20 Gallon Long - Rescue Mission

[Sandz]

try some pillow stuffing in the filter for a day or so. It should get that fine stuff out.

[ddavis1979]

Home depot had nice looking pool filter sand for $6.30. I have already rinsed it and it looks very clean. Now for the hard part of removing all the other sand in the tank. or close to it.

[ddavis1979]

Still have a little smokeyness to the water, but much improved!

[CrazedMichael]

Looks really good!

One thing - Personally i wouldnt have put that filter into the 55g, even with good intentions. You might contaminate the 55g in a heartbeat!

Looking forward to seeing it stocked

[ddavis1979]

While I was trying to keep BB alive in these filters, I feel I may have failed. I even tried transferring some used bio ball media from the cycled 55 gallon but I dont think there was enough ammonia to keep it going.

When I first set up the tank I added two cory cats in hopes to provide some fish waste and ammonia to get the cycle started. Since then I have added 5 Pristella Tetra and a Betta to slowly increase the bio load. But after 10 days, ammonia is less than .25ppm and nitrites/trates are both at zero.

I added some leftover StartSmart BB booster when I first got the tank setup, but the all purpose sand had to be removed and it turned the filters into a mess so I had to clean those and replace the floss in one already. I have since then added some new "Stability" into the tank today.

Also, the water in my tank smells bad, smells fishy. I did an inventory and all fish are acounted for, no floaters. I suspect it may be the drift wood. It has started to grow some fungus on it and I took it out yesterday and scoured with with a wire brush under stemaing hot water and put it back in and did a 50% water change, but still smells funky this morning. Any ideas?

[Hardy85]

I had the exact same problem, water a bit cloudy, same water conditions, what I ended up doing was buying a fluval carbon pack, taking the driftwood out, soaked in hottest water I could for a week (refill twice a day)

That was a few weeks ago, just took the carbon pack out and doesn't seem nearly as bad as it was

[ddavis1979]

thanks for the tip!

[ddavis1979]

I am concerned that I am at week 3 and I still show no signs of cycling....I also cant get any reading on ammonia either. I plan to use my friends ammonia test and maybe that will help get an accurate reading. Also, my driftwood continues to darken and give a funky smell in the tank. I took out today and soaked it in very hot water for 10 min and scrubbed it down real good. After the weekly 50% water change, the clarity is starting to look much better!

[Hardy85]

Is the driftwood hardwood? If not it won't work, it would be rotting thus the smell and darkening.

[ddavis1979]

It is beech, I am pretty sure that is a good hardwood to use. Have you heard otherwise?