# New planted tank cycling - but I'm a beginner and I'm LOST



## Whatabettit? (Sep 22, 2020)

Hi all,


I've kept several Betta before, but I've never had a planted tank, and it's been a few years since I've had fish at all.

My tank is about a week old and I'm doing a fishless cycle, (which I've never done before either).

My brother has a blackwater tank and a shrimp tank, and he walked me through setting this new one one up (from 2,000 miles away, lol) and here's what I've got now, based on his recommendations and my research:


5.8 gal

About 1.5" of soil in the bottom

~1" rock cap; for reference in the photos, the rocks in the center of the tank are bright white, with natural colored stones on the outside edges

Filtered

heated- temp ~78°

Lights- 3x white Led, on tank hood, left on for almost 12hr a day (is this too much with live plants?)

Three plant types; I have no idea what type but they're pictured in attachments.

No animals yet

Chemicals so far- seachem prime with all new water, seachem stability, 1/2 cap every morning, added 1/4 cap of seachem clarity last night to see if it would help with my water issue

Been doing water changes, 100% for first 4 days and 50% daily from there

Haven't added any ammonia source- (do I need to?)

Levels as of last night:

9/21/20 6 PM

0.5 ppm Ammonia

0.0 ppm Nitrite

0.0 ppm Nitrate

7.6 Ph


The problem I'm running into is a constant, dark brown water. My brother has a blackwater tank, and if his is 'black' water, mine is a wormhole. I intended it to be a blackwater tank, but it seems much darker than others I've seen, and other than doing a 100% water change every couple days I can't even see to the back of the tank for more than 24 hours at a time. I'm worried this is going to interrupt cycling and my concern is that the soil I used is going to make the water muddy forever no matter what I do.

There is also somewhat of a film on the top of the water and it's in one of the pictures.

Any ideas would be great! I'm almost resigned to rinsing the soil away from the gravel and replanting/filling with no soil at all, but I'm not giving up just yet.

UPDATE: 

Well, I did finally decide to rinse the soil out. I don't know exactly what was in there, but it smelled like hot sewage coming out.

The plant roots were decaying in it. Now the film on top of the water is gone too. I might get some almond leaf to add back some tannins for my Betta (and something to hide in), but I think that bag of soil is going to have to be reserved for houseplants, lol. I'm adding a new picture for comparison


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## fatblonde (Apr 20, 2020)

How long have you been cycling it? Am I reading one week correctly?
Can you test the numbers straight from your tap to compare?
What kind of soil did you use exactly?

Since it's only been a week, I would give it another 3 or 4. I did fishless cycles and just set them up and forget about them and tested once a week _but I had no livestock in the tanks_ I a few plants I didn't mind losing. Water changes were small and about every 2-3 days. Kinda like "the watched pot never boils" 

Did you add any bacteria starter to the tank? I'm not too familiar with dirted tanks so I don't want to give bad advice... (even though I manage to regardless😁🤪) I have used Fluval stratum, eco complete, and just plain gravel.


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## fatblonde (Apr 20, 2020)

In your second to the last picture is that new growth on the plant?


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## X skully X (Mar 17, 2020)

Yes where did you get your soil?


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## DaZuk (Aug 20, 2020)

Kinda looks like few things I have seen in the past.

1].. Oily hands, soap residue from washing hands before putting them into your tank(s).
If you planted the tank after it was filled to the level in the provided pics, this could be one reason.

2].. A brand new filter. New filters can have small amounts of grease residue from the factory.
A good point to wash everything before putting into you tanks

3].. Stagnate water, meaning no agitated water. Hard to tell in the provided pics, but I didn't see any air stones and or movement from a filter.
wouldn't hurt to get that water moving around, even a small sponge filter and an air stone with low setting would suffice in a tank that size.

It should be an easy fix by agitating the waters surface with an air stone, or dabbing the surface with a paper towel, blotting at the grease areas, or you could so 50% water changes more often..
Hard to say for the greasy water, since you've been changing the water so much anything could have gotten in there...

As for the ammonia, yea, fishless cycle you need to add some sort of ammonia to your tank in order to get the cycle process going. The readings your getting now are more or less from from the chemicals/tap water being changed out. you could feed the tanks, this will tank looong time, as the food breaks down to create ammonia. Or.. you could just add in the ammonia yerself, which is what I did recently. It's doable, and much faster than feeding an empty tank..
I'm not an expert on the adding ammonia to a new tank to get it to cycle, I just followed a guide I found on a fish website. There are real good article out there, I'd google it.. Just make sure your not cycling the tank with an off name brand ammonia, as they DO have soap in them, and you WILL get grease looking water from the soap in the ammonia.. So be careful..
If you do go the ammonia route, buy it from Ace Hardware, its cheep and it pure ammonia.. Get the Janitorial Strength. You should NOT see any bubbles in the bottle of ammonia when you shake it, if you do it's got some sort of chemicals, which is Bad, Mkay...

Your brown'ish water, or what I might tend to call it, Brackish water is more or less to do with the soil you used, unless you popped in some leafs were not aware of.
Now that I think of it, your greasy water could come from the soil, depending on which type you used, I never did use soil in a tank, but I have read that it takes a day or two to filter the brackish water.
Your plants could have gotten some sort of soap or chemical on them during shipment, the bag they were shipped in etc. Why it's important to quarantine plants, fish any thing going into a tank, new or not. 3-10 day quarantine could save tanks, fish lives, etc..

Lights, from my experience.. 8hrs a day (in a row) your plants will love you. Right now your tank isn't cycled, so you wont have to worry to much about algae. Once you start seeing algae in your new tank, that means your tank has enough Nitrates to support algae and your tank is close to finishing the new tank break in, cycling. If and when yer tank gets an algae bloom, toss a few ramshorn snails in there and w/in a week you'll be clear, that and yer betta(s) will have a nice friend or two or three or 100000000.. lol

I'm by far not a pro or anyone special, I'm just a fish guy that recently gone thru this (minus the soil substrate) and thought another point of view might help.

Sorry for the book, I seriously need to stop drinking Monsters after 3pm..

Link(s)

Ammonia Calculator (New Tanks)
Fishless Cycle (New Tanks)
Fishless Cycle #2 (New Tanks)


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

Welcome to the Forum!

Is the tank water black or cloudy? Looks to me more like new tank syndrome which is harmless and will go away on its own.

Yes, you need an Ammonia source. Here are the Forum's recommended tutorials on fish-in and fishless cycling. FWIW, if done per the tutorial, fish-in cycling is not harmful to fish.








Step-by-Step Nitrogen Cycle Guide and Fishless Cycling


Woo, what a long time in the making. First of all, a huge WOOP to Sakura for.. well everything she does, and for not rushing me on this, because I took my sweet time. I'd also like to thank my dear friend Hallyx, for all his input and cycling knowledge. We'd be no where on BettaFish without...




www.bettafish.com


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## Whatabettit? (Sep 22, 2020)

fatblonde said:


> How long have you been cycling it? Am I reading one week correctly?
> Can you test the numbers straight from your tap to compare?
> What kind of soil did you use exactly?
> 
> ...



Hi, yep it's been one week. I tested tap water pH and it's actually a little higher than the tank pH.

The soil I used is a specialty organic mix from a local place, I can't remember what it was called. It was all natural, though, and I had to pick through quite a few sticks, small rocks, etc.

I'm using Seachem Stability for the bacteria starter. I think I really might just rinse my gravel and restart, lol.

Thank you!


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## Whatabettit? (Sep 22, 2020)

DaZuk said:


> Kinda looks like few things I have seen in the past.
> 
> 1].. Oily hands, soap residue from washing hands before putting them into your tank(s).
> If you planted the tank after it was filled to the level in the provided pics, this could be one reason.
> ...



Hey, thanks for going so in-depth. 

I've actually been super careful about rinsing my hands/arms before touching the water, though, and I planted before adding water to the tank. Must have been on something else. 

I do have a small in-tank waterfall filter in there, I'm thinking it just doesn't agitate enough. I'm on a limited budget, but I have another small tank filter I can try to see if there's a better result. I've had Betta get annoyed/pushed around by the other filter before, which is why I chose the one in the tank right now. 

I wish it was only taking a day or two to clear the brown water. Its been over a week now and every time I clear it up with a water change, it comes right back. I'm really leaning towards rinsing most (if not all) of it out at this point. There's nothing else in there that could be discoloring the water so strongly.

Thanks again!


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## Whatabettit? (Sep 22, 2020)

RussellTheShihTzu said:


> Welcome to the Forum!
> 
> Is the tank water black or cloudy? Looks to me more like new tank syndrome which is harmless and will go away on its own.
> 
> ...


It's dark brown and also milky/white cloudy. I'm assuming the white is just a bacterial bloom and I'm not worried about that, it's the dark brown muddy color. Even if I water change daily, it comes right back. My brother has a dirted tank too, but his looks crystal clear compared to this one. 

I think I'm going to remove all the dirt in there right now, rinse the plants and substrate, and start fresh. I also think I'm going to switch to a fish-in cycle; that's how I've always done it before and I think I bit off more than I could chew with this project. Not that I'm lazy, I'm just a full-time working, full-time college 22 year old with way too much on the plate already (sigh)

Thank you for your help!


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## Whatabettit? (Sep 22, 2020)

fatblonde said:


> In your second to the last picture is that new growth on the plant?


Nope; if anything, the plants have turned a little brown. They weren't in the best shape when I bought them though (thanks, Petco).


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## fatblonde (Apr 20, 2020)

Whatabettit? said:


> Nope; if anything, the plants have turned a little brown. They weren't in the best shape when I bought them though (thanks, Petco).


Dying decaying plant matter is also a source of ammnoia. Several things in an aquarium are a source of ammonia and will eventually break down to be ammnoia. I'm not sure I would "tank it" and start over. That's your call and you do what you think is best!

Either way with all of the additives it takes weeks to cycle. Two sides to doing a Fish In Cycle to be noted: Yes it can be done and I think most have done a fish in cycle (and if they say they haven't they're probably really new or fibbing a bit) in my opinion. A Fish In Cycle is a lot more work *ONLY *because you have a fishy life to keep track of daily (often a few times a day) . When I did a fish in cycle I was changing water every 6 hours on some days up tp 4 times a day. (not sure if that's in the instructions but when my ammonia levels were high I dosed the Seachem Prime and then I also did the water changes till it dropped below .5. (My thought process is it _might_ be more work if you're looking for less, and a bit more expensive in the long run with supplies. I did do a fish in cycle though and I think many around here have and can guide you through it (with various tid bits of helpful advice). I used something called Poly Marine Filter and I still use a little piece of it to this day in nearly all of my tanks. It's kind of pricey at $24 for three 8x 10 inch cut pieces (approximately) I can't remember exactly. It literally helps filter out all of the bad stuff and helps keep all of the good stuff. I'll post a picture in a bit. Unless someone else can that has it already ?? I'm not sure it's listed in the Fish In Cycle Instructions or not. 

On the flip side of doing a fish in cycle is, You don't have to wait!! Who has that kind of patience!? 😆😂

Are you thinking of changing the dirt portion of the tank or keeping everything the same? 

Oh if you have your receipt for Petco they will take them back! I had some that didn't make it and they didn't give me any issue on returning them.

I'll find that link or picture of the Poly Marine Filter. It's a game changer! (well for me it was)


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## X skully X (Mar 17, 2020)

I used organic soil as well, I sifted through it with a screen and over half of the bag was wood mulch. Any pieces of wood still left in the soil will continually leach tannins.


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