you don't want to by products to put in your filter that remove ammonia, the ammonia will be eaten by the benificial bacteria that you need to have for the nitrogen cycle. after the benificial bacteria tha eat the amminia gets started you will develop benificial bacteria that eat nitrites, the 2nd part of the nitrogen cycle. the bacteria that eat the nitrites will give you nitrates. You get rid of excess nitrate by doing partial water changes.
So you want the pads, and the bio balls and maybe even the carbon. But don't get things that remove ammonia or nitites because that's what the benificial bacteria use as food to keep your tank healthy.
If you are on a municipal water system you will want something like PRIME that treats ammonia (changes its form so it is not harmful to your fish) and gets rid of chlorine and chloramines. Yoou also need a liquid test kit. The API freshwater master test kit will give you the tests that you need.
your goal is to have 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrites, and 0-40ppm of nitrates. this will signal a "cycled" tank.
So while the benificial bacteria build up you want to do partial water changes with treated water if your readings for ammonia or nitrites is above 0ppm.
I know this all can be confusing you can read about the nitrogen cycle and cycling your tank at the top of the "newbie forum" in the stickies. Keep asking questions, you'll be fine. oh and use tank water that you take out to do the partial water changes to rinse your pads, and filter media with. Only when it's time to do filter maintenace not every time you do water changes.
linda
So you want the pads, and the bio balls and maybe even the carbon. But don't get things that remove ammonia or nitites because that's what the benificial bacteria use as food to keep your tank healthy.
If you are on a municipal water system you will want something like PRIME that treats ammonia (changes its form so it is not harmful to your fish) and gets rid of chlorine and chloramines. Yoou also need a liquid test kit. The API freshwater master test kit will give you the tests that you need.
your goal is to have 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrites, and 0-40ppm of nitrates. this will signal a "cycled" tank.
So while the benificial bacteria build up you want to do partial water changes with treated water if your readings for ammonia or nitrites is above 0ppm.
I know this all can be confusing you can read about the nitrogen cycle and cycling your tank at the top of the "newbie forum" in the stickies. Keep asking questions, you'll be fine. oh and use tank water that you take out to do the partial water changes to rinse your pads, and filter media with. Only when it's time to do filter maintenace not every time you do water changes.
linda
