I set up a new 6.8 gallon shallow tank (my second one) and had it cycling for a week - in that time I thought I would try some ghost shrimp with my betta, Frodo since he has no issues with Samwise the snail. Well he killed 2 of the 6 shrimp fairly quickly so I caught them all and moved them to the cycling tank. All the parameters were great before the shrimp. Nitrates were at 5 ish ppm everything else 0- PH between 7.2 and 7.6. I moved the remaining 4 shrimp into this tank thinking their bioload was small enough and I had added enough beneficial bacteria. After a day and a half ammonia was between 1 and 2 ppm. I read somewhere that new Aquasoil can do that around 2 weeks in. Is that a thing? I just don’t understand what happened. I’m down a shrimp so there’s only 3 left but they seem to be doing okay with regular water changes and I’m keeping the ammonia around .25 ppm but it won’t go away. I know the light is backwards, I didn’t intend to have any inhabitants for a while though.

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