Cycling

After 35 days, both ammonia and nitrite hit zero. The cycle is complete—and we’re celebrating with a new lighting schedule.

Nitrite is crashing—in the best possible way. We’re days away from a fully cycled tank.

Every aquarium journey comes with lessons—some from research, some from experience, and some from mistakes we wish we hadn’t made.

After the chaos of the past week—plant losses, hitchhiker discoveries, ammonia spikes—today brings calm. The tank is recovering.

One month since setup. No water test today—just a visual observation day. And what we observed was… unexpected.

Four days after the plant disaster, mixed results. Ammonia spiked from the melting plants, but the nitrite news is encouraging.

Yesterday’s optimism took a hit. Nitrite spiked back to 5.0 ppm, and we made a risky decision to add fertilizer.

After over three weeks of cycling, we hit a major milestone: ammonia reached 0 ppm for the first time!

The plateau continues. Nitrite stubbornly holds at 5.0 ppm. Our snails are stressed again, so we did another water change.

Three days since the water change, and we’re not out of the woods yet. The nitrite plateau continues.