new planted tank - advise needed

[Chongs]

Hi,

Set up a 60 x 30 low tech planted tank last friday, daily dose of brightwell microbacter7 for a week and tested water- ammonia 4ppm and nitrite 0.25ppm. very worried of the high ammonia level. there's white stuff growing on the wood since day 2.

Any advise pls... thanks!!

[Dazdaniel]

White stuff on wood is fine. Normal for ammonia to be on high side for a week .

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[Chongs]

ok, will the white stuff eventually goes away? do i need to do water change for a few days?

[Dazdaniel]

Waterchange yes white stuff your shrimpand oto will take care of it

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[Chongs]

now this tank got no fish or shrimp as i intend to fill up with tiger barbs once the water parameter is good.

[Dazdaniel]

It fine the white stuff will be gone soon after u ads in the fishes

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[Hannes]

Welcome @chongs tank looking good... Being the Tiger Barb King with my previous tank The Puntius Effect that tank would be fine with no more then maybe 8-10 tiger barbs. If you want to experience a 575 liter tank go check out my previous tank on the members systems page. Most viewed thread of all time with over 87000 viewsyou could also threw in like a tiny piece of flake every day to supply the bacteria with a food source. Keep up with daily 10 liter water changes until you reach 0 ppm. Ammonia Goodluck and you are welcome to pm me if you need any info on those wonderful tiger barbs. Currently got 11 rosy barbs in my current tank The Tranquility Effect.. With all sorts of of other fish. Like dwarf neon rainbows, angels, various types of tetras.. Enjoy

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Chongs]

so for the tank of this size i can only throw in 8-10 barbs? thats not really my ideal number of barbs..

[Hannes]

so for the tank of this size i can only throw in 8-10 barbs? thats not really my ideal number of barbs..

Sorry then bud, you can only add a certain amount of fish per tank size. 2 foots are very limited with too many fish. How many did you think you could put in a 2 foot.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Chongs]

i planned to put like 12 barbs, few cory and otto as cleanup crew

[Hannes]

What Filtration are you running on it. Excellent Filtration normally gives you that extra quality of water.. That should be fine bud

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Chongs]

Im using eheim 2211 filter

[Hannes]

Your tank size water volume is around 50-60 liters so your filter doing 150lph that's like 3 times turnover per hour.. Should be fine. If you can maybe add a small internal filter that can push your turnover to around 5 times per hour all will be good. Just my 2 cents

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Chongs]

Thanks for sharing man! We add in batches and closely monitor the water parameters making sure ammonia and nitrite dont hit sky hit. Will do a water change today for a few days n test for ammonia agin!

[Hannes]

Cool bud. Good luck I had around 85 variant tiger barns species in my previous tank...

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[fireblade]

I think your filter is under power...
for a 2 feet tank, I'll recommend a 2213

[Chongs]

I think is more than enough? 2211 is 300l/hr so is like 5 time.. Maybe im wrong too? Day 2 of water change and ammonia drop alittle and nitrite increase! Is it normal?

[TTerry]

I thought high ammonia is good for BB, hence no need to do water change during tank cycling. I'm in the mid of setting up a 120L tank, bought a unit of Ecco pro 300 which run 750L/hr and I'm thinking whether to add another HOF increase my flow to 10x

[shoelevy]

the ammonia spike is normal of new tank cycling, and i think flow rate of 3-6x of tank vol is not ideal, but not terrible. i would recommend leaving the tank alone to cycle until ammonia & nitrite (NO2) reaches 0, and it will, before doing 50% water change. This is just the natural cycle of good bacteria establishing in your tank so let it run its course. also the white stuff on the driftwood is pretty normal, i once read it is bacterium feeding off sugars in the wood, they'll die off eventually when the sugars run out. You can siphon them off just because they're so unsightly when they grow too big

[bryan]

Tiger barbs are rather aggressive so choose tank mates carefully.

You could also scale down your barbs. 5-banded barbs (Puntius pentazona) are similar in appearance but smaller in size and have much nicer personalities. I've had them with nano fish and timid ones like kuhli loach without any problem.