sand, "sharp" play sand, last time I actually went for sharp sand instead of play sand because it was no different from the sharp play sand and for plastering sand because I wanted the substrate to look redder and...

I'm seeing rams and tetras in your tank, the first do not tolerate salt at all, and the latter not that well. Also, salt does not *really* provide the right kind of hardness and the solution would need to be long term *if* I am correct about the cause. Do you know how old the fish is? Were...

Can you do an acid test on the rock? Take it out, dry a patch off, then put some vinegar on it and watch to see if the vinegar dissolves the rock (you might see some bubbling going on). Anubias don't look *that* much different, A. hastifolia should get bigger over time, while the others should...

If there is absolutely nothing else wrong, then it could be the soft water… normally, I would expect it to be some time before it starts affecting the fish, but from what I have seen it is more important for females than males.

I'm interested, I used to have some growing beautifully, but it didn't survive moving country :( how much would the postage be?

Yeah, they are… did you hear that they're going up again at the end of April? A first class *normal* letter will be 60p!

Did you fish-less cycle the filter with household ammonia? If not, please do. This usually takes 4-6+ weeks, but a fish-in cycle (which is what most new people do) is much more stressful and can take much longer. You can speed up either method of cycling by asking one of the media donors for...

Water parameters? Set-up information?

Filters should be cleaned in old tank water, never under tap water, and the water does not contain a significant amount of bacteria, so water change size is not the issue from this point of view. It is recommended that one does not do large water changes irregularly because fast changes in...

Hi, the bags are usually 1 GBP each, postage will be at cost. I think the probably weigh around 100 g, so first class postage should be £1.96… I *might* be able to get it sent as a large letter, so could be as low as £1.09 for the postage. Packaging will be around 36p for a small padded envelope...

My experience is very different from what your LFS recommended: if there are enough per species to form schools, the different Cory species will not even mix together. It is pretty much a solid fact that all Corys are schooling or shoaling species… fish are aware of others of their own species...

Most likely you just have not seen the fry. After a female mates with a male, she will continue to drop fry for the next 3-9 months even if she does not mate again. It is also very unlikely that the males have not mated with that specific female. If she is old, she may be too old to breed, but I...

Any dechlorinator will do the job. What you are most likely seeing is chloramine being converted into ammonia by the dechlorinator and then a mild bacterial bloom. If this is the case, I recommend that you use only dechlorinators which claim to "deal" with ammonia, such as API Stress Coat or...

We really need the exact dimensions to give accurate advice, but assuming the tank is a 3 ft and she has soft to neutral water, then… For me, this would be an absolute no because they are hard water fish and do not do that well in softer water in the long term. Also, guppy tales in front of...

I can get some for you from my LFS, how much are you after?

What type of filter is the media for?

They are probably eating algae off of it.

My mother-in-law will be down in Bury St. Edmunds next Tuesday, she might be willing to take some down for you. I also sell plants, so you might be interested in getting a few of those at the same time (assuming that with cycled media you are going more for a slow stocking as opposed to...

I meant more that since the content of the messages is not reviewed before someone is upgraded to the PM-able group at 10 posts, an automated spam bot can post 10 posts to even the time-restricted forums in 5 minutes and when I have reported spam, it has sometimes taken a lot longer than that...

Ammonia in various forms is one of the things that can trigger diatoms. Some plant fertilisers that increase nitrate contain some sort of ammonia instead of actual nitrate. Root tabs are *usually* just minerals, but it's worth checking to be sure that they are not a source of ammonia.

That looks like diatoms to me. In my experience and from what I understand, they are related to ammonia in the water, what are your water parameters? Even unreadable ammonia will make them come up as well, so water parameters might not indicate the cause. ProFito and EasyCarbo are not...

Since one of the first things that I would expect a new member with an uncycled filter emergency to do is contact their local media donor, would it make sense to reduce the minimum post number to somewhere in the 1-5 region? After all, a spammer can make 10 posts in a row just as easily as 1-5...

I used to have a 980 and on the side with the filter pump, there was a hole in the back. If I removed the pump, then I could fit an external outlet and inlet pipes, would this work for your tank? You would need to move all the media from the old filter to the new filter when you swap them.

I'm not really sure what you're on about with the "bubble mist" as I've never seen anything like that… but if you want finer bubbles from an airstone, you just need to get a finer airstone. I think the wooden ones are usually finer that the "stone" ones.

I recommend that you stop adding ammonia or reduce the rate at which you do until nitrites start to drop or you will not be able to monitor the nitrite readings and when they start dropping quickly, the likelihood of a pH crash (which may lead to a cycle stall) will be higher.