Hello,
Last Saturday (8 days ago) I did the main and heavy planting of my new 90gal. I tried to follow suggestions of Tom and others, for how to minimize new-tank issues.
I added zeolite to filters, seeded new filters with biomedia and mulm from established filters, and even seeded the new substrate with mulm. I think I recall reading a post by Hoppy who suggested using a turkey baster to squirt mulm into bottom of new substrate! Which I did.
I think I screwed up. Since the initial planting (8 days ago) there have been no inhabitants in the tank. I naively assumed if the plants were being fed, so was the biofilter. But I now realize that the seeded biofilter may be 'dead' because there was no ammonia to feed it.
25 Amano shrimp were added 2 days ago. Today I added one SAE and 5 tetras (Day 9 of tank). Some time next week 4 additional SAEs and 20 more Amano shrimp will be added.
Question:
Is it pretty certain that my efforts to avoid a full "cycle" are toast?
Question:
Should I do the seed again? I can still take filter gunk from established filters and put in new filters (again). My method last time was to clean filter pads from the established filters in a bucket of tank water, then extract the mulm/gunk from the bucket for the new filter.
Thanks,
growitnow
Last Saturday (8 days ago) I did the main and heavy planting of my new 90gal. I tried to follow suggestions of Tom and others, for how to minimize new-tank issues.
I added zeolite to filters, seeded new filters with biomedia and mulm from established filters, and even seeded the new substrate with mulm. I think I recall reading a post by Hoppy who suggested using a turkey baster to squirt mulm into bottom of new substrate! Which I did.
I think I screwed up. Since the initial planting (8 days ago) there have been no inhabitants in the tank. I naively assumed if the plants were being fed, so was the biofilter. But I now realize that the seeded biofilter may be 'dead' because there was no ammonia to feed it.
25 Amano shrimp were added 2 days ago. Today I added one SAE and 5 tetras (Day 9 of tank). Some time next week 4 additional SAEs and 20 more Amano shrimp will be added.
Question:
Is it pretty certain that my efforts to avoid a full "cycle" are toast?
Question:
Should I do the seed again? I can still take filter gunk from established filters and put in new filters (again). My method last time was to clean filter pads from the established filters in a bucket of tank water, then extract the mulm/gunk from the bucket for the new filter.
Thanks,
growitnow
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