[Joshua Morgan]

Feel like pulling my hair out with this project…I had set up a future, 20l spawning tank with rain water and 2 ml distilled white vinegar per gallon to hold the PH down until I get alder cones (no fish in this tank currently, fortunately). Like the main tank, the ammonia in this tank was too high, so after doing a water change I decided to encourage a cycle (or at least the proliferation of the duckweed I added to help keep the nitrogen down) by adding a tiny pinch of flakes instead of a couple ml of very microworm rich water…failing to notice the calcium carbonate on the flake’s ingredient label 🙁 Today I found the tank has jumped to a PH of 6.5, prompting me to restart it. The main tank’s PH was at 6.7 this morning…various reasons for that. I think I will also be restarting that tank as soon as I can move the paros to the 5 gallon…for a person that has been seriously considering paros on and off for almost 3 years, this is being a very bumpy start…