My 50 Gallon South of the Border Community

[bignellm]

Well, as everyone who's read my 50 Gallon Acrylic Tank Project knows, I've recently set up the huge tank upgrade.

Tanks seeded with 4 week old Fluval Ceramic Rings, filled, and being treated with Stability to top it all off. Recently populated the tank with Flora and Fauna.

Front:
Thread on driftwood is where I am trying to propagate Flame Moss to.


Left:


Right:
Note my Molly's little gravel mess. Hehe, gotta sweep the small granules off the rock frequently after they eat.

If anyone noted the bubble wall, it's an LED wall, that heralds in Carnival each morning and night set by a timer.

[bignellm]

CARNIVAL!!!

Just missing the music, lol.

Ok, ok; on to more serious matters. Bottom line, get the remaining stock into the tank. Before I can, two things have to happen.
1: Algae starts forming (food for desirable snails and Oto Cats)
2: Tank must fully age and stabilize (so Rams can move in)

After that, will be editing the livestock currently in the tank, to better form schools and to limit my exposure to Live Bearer overload. Most likely will only keep the wild looking forms of the Swords and Platy. Which are not that many.

[bignellm]

Last night, found I might of starved off a little of my bio-filter in the initial setup. Should of used more used tank water I suppose.

Last night had a 0.5 Ammonia spike. Could of happened b/c of starve off of bb or maybe I added more fish than it was ready for.

Hit it with more Stability and an Ammonia Detoxifier.
Tonight, the Reading is 0.25. So, in very least is on it's way in the right direction.

*crossing fingers* that I can add the Rams in a week or two.

Then I'll work on changing populations of the Diamond Tetra, Platy, Molly, Swords, and Corys. (+/-) some here and there.

[Old Marine]

Tank Is really looking Good

[bignellm]

Not what I was hoping to deal with, but spike got a bit higher than 0.25 today, so did a 45% change. Will test again tonight and see all parameters and plan on dosing even more stability for the upcoming week.

Maybe I got a dead bottle? Oh well, least all the sensitive stock is safe in the holding pens.

Hopefully the tank chemistry falls into line soon.

[matsungit]

Your tank is cycling normally. The 45% water change will probably just prolong cycling. What kind of detoxifier do you have? See if you can bump up the dosage safely. Seachem Prime can be used up to 5x normal dosage. Stability is actually a good product. It has bacteria that reduces nitrates especially if you have media that host them, i.e. Denitrate or Matrix. The reason ammonia or nitrite is high in your system is that the bacteria strains that consume them have not fully settled in your tank. Large water changes too soon will just start them over again.