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29 Gallon Upgrade

I just tested and Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate are all 0. Now what I want to do before I add fish is test out the cycle. According to the Aquarium Calculator, 1.16 ml of ammonia will give me 1 ppm in my 29 gallon. So I want to add that gradually over the day and then test for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates 24 hours later.
 
sharkweek178 said:
I just tested and Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate are all 0. Now what I want to do before I add fish is test out the cycle. According to the Aquarium Calculator, 1.16 ml of ammonia will give me 1 ppm in my 29 gallon. So I want to add that gradually over the day and then test for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates 24 hours later.
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I would never do this--add ammonia to a planted tank. If those plants are growing, they are without doubt taking up most of the ammonia. Ammonia does harm plants, and some plants will suffer with levels of 1 ppm. There is no reason to check the cycle.
 
Byron said:
I would never do this--add ammonia to a planted tank. If those plants are growing, they are without doubt taking up most of the ammonia. Ammonia does harm plants, and some plants will suffer with levels of 1 ppm. There is no reason to check the cycle.
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Thanks for the advice.
 
I decided that I would rather have MTS in the tank and the bladder snails are reproducing fast. So I added a couple of assassin snails yesterday. I can move them to another tank after they do their job and then add the MTS.
 
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Yesterday I went to Elmer's Aquariums, the largest LFS in the Pittsburgh area, and picked up a dozen pygmy corys and a dozen neon tetras. Since it's winter, I took a styrofoam cooler with me to keep them in for the trip back. I added them to this tank last night. Since no other fish are in the tank, this will act as the quarantine tank. I'll watch them for a month and if I don't see any signs of disease, I'll add my honey gourami to the tank.
Their behavior is already interesting to watch. I turned the tank lights down. I didn't want them to be in complete darkness (until bedtime) but I didn't want to have the lights at their regular level until they got a little more acclimated. The corys started exploring the tank immediately. The neons mostly hid except for a couple who stayed out but were drained of their color. Over time, the color came back and even more interesting, the ones that hid started coming out and schooling up with the others until they all came out. Some of the pygmys even schooled with the neons.
 
A bit of a frantic morning for the neons. They've been engaged in chasing and "dancing" behavior. Which I understand is normal for neons in the early part of the day. I don't think it's a serious level of aggression. And I think they're trying to establish a hierarchy in their new home. The pygmys have been exploring in among the plants and driftwood. I don't have much flow in the tank. But there's a little in the back right corner where the outflow from the filter is directed. Sometimes I see the pygmys playing in the current there.
 
sharkweek178 said:
A bit of a frantic morning for the neons. They've been engaged in chasing and "dancing" behavior. Which I understand is normal for neons in the early part of the day. I don't think it's a serious level of aggression. And I think they're trying to establish a hierarchy in their new home. The pygmys have been exploring in among the plants and driftwood. I don't have much flow in the tank. But there's a little in the back right corner where the outflow from the filter is directed. Sometimes I see the pygmys playing in the current there.
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This sounds fine. You have decent numbers of both species so the neon behaviour is certainly normal, good, and very unlikely to result in any detrimental aggression.

The water movement is probably fine for both species.
 
Byron said:
This sounds fine. You have decent numbers of both species so the neon behaviour is certainly normal, good, and very unlikely to result in any detrimental aggression.

The water movement is probably fine for both species.
Click to expand...
I was thinking of the honey gourami when I set up for the water movement. I have the same set up in the 10 gallon he's currently in and he gets around ok in there. I never see him struggling to swim or caught in a current. I swear by the water bottle trick for HOB filters.
I had remembered our earlier discussion about corys and how you pointed out that pandas needed a current. So I did some research and found three kinds of corys were suited for low flow tanks; pygmy, salt and pepper, and sterbai. Sterbais are a little too big for what I need. I picked pygmys because they're small enough to have an adequate shoal without adding too much to the bioload of the tank. And their behavior looked interesting.
 
When I was at the store, I counted the corys in the bag. I had asked and paid for a dozen but they gave me 13. So I returned one. I couldn't count the neons because they were moving around too much. After I got home, at some point, I realized they had given me 13 neons too. But it's not like I was going to take one back.
Just as well because I found one of the neons dead on Saturday. I'm not sure why it died. Maybe stress. The rest seem ok. I'm just glad that I still have 12. I counted several times to make sure.
The corys are hiding a lot. I checked at night and they seemed to come out more then. Not too worried about that. I know they hide for a while at first. I'll probably feed them at night after lights out.
 
It can take pygmy cories days, sometimes I've seen weeks, to settle in. Wouldn't worry. I would have kept the 13th though, since you had them.
 
Here's the tank with the new inhabitants.


20230205_133357.jpg
 
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