Tropical Fish Keeping banner

This makes no sense

1K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  fish_4_all 
#1 ·
Last week my Nitrites were around .5-1.0 no matter what I did so I read around and found out about Java Moss which consumes nitrites so I bought some. Five days after adding the java moss the nitrites went down to 0 and stayed there with 0 ammonia and 5 nitrate. Yesterday I bought 5 glow-light tetras and 3 panda cory and added them to the tank. I checked the my stats about 6 hours later and had 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 0 nitrate. It has now been over 24 hours with the new fish and still have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 5 nitrate.

I had been cycling the tank with my betta alone for around 2.5 weeks before adding the other fish. What I want to know if it is normal for tank that hasn't been cycling for so long to be in such good shape even after adding 8 fish? I don't want a nasty surprise in a week. The tetras look fine, they just hang around the live plants all day and the corys are just scavenging all around the tank and are very funny to look at.

Is there a method to see if the fish are stressed? My betta now hangs out mostly in the top of the tank after adding the other fish.
 
#2 ·
Plnats can make a huge differenc ein cycling but remember, the plants have shortened the cycle by using the nitrogen in ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. If you were to remove the plants you could see a massive spike in all of them. I have done this and I saw ammonia, nitrites and nitrates spike to almost lethal levels in 2 days. I put the plants back in and they went back to 0,0,20 respectively.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top