Nezareth
Community Member
Okay. Long story short.
I have been cycling my 20 gallon AOI JBJ CUBEY saltwater fish tank with seeded and cured dry rock, Bahamian Aragonite sand and the tank has been under high water flow and 78° F heated saltwater while ghost every day a pinch of Omega One whole seafood protein marine mini pellets made with whole seafood • Meal-free flavored with garlic that are slow sinking while half a cube if mysis shrimp on the weekends and I added api marine quick start on day 18 and it has officially been 49 days since I started my fish tank and I also added Doctor Tims one and only from day one.
My issue is the only change in water parameters I have seen has been from three weeks ago to this week and it was a raise in PH from 8.0 to 8.4. And a slight change in ammonia reading (0.25ppm) which honestly using the API MARINE TEST KIT it could have been zero ppm as well. The rest as far as nitrite and nitrate has remained zero despite all my efforts to raise ammonia to feed the bacteria culture but as far as measuring the water parameters to see that the bacteria are actually living and converting ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate have been less than fruitful as they are both reading zero (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate). Mind you after about two weeks there was bacteria colonizing the tank walls and the cord for my wave maker and now it looks like the film is slowly deteriorating off the walls. I have no animals of any kind in the tank btw.
The only thing I could think of is adding the fresh water directly to the tank when I top it off a lot at a time instead of slowly adding it. Other than that I even turned on my light to see if I could even grow algae and nothing still. Should I take out the charcoal media, or the ceramic rings or sponge filter? Please help idk what to do. I should be seeing something by now like I did when I cured my dry rock.
I have been cycling my 20 gallon AOI JBJ CUBEY saltwater fish tank with seeded and cured dry rock, Bahamian Aragonite sand and the tank has been under high water flow and 78° F heated saltwater while ghost every day a pinch of Omega One whole seafood protein marine mini pellets made with whole seafood • Meal-free flavored with garlic that are slow sinking while half a cube if mysis shrimp on the weekends and I added api marine quick start on day 18 and it has officially been 49 days since I started my fish tank and I also added Doctor Tims one and only from day one.
My issue is the only change in water parameters I have seen has been from three weeks ago to this week and it was a raise in PH from 8.0 to 8.4. And a slight change in ammonia reading (0.25ppm) which honestly using the API MARINE TEST KIT it could have been zero ppm as well. The rest as far as nitrite and nitrate has remained zero despite all my efforts to raise ammonia to feed the bacteria culture but as far as measuring the water parameters to see that the bacteria are actually living and converting ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate have been less than fruitful as they are both reading zero (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate). Mind you after about two weeks there was bacteria colonizing the tank walls and the cord for my wave maker and now it looks like the film is slowly deteriorating off the walls. I have no animals of any kind in the tank btw.
The only thing I could think of is adding the fresh water directly to the tank when I top it off a lot at a time instead of slowly adding it. Other than that I even turned on my light to see if I could even grow algae and nothing still. Should I take out the charcoal media, or the ceramic rings or sponge filter? Please help idk what to do. I should be seeing something by now like I did when I cured my dry rock.
