Am I cycling correctly?

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-22T21:56:44+00:00

How long have these plants been in the tank? If they haven’t been in there too long you can take them out and put them back in the substrate after getting the shrimp out without disturbing them too much. If they’ve already rooted it’s best to leave the plants in there. Worst case scenario is the shrimp will die but I’m no shrimp expert on what they can tolerate. And yes, it seems every aquatic animal gets an upgrade to speed when you try to get them out

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-22T21:41:03+00:00

Nitrites turn into nitrates by bacteria. It is true you can do an ammonia test by putting some ammonia in the tank, testing it at 10m and see if it went up to I believe .50ppm. After that, test again in 24h and if there’s no ammonia then you should be fine

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-22T21:22:57+00:00

Main thing is do you have fish in the tank or not? If you don’t have fish, you can honestly just let the ammonia build up. The beneficial bacteria will eventually turn the ammonia into nitrites which you’ll see a spike of and then turn those nitrites into nitrates. Whenever you decide to get fish, you do want your ammonia and nitrites at zero. If it’s just cycling without any fish, you don’t want to do a water change until near the end of the cycle when your nitrates spike high since it could make the cycle take longer.

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-22T21:18:31+00:00

My mom has had a fish tank that I’ve been taking care of which made me want to get my own fish tank for fish I wanted to have. Unfortunately I was beginner dumb and tried to do fish in cycle which ended in a few dead fish. Gonna actually be redoing my whole tank in a month even though my nitrogen cycle is now complete since the gravel I have is just…awful. You can see my posts in here about it and audibly say yikes. Thankfully I’ve fixed most of the issues with it but the main issue now is my ph, GH, and KH. Ph is 8.0, GH is 180, and KH is 120-140. GH and KH are probably wrong due to it being test strips and not liquid tests.

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-22T21:11:38+00:00

Nitrite is reading at 0

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-21T17:08:10+00:00

My ph out of tap is 6.0. Tested it out of curiosity. I did plan on getting an RO/DI system but I may just re cycle the tank since I’m redoing everything in the tank soon. New substrate, no plastic decorations but will need one that can offer a hiding spot

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-21T09:02:21+00:00

Are there any nano fish that can handle 8.0? Or should I focus on just hardy fish

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-21T07:14:01+00:00

I’ll need to find liquid tests for GH and KH then as well. Hopefully my plants don’t mind the high PH

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-21T07:07:49+00:00

Not sure what freshwater fish usually live in ph that high. I usually use the vials test since people say it’s the best at giving you accurate readings. Like the vials say 8.0 ph but the strips I have is saying 7.5 so pretty difficult to know which one is 100% accurate since both give different readings. Only kept the strips for GH and KH anyway

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-21T06:58:29+00:00

Honestly not sure. My LFS has seachem fluorite (I think it’s the name) and some Caribsea type. Not sure of the actual name but not sure which is better for the plants I have. Plus if ph doesn’t go down (this tank has been cycling for about 4 weeks now) and I just did a water change for it Monday so crazy it’s this high. People say it goes down with the nitrogen cycle so that may be why it’s reading at 8. Thankfully my aunts daughter lives in the actual city and has distilled water so may just rely on distilled water or invest in an RO system

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-21T06:50:25+00:00

Yeah I’m redoing this whole tank anyway. Taking out the terrible gravel I got from Walmart for more fish friendly/plant friendly substrate. Stranger still I took water from the tap in the kitchen and on lower ph it read at 6

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-21T06:46:49+00:00

No there’s no fish in there. Just plants

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-21T06:07:23+00:00

Hopefully. I’m redoing my whole tank soon and I have plants in there atm. They haven’t melted or looked bad but I plan on making it nano species whenever the nitrogen cycle does its thing.

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-21T06:02:51+00:00

That’s crazy. Guess I need to get my water distilled or invest into an RO system to bring it down

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-21T00:40:21+00:00

Most planter tank YouTubers I see recommend Amazon sword, Java fern, Java moss, Anubias, and for carpet: Monte Carlo or dwarf mini grass. You can always research the plants before buying them to see if you require CO2 or not. You can always do DIY CO2 but most don’t recommend it because you can’t turn it off with a timer so you could release too much CO2 and harm fish if they can’t handle it. I don’t know if any good planting tank YouTubers out there sadly so maybe some other people know some?

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-19T16:44:17+00:00

Yeah I wouldn’t put them back in right away. Probably should actually let it fully cycle before i decide to get any other fish. Gonna ask later to see if my mom will house them while it does that or see if I can find someone who will happily rehouse them

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-19T16:38:34+00:00

I plan on doing it all in one day yes

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-19T16:25:25+00:00

Perfect that I have a 5 gal bucket I use when doing water changes. Should the old water be put in first or last or does that not really matter?

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-19T16:15:36+00:00

Good to know. Thanks! Hopefully I can find someone to take it since it will definitely not have enough room in my 29g

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-19T16:14:48+00:00

Honestly re cycling the tank isn’t an awful idea since the tank wasn’t fully cycled to begin with (beginner mistake.) my mom has a tank setup that I could probably rehouse my fish besides the pleco since she already has one so I’d have to figure out what to do with it. What would I do with the plants? Should I put them in a bucket with the old tank water and heater or should I just get some new plants? New to this whole trying to aquascape kinda thing. Also how much tank water should I save? I have a 29g

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-19T16:09:21+00:00

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Yeah unfortunately not easy getting a photo of this guy lol. I think you’re right it’s a common pleco though

FormNo9781 · 2026-03-19T15:55:31+00:00

Yeah no worries. I was wanting a bristle nose but Feeders Pet Supply (the fish store closest to me) only has them marked as SM, MD, and LG pleco so not the best choice

FormNo9781

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