[Renae393]

Hey all,
I would say I'm quite knowledgeable with fish but this has got me stumped. The betta in my 10 gallon unfortunately passed away so i set up a new planted tank, I used the old sponge filter from the previous tank and used about half of the old gravel after washing in dirty tank water. Its been about two weeks since I set up the tank and about a week since I added the plants. Obviously my tank is cycled because I'm producing a large amount of nitrates but my ammonia is still HIGH, about 2 ppm. I don't have any fish in the tank. Is this just a case of doing a large water change to lower the ammonia concentration? Would I be okay to add a betta after this water change or will the ammonia increase again? Parameters and a picture of the tank is included below.

 

[RussellTheShihTzu]

All three parameters are way too high. I'd do a series of 50% water changes until Ammonia and Nitrites are 0 and Nitrates under 15. Stir the substrate each time.

It could be there's more junk in the tank than you think. From what I've been reading it seems you can have all three if a seeded sponge or other media cannot handle the bioload

 

[Renae393]

Thanks! I figured it was something along those lines, odd that so much gunk lingered after a complete tank cleaning. I'll do the water changes and continue to test parameters.