calila
Community Member
Welcome to the Jungle, I caught your attention right?
Well, I live in Manhattan, so this is my Jungle, and during this time of working from home and boredom, I decided to start my journey.
My little niece got bored with her 5G freshwater tank, and I decided to take it and put some plants and some pretty fishes. A couple of weeks passed, and of course, I wanted more. As you well know, "affordable" apartments in the city are pretty small, so the option of getting a big tank was out of the question. So I settled with a Fluval 13.5 Gallon Evo XII.
I bought some rock online, and I was playing around with the shape I wanted to form; I dream about fishies going under the little tunnel:
Here is everything I bought to start the tank.
By the way, I bought the wrong skimmer, so I had to return it. (Chewy is the best because they refunded but didn't want the product back, so I have an extra mini skimmer)
Yes, as you can notice, I bought some water conditioner and Ammonium to do the trick. After a lot of reading and research, I know it's preferable to use RO/DI water and all that, but it would be too hard to do it because of my circumstances. So I went the "easy" (?) way and bought that. In case anyone is interested in how I am cycling my tank, I will explain later.
I put the rock in to test how it will look, but for some reason, I took it out and put sand first and then the stone. After I did this, I read that some people prefer to put the rock first and then the sand; oh well, too late!
Water in (pretty cloudy)
NEXT DAY (I can see clearly now)
My new stand came and now you can see the set up (loving it)
This is day 8!
What I am doing to cycle my tank:
- Day 1 I used Ammonium to give it a kick to the cycle, the levels have been between 2ppm and 4ppm
- Day 6 I saw some Nitrite poping, 1ppm (baby steps)
- Day 7 Nitrate baby!!
I added a little bit more of Ammonium to keep those babies fed. So of course the levels went up to the roof, so I did a water change.
- Day 8 Ammonium is back to 4ppm, Nitrite at 2ppm, and Nitrate at 80ppm
I am hoping tomorrow the Ammonium and Nitrate will go down as they should. Will keep you posted!
This is my first tank, so all I do is read about it and try to get it right with the tools I have. I am open to ideas, suggestions, and comments that can help me learn the way!
I really appreciate any help you can provide. <--image doesn't want to go away!
Well, I live in Manhattan, so this is my Jungle, and during this time of working from home and boredom, I decided to start my journey.
My little niece got bored with her 5G freshwater tank, and I decided to take it and put some plants and some pretty fishes. A couple of weeks passed, and of course, I wanted more. As you well know, "affordable" apartments in the city are pretty small, so the option of getting a big tank was out of the question. So I settled with a Fluval 13.5 Gallon Evo XII.
I bought some rock online, and I was playing around with the shape I wanted to form; I dream about fishies going under the little tunnel:
Here is everything I bought to start the tank.
By the way, I bought the wrong skimmer, so I had to return it. (Chewy is the best because they refunded but didn't want the product back, so I have an extra mini skimmer)
Yes, as you can notice, I bought some water conditioner and Ammonium to do the trick. After a lot of reading and research, I know it's preferable to use RO/DI water and all that, but it would be too hard to do it because of my circumstances. So I went the "easy" (?) way and bought that. In case anyone is interested in how I am cycling my tank, I will explain later.
I put the rock in to test how it will look, but for some reason, I took it out and put sand first and then the stone. After I did this, I read that some people prefer to put the rock first and then the sand; oh well, too late!
Water in (pretty cloudy)
NEXT DAY (I can see clearly now)
My new stand came and now you can see the set up (loving it)
This is day 8!
What I am doing to cycle my tank:
- Day 1 I used Ammonium to give it a kick to the cycle, the levels have been between 2ppm and 4ppm
- Day 6 I saw some Nitrite poping, 1ppm (baby steps)
- Day 7 Nitrate baby!!
I added a little bit more of Ammonium to keep those babies fed. So of course the levels went up to the roof, so I did a water change.
- Day 8 Ammonium is back to 4ppm, Nitrite at 2ppm, and Nitrate at 80ppm
I am hoping tomorrow the Ammonium and Nitrate will go down as they should. Will keep you posted!
This is my first tank, so all I do is read about it and try to get it right with the tools I have. I am open to ideas, suggestions, and comments that can help me learn the way!
I really appreciate any help you can provide. <--image doesn't want to go away!
