New Tank

[eklikewhoa]

Tbsp per 5g is what I would do.

[Chris.d514]

Tank levels are .5 ammonia, 2 nitrite, and between 5 and 10 nitrate.

[Chris.d514]

Dwarf gourami, 5-6 ghost shrimp, 4 zebras, and 2 endlers but have another 3 endlers waiting for tank to be ready.

[eklikewhoa]

I always use 1tbsp per 5g. not sure what you are keeping at them moment but that should be good.

[Chris.d514]

How much should be added to help with it?

[eklikewhoa]

This totally slipped my mind till last night but aquarium sale/ natural sea salt WITH NO ANTI-CAKING AGENT will reduce the toxicity of Nitrites.

[mnemenoi]

with cycling tanks the idea is to allow everything to stabalize and basically age a bit. Algae growth and a crystal clarity to the water is also another indicator I watch for, though your parameters will tell you where you are everytime. That said, it can be a cycled with some fish just remember to keep your bioload at a minimal during this time. I imagine 10-15% of what you'd expect to keep in the tank. It allows for a larger volume of water to diffuse a smaller amount of produced wastes and the bacteria to grow and multiply while not flooding them with excessive amounts of waste that they can not handle. I'd just watch it carefully and perform regular water changes every other day or sooner if your test results are outside of the norm or the fish exhibit any signs of distress. Smaller feeding amounts will help also, if they are a bit hungry during this time its not awful and far better then the alternative...

[Chris.d514]

With my water changes I have been adding AmQuel Plus and NovAqua Plus alternating.

[aquabee]

Awesome! FYI you can also dose stability whenever adding new fish to the tank or doing water changes, just as an extra precaution even in established tanks.

[Chris.d514]

Been adding stability everyday on day 5 of 7 so almost done with it.

[aquabee]

If my water test ok today should I be able to move my endlers back to the 10? I ask because I am keeping them in a breed net that my powder blue gourami keeps trying to eat through to get at them.

Yeah, I don't see why not. Just make sure your ammonia and nitrites and nitrates are down, and then there's no reason not to move them over. You can add some Stability to the 10 when you move the fish over too.

[Chris.d514]

If my water test ok today should I be able to move my endlers back to the 10? I ask because I am keeping them in a breed net that my powder blue gourami keeps trying to eat through to get at them.

[aquabee]

+1! It's mostly about having stability and a balance rather than perfect numbers.

[mnemenoi]

After removing fish and doing water changes the only thing I lost last night was a ghost shrimp. So I'm pretty happy with that.

That's expected really, inverts are really sensitive to water parameters. Funny they thrive in a ditch and die in tanks, just goes to show you the wonder of the natural world I suppose.

[Chris.d514]

After removing fish and doing water changes the only thing I lost last night was a ghost shrimp. So I'm pretty happy with that.