I have recently started a new 100L aquarium and have been cycling it for just over 3 weeks, i used bacterial cultures froma bottle and heated it to improve bacterial growht, using a fishless cycle and using flakes as my ammonia source after just 10 days i had had my ammonia spike and it settled at 0ppm still 2 weeks later and with a few new additions in the form of live plants the nirtirte level is still 5.0ppm+ using the API master test kit.
i took some advice from a neighbour who breeds and keeps betta's for shows ( didn;t know people actually had fish shows but there you go) and he said that in his experience aquariums rarely sort themselves out fully untill fish are added anyways, i know this is more than a little incorrect but at 3 and after 2 weeks of my ammonia settling down and my nitrites still really high i decided to do a few pwc's 20L each and do 3 in spaces as to not change parameters too quickly and shock fish that i planned on adding.
I was pretty set on keeping live bearers and i know guppies are no longer hardy due to being intensively bread for their colours and so settled for mollies for now. i have 4 of these (2 black, 2 white)
also i have read that danios are very hardy and do well in hard water so i have 10 of these a mixture of leopard and zebra's
Also i loved how the Rainbow sharks in the LFS looked so i couldn;t resist getting one.
the fish seem to be working well together and all but the mollies are not showing any signs of nitrite poisoning and even then mollies are only a tad lathargic in my opinion, is this normal for mollies to be quite still and calm compared to danios.
i was concerned the shark would be too aggressive after i had put him in the tank but i have supplied some Pvc pipes covered in gravel to form caves and i have some bogwood already in which he likes to hide in to. although he seems to love hiding behind my heater?
okay now for my questions, when my tank finally stabalises and not untill will guppies be able to be kept with the fish i currently have in it?
and is there anything i could be doing different or on top of what i'm doing to help lower the nitrite levels?
Thanks for any help in advanced guys
i took some advice from a neighbour who breeds and keeps betta's for shows ( didn;t know people actually had fish shows but there you go) and he said that in his experience aquariums rarely sort themselves out fully untill fish are added anyways, i know this is more than a little incorrect but at 3 and after 2 weeks of my ammonia settling down and my nitrites still really high i decided to do a few pwc's 20L each and do 3 in spaces as to not change parameters too quickly and shock fish that i planned on adding.
I was pretty set on keeping live bearers and i know guppies are no longer hardy due to being intensively bread for their colours and so settled for mollies for now. i have 4 of these (2 black, 2 white)
also i have read that danios are very hardy and do well in hard water so i have 10 of these a mixture of leopard and zebra's
Also i loved how the Rainbow sharks in the LFS looked so i couldn;t resist getting one.
the fish seem to be working well together and all but the mollies are not showing any signs of nitrite poisoning and even then mollies are only a tad lathargic in my opinion, is this normal for mollies to be quite still and calm compared to danios.
i was concerned the shark would be too aggressive after i had put him in the tank but i have supplied some Pvc pipes covered in gravel to form caves and i have some bogwood already in which he likes to hide in to. although he seems to love hiding behind my heater?
okay now for my questions, when my tank finally stabalises and not untill will guppies be able to be kept with the fish i currently have in it?
and is there anything i could be doing different or on top of what i'm doing to help lower the nitrite levels?
Thanks for any help in advanced guys