I am having trouble cycling my tank. I know I've made a lot of mistakes, I'm just trying to get it back on track.
Any help is sincerely appreciated. I have a 20 gallon tank, had 4 glo tetras, 1 betta, 3 dwarf frogs, and 2 snails. Everything was fine except ammonia. Got a liquid organic starter by Prime, and water stabilizer by prime. Used distilled water to set up initially. I had a wrap on my filter to keep the frogs from getting sucked up. I took that off, on the advice of the person at the pet store, trying to increase filtration. I now realize that had my organic bacteria in it. I also mistakenly rinsed the filter in tap water. So I think I killed all my bacteria. By betta's fins rotted off and he died. I've been doing 25% water changes daily for four days, added ammonia reducer, and been adding the prime stability organic started, still no change in ammonia, off the charts. I know it takes a while to cycle and now I have to effectively cycle again. My 4 tetras seem okay, as do my frogs. Yesterday one snail died, today the other did. I also have a bunch of ghost shrimp, cause I was of the mistaken impression that they reduce ammonia. I was thinking of sticking a sponge in the filter to try and help the bacteria grow. Should I reduce the number of fish or shrimp at this point. They are alive but I don't want anything else to die, particularly the frogs. I don't have a spare tank to pull anything out accept a small betta bowl with 1 betta. I don't know if the frogs could survive in there for a while or not. I was considering pulling everything out and replacing all the water with distilled and treated water except not rinsing the filter. Or, like I said, sticking a sponge in and leaving it alone. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Any help is sincerely appreciated. I have a 20 gallon tank, had 4 glo tetras, 1 betta, 3 dwarf frogs, and 2 snails. Everything was fine except ammonia. Got a liquid organic starter by Prime, and water stabilizer by prime. Used distilled water to set up initially. I had a wrap on my filter to keep the frogs from getting sucked up. I took that off, on the advice of the person at the pet store, trying to increase filtration. I now realize that had my organic bacteria in it. I also mistakenly rinsed the filter in tap water. So I think I killed all my bacteria. By betta's fins rotted off and he died. I've been doing 25% water changes daily for four days, added ammonia reducer, and been adding the prime stability organic started, still no change in ammonia, off the charts. I know it takes a while to cycle and now I have to effectively cycle again. My 4 tetras seem okay, as do my frogs. Yesterday one snail died, today the other did. I also have a bunch of ghost shrimp, cause I was of the mistaken impression that they reduce ammonia. I was thinking of sticking a sponge in the filter to try and help the bacteria grow. Should I reduce the number of fish or shrimp at this point. They are alive but I don't want anything else to die, particularly the frogs. I don't have a spare tank to pull anything out accept a small betta bowl with 1 betta. I don't know if the frogs could survive in there for a while or not. I was considering pulling everything out and replacing all the water with distilled and treated water except not rinsing the filter. Or, like I said, sticking a sponge in and leaving it alone. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
