Airstone - Necessary?

[DanielleB]

I have a Marineland 5 gal Hex. It comes with it's own bio-filter. I will turn the airstone off because today the ammonia jumped to 1.0 the highest it's ever been. Since the only thing different was I used the airstone yesterday. I;; see what happens to the ammonia level tomorrow with the airstone off.

[Hallyx]

I hope you'll eventually want to cycle that tank. Having 0.0ppm ammonia all the time is better than having it drift up to 0.25ppm every other day or so, or even 0.13ppm daily.

Cycling is not for the convenience of the keeper, but for the health and safety of the fish.

[DanielleB]

I did cycle the tank. It was 0. But once i added the Betta at the beginning it did go up a little every day.

[Perseusmom]

Hi there I have the same tank and really love it, the only thing is mine took so dang long to cycle but part of that is because I had and power outage here of 28 hours and lost my BB. How long did yours take to cycle ? I would like to get another Betta maybe next Spring and would love to get the same tank but because of is taking so long to cycle not sure I would get this type again. Does your have the bio-wheel like mine ?

Yeah you really dont need the airstone unless you just like it.

[DanielleB]

It took 26 days. I started out adding too much ammonia. It was reading 5.0 on the API tests. Everyone told me this was too much for a small tank. So after 3 days I did a 75% water change which got the ammonia down to 2.0 which I kept adding a few drops each day to keep it at that level. My nitrites starting showing up after only 5 days. I should also mention I had live plants in the tank. The Nitrites stayed at 5.0 until day 24 when I started to notice it dropping and by the next 2 days it had disappeared. The funny thing is that nitrates were showing up after about 10 days while the nitrites were still present. I did a 90% water change on day 26 and have never seen nitrites or nitrates since then, only the small ammonia every other day.

[Perseusmom]

Wow thanks that is awesome ! I had and do have live plants in mine too. Nitrites at 5 days that is so great you must have been trilled, when mine started showing they were at .25 and never got any higher and now I never see a reading for them and my nitrate stays about 5.0 but somedays its 0. Yeah I get a little ammonia about every other day too. That power outage really is what threw mine off I believe and this is the first tank I have ever cycle so it was stressful and I did a fish in cycle and he did wonderful and enjoyed all the water changes...lol

Well after reading this I might just get the same tank again...lol I really do love the shape of it and there is so much space at the bottom to put things, I have two small caves and a rock decoration with holes he loves to swim though though and loves to explore his caves. I have Anacharis and Hornwort, what plants do you have ?

[DanielleB]

I have some amazon swords, and some wisteria. I might get a larger tank later on, but for now i don't mond at all in doing daily water changes, it only takes 5 minutes, so no big deal.