# PetsMart just called ......



## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

The anacharis plants I ordered two weeks ago just came in. I just left with 3 bunches of that and while at it, bought a wisteria plant about 6-7 inches tall and two small bunches of dwarf anubias plants.

Just got through planting them and doing a water change while at it. Now, is there anything I should be concerned about ? Do I need to get any type of plant food/fertilizer and anything else I may need to know about live plants. Have never had live plants before so this is a first too. Tank is just now going through it's cycle and is in what I hope, about the middle of the nitrite cycle.


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## TypeYourTextHere (Apr 20, 2011)

All you really need to do with those plants is make sure they get enough light and be sure to trim them when the get really long and plant the trimmings. They will also grow like crazy if you dose the tank. Mine do.


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

Thanks, everything I read up on or heard on the forum led me to believe these would probably be easy plants for a beginner tank. Looks really good now that I've got them set in the gravel, just did not know if I needed some every now and then fertilizer or plant food for them, or if they got what they needed from the water.


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

Here's my little tank with live plants in place.... Can't wait for it to finish cycling so I can add a couple more residents slowly at a time to the tank.


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## Rob72 (Apr 2, 2011)

tank looks good, i would gets some ferts, to add to it though to help them out better


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

What's a fert ? could that be ferns ? I'll have to special order whatever, PetsMart and PetCo don't carry anything unless you order it, so what exactly would a name of the plant be to tell them to get for me ?


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## Rob72 (Apr 2, 2011)

ferts, as in plant food, i use leaf zone and seachem plant good, petsmart carries both of them in stock on the shelf, i use seachem 2 times a week and leaf zone 2 time a week every other day a cap full in the smaller tanks, the big tanks i use dry ferts


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## Summer (Oct 3, 2011)

looks good!


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

Great Rob72..... as you can see, I'm hearing new words daily around here...... LOL

I'll be getting me some "ferts" in the next couple days. Now on to another question.

I just did a complete API water test of all chemicals. Results are:

pH = 7.6
High range pH = 7.4
Ammonia = 0.25
Nitrites = 5.0 +..... (Color purple in test tube is deeper than the chart goes to.)
Nitrate= 5.0 (first time seeing any rise in this)

With my Nitrates now beginning to show a number finally, does this mean the cycle is now moving on to this level and with a Nitrate level now beginning to show, will this eventually start a decrease in the high Nitrite levels I am seeing ?


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Looks good, bad news is the green and white striped plant isn't aquatic.


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

susankat, that's not bad news because someone else had told me that a couple of weeks ago when I bought like 30$ worth of the only plants PetsMart kept on hand in little plastic tubes, but everything I bought then has been in the tank now for 2 weeks. 

When I got home today with all the plants I had ordered, stripped all the plants bought 2 weeks ago. None of them seemed sick or wilting or anything, but I kept all them out with the exception of this one you mentioned. The reason I put it back in was because the roots had really appeared to have grown and entangled themselves in the gravel and the plant was still looking hearty and healthy..... ? ? ? Figured I'd watch it closely at the least....... 
.


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## drzoom (Dec 10, 2011)

Regarding your chemistry question, you are in the second phase of the cycle and it might take a long while to complete. Mine took > 4 weeks after I reached the stage that you're at now. Adding Tetra SafeStart seemed to help a lot, so I'd recommend doing that. If you have any fish in there, you need to do a large 50% or greater water change immediately to prevent injury to your fish. Adding aquarium salt also helps. 

The aquarium is looking great btw!


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

drzoom, thanks a lot. When I was at the store buy my plants this morning, I picked up a dang bottle of Tetra safe start and was reading the label, but put it back on the shelf when I saw it was almost 15$ for a 2oz bottle (kicking myself now that I find it's been recommended and not buying it.....), anyhow, this is day 4 in the nitrite color being deeper purple than the chart goes, and it also day 4 that I've done a 50% water change daily, so I'll stay up with that and hopefully my 2 little bulletproof fish so far will survive until Christmas is over and the stores open again and I can go ahead and spend that 15$....... LOL


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

Just found out PetCo is open so I'm off to buy a bottle of Tetra Safe Start, nitrites are still off the chart this morning. Let me ask this real quick too. With my filter system I bought 2 weeks ago from suggestions on here, I have the 3 stage media stacked with the foam pad at the bottom, the middle is a little packaged sack of ammonia remover (for when I had bad ammonia problems), the top is the little sack of ceramic rings. 

The middle (2nd) stage where I have the ammonia pellets is originally where a little sack of carbon should go according to the directions, if I removed the ammonia pellets now and replaced that area with a second foam filter, would that help or hurt anything ?


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## drzoom (Dec 10, 2011)

I doubt that replacing the ammonia absorbing material with active carbon would hurt anything related to the cycling. The SafeStart stuff isn't necessary, but will help. So don't feel compelled to use since it's pretty expensive. As long as you can keep the nitrites pretty low with water changes, you should be ok. BTW, if you're still reading 5+ ppm, you really need a much larger water change to get you to a reasonable range. Good luck!


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

OK, Christmas morning and here's where I spent my time..... As per a few suggestions and a throwing in a couple of "just because I didn't know any betters", here's where I'm at....... I checked levels this morning and nitrites were still off the scale, so I got my all too familiar tools together once again and did a 90% water change this time.

While the tank was down to 10%, I took my filter configuration apart and left the original foam in the bottom level, moved the ceramic disc bag to the middle level and installed a new foam filter into the top level, completely doing away with the ammonia pellet bag that had been in the middle. Didn't figure it was necessary to have the charcoal bag, so that's why opted for the second foam pad to help keep extra bacteria going when it gets broke in with the water flowing up to it from the other two that have been in the tank for 3 weeks now.or 

I used RO water to refill the tank and with no scientific calculations, mixed in 3 drinking glasses of tap water per gallon of RO water for all the minerals and junk the tap water has in it that the RO took out. Once full and for kicks and grins, I added 4oz from an 8oz bottle of Tetra Safe Start chemical to the tank along with a tablespoon of aquarium salt. 

Don't feel bad about letting me know if I did something wrong or something I shouldn't have done, I'm all about learning and so far, most lessons have been learned the hard way from doing things I shouldn't have done......


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## drzoom (Dec 10, 2011)

Everything sounds ok but I forgot about why you needed RO water. I hope that you added some dechlorinator too for the tap water. You shouldn't need to have that carbon layer. Now, check your chemistry to confirm that the levels are good every day and do water changes as needed. And don't be surprised if things just magically clear up in a couple of days! Merry X'mas.


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

drzoom, yeah definitely I used a dechlorinator and the reason I'm using RO now is because my tap water registers in a green level between 4.0 and 8.0ppm. Yesterday before my 90% change this morning, my ammonia was almost non-existent, just barely turned a faint shade of green, maybe not even quite 0.25ppm....... after the waterchange today and adding the 3 glass fulls of tap to each RO gallon, I'm now showing about 1.0ppm on ammonia but VICTORY for right now, my nitrite has gone from off the chart to about a 0.25ppm.

I think any time I use tap water, I'm going to get the ammonia spike because of the level it comes out of the tap at ....... Beats me ? ? ?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Ammonia removers, even those in a bag, are not good to use during a cycling period. They may have some use later if by chance you get a spike for some reason. The use of any chemicals during the cycle can cause it to stall. Ammonia drives the cycle and makes everything occur.


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

jrman83, That bag is out of the filter now, just did a second test of the water from doing the 90% change this morning + adding 4oz of Tetra Safe Start this morning. Ammonia this morning after the change and refill was 1.0ppm ammonia, now 12 hours later it just checked 0.25ppm ammonia.

Nitrites have been off the scale for 4 days, again with the 90% change and Safe Start added this morning test showed 0.25ppm for nitrites. Now again 12 hours later, the test showed 0ppm...... Nitrates just checked and show 5.0ppm...... I sure hope I'm on the downhill slide with this thing but still expect a bomb to go off at any moment due to the poor luck I've had over the past 10-12 weeks......


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## drzoom (Dec 10, 2011)

I have a feeling that you'll wake up tomorrow with a cycled tank *w3 Check it again and if ammonia is 0 (many see a false-positive of 0.25ppm btw) and nitrites are 0, you're done!


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## rico334 (Dec 3, 2011)

I'd certainly welcome a day late Christmas gift with a cycled tank...... Thanks for all yours and the others who have helped get me here !!!!


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Personally, I think doing a water change that large was a bad idea. Yeah, it got it down and there is probably enough of the bacteria that has produced to handle .25ppm and it may have pushed the tank to the point that it appears to have cycled. The believers in the safestart stuff will probably believe it was that product that got you there, but the truth is you were so close already.


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## nimrod 1 (Dec 28, 2011)

Im new here and in fact this is my first post, I tend to agree with jrman83. I don,t see the need for doing large water changes during the nitrogen cycle. I had fish tanks for over twenty years and I'm just starting to get back into them. We used to just put a couple of inexpensive fish in the tank to get the cycle going and just let it run it's course. All those peramiters are suppose to spike until the bacteria gets a foot hold. Its been a few years since I had a fish tank but that is how I remember it. I'm glad it worked out for you, but it seems like you did a lot of xtra work that could have been avoided. Just my opionion.


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## beaslbob (May 29, 2009)

rico334 said:


> jrman83, That bag is out of the filter now, just did a second test of the water from doing the 90% change this morning + adding 4oz of Tetra Safe Start this morning. Ammonia this morning after the change and refill was 1.0ppm ammonia, now 12 hours later it just checked 0.25ppm ammonia.
> 
> Nitrites have been off the scale for 4 days, again with the 90% change and Safe Start added this morning test showed 0.25ppm for nitrites. Now again 12 hours later, the test showed 0ppm...... Nitrates just checked and show 5.0ppm...... I sure hope I'm on the downhill slide with this thing but still expect a bomb to go off at any moment due *to the poor luck I've had over the past 10-12 weeks...*...


Your "luck" will change now that you got the plants in there. Just let them do their job.


my .02


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