1 Month Old Tank

[Miss M]

Another update: Had to change the water 2x yesterday (20 % each time). Once in the a.m. and again at 11:30 last night when my neon tetras were ghostly white. The guppies and a few tetras were flicking against the plants and scratching their bellies on the gravel. They look much better this morning, and ammonia reading was 2.0. I probably should have only changed the water once yesterday, but they looked like they were under some serious stress/pain.
On top of all this, I think one of my neon tetras is pregnant! Her belly is is nicely rounded and she is the only one who is constantly active and her colors are always bright. She's a hungry little one too! She was hiding in a cave yesterday for a little while, and is getting a little nippy with the other neons that come to close to her. We bought a breeder tank just in case. She didn't have the belly when we purchased her (a little over a month ago), but it has been getting bigger, and she looked like she was ready to pop yesterday. Again, she looks the healthiest of all the fish. If she is pregnant, does anyone know approx. how long it takes for her to lay her eggs?

Thanks to all who respond.

Miss M

 

[Christine1014]

not sure about the pregnant tetra; no experience with that. But it does sound as though you're doing everything else right. The two water changes a day probably won't hurt anything. A water change isn't that stressful, assuming your avoiding any excess splashing around and stuff. In fact, when I was cycling (LFS said, "sure, just let the water sit for a day then add fish...." the forum rescued me, too!) I did 40-50% water changes every day, and I only lost one neon. The bottom line is even if a water change does stress you're fish, ammonia's gonna stress them more. Someone also mentioned that ammo-lock will slow down the cycling process. Someone feel free to double-check me, but I'm pretty sure ammo lock just converts ammonia to a less toxic substance that can still be used by the beneficial bacteria the same way it uses ammonia, so it really is a good idea to use it. If you test for ammonia, it will still show up on the tests, just because the testing solutions can't differenciate between ammonia and... whatever it is that it's converted to!! (It's early. I know this, I really do!)

Anyway, good luck & keep up the good work!

 

[dwarfgourami]

A tetra can only lay fertile eggs if she is actually going through the spawning ritual with a male at the time the eggs are laid. So if you put a female egglayer in a breeding trap you are very effectively ensuring that there will be no babies.

I would keep a close eye on this fish as swelling up can also be a sign of dropsy which is a serious sign of illness.

She may simply be eggbound, but for babies to follow, she and a suitable male of the right age would need to be conditioned on the right food, go through the mating ritual, the eggs would need to be removed to a separate breeding tank (or the parents will eat them), the water would need to have the right soft acid makeup for the eggs to hatch and the tank would need to be kept in the dark as the eggs are light-sensitive; then the fry would need to be fed on special baby foods and kept away from any adult fish. Baby neon tetras isn't usually something that just happens in people's community tanks, it's not like guppies.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

not sure about the pregnant tetra; no experience with that. But it does sound as though you're doing everything else right. The two water changes a day probably won't hurt anything. A water change isn't that stressful, assuming your avoiding any excess splashing around and stuff. In fact, when I was cycling (LFS said, "sure, just let the water sit for a day then add fish...." the forum rescued me, too!) I did 40-50% water changes every day, and I only lost one neon. The bottom line is even if a water change does stress you're fish, ammonia's gonna stress them more. Someone also mentioned that ammo-lock will slow down the cycling process. Someone feel free to double-check me, but I'm pretty sure ammo lock just converts ammonia to a less toxic substance that can still be used by the beneficial bacteria the same way it uses ammonia, so it really is a good idea to use it. If you test for ammonia, it will still show up on the tests, just because the testing solutions can't differenciate between ammonia and... whatever it is that it's converted to!! (It's early. I know this, I really do!)

Anyway, good luck & keep up the good work!

yup it's ammonium that ammo-lock and other similar products convert ammonia too. less toxic to fish, still food to your bacteria. however this is not an alternative to regular water changes if you have a cycling tank, should just be an extra supplement.

 

[Miss M]

I'll keep an eye on the tetra. I didn't think it was dropsy or that she may be sick, only because her colors have stayed bright and she's active. She's had no gasping, flicking, her scales look clean, etc... I believe we have 3 males (they're slender and the line on their body runs straight) and the one female (her line is more crooked, and was like that when we purchased her). She looks the same as the day we brought her home, other than her lower belly getting rounder.

I'll let you know if anything changes.

Miss M

 

[vinylman]

I'd stop adding the salt; it really doesn't do anything. It can be helpful occasionally in a hospital tank, but that's about it. Don't put anything in your tankwater that doesn't need to be there. Dechlorinator is all you need.

 

[Miss M]

Just an update:

Ammonia is still high (8.0) and still no nitrite readings. I'm down to 4 neon tetras and 1 guppy. I did a 20% water change yesterday, but hadn't done one before that in a week. It's been approx 5 weeks since we installed the new filter and I thought for sure we would be seeing some nitrite readings by now. I've also been feeding them very little, and fasting them once per week. The last 2 days, they haven't even been going after the food. The neons still have good color and the one guppy left still looks ok. I also added nutrafin topfin bacteria supplement every 7 days per instructions, but I'm not so sure that it's doing anything.

We also got some gravel from one of the pet shop tanks (they would only give us gravel that housed live plants, but told us this would still have bacteria in it. What it definately did have was snails, which I pulled out of the tank as soon as I could).

Should I go back to doing small water changes daily?
Our tank also has a lot of stringy algae on the gravel and decor. Hopefully, that's the least of my worries right now.

Thanks to anyone who resonds.

 

[mark.w.jones]

Sorry its still a bit of a disaster. Your case does for me highlight though that the humble neon is not as sensitive in a new tank as I thought. Guppies are always pretty crappy in poor water conditions but most people would tell you that glowlights are hardier than neons but that doesn't appear to be the case. Maybe you got given some terminator neons!

All the bacterial supplements in the world are really not going to help so I wouldn't bother adding them anymore. If you don't want to lose anymore fish I would advise that you go back to the 20% water changes every other day and consider adding some ammo lock to reduce those extremely harmful ammonia levels you have. Don't give up though. As I mentioned above. The most beneficial thing you could do would be to get hold of some mature sponge / ceramic media as all of your problems would then very quickly turn around. Gravel and water contain very little if any useful bacteria unless the gravel came from a tank with an Under Gravel Filter so that wouldn't have helped much either. Although you will have gained some snails as you mentioned which may well annoy you in the future.

good luck

 

[Ilya]

Also, may I advise not feeding your fish as often. Once every other day to eliminate the ammonia.

 

[Miss M]

New Update and a question:

Ammonia is still high, but we are finally beginning to get nitrite readings (.25). Guppy looks good, neons are starting to lose color, but 3 out of the 4 are still swimming around as usual. One neon is very slow, swimming more head down instead of in a straight line. I'm not sure they're going to get through this stage of cycling. Here's my question: If I should lose these fish during this part of the cycle stage, can the tank finish cycling without any fish in it or do we need to add more fish to the tank? I'm hoping we don't lose them, but I need to know what to do if they don't get through this.

Thanks to all who respond.

Miss M

 

[MHunt]

Ohhhh, not a nice welcome to the fish keeping hobby, but you'll learn loads from it!

Ok, while the filter is cycling it needs a source of ammonia to feed the bacteria that breaks down the ammonia and nitrite. If all the fish do die, then I would start adding pure ammonia to finish off the cycle. It's not good to add more fish to put them through the stress of a cycling tank. Perhaps someone else can suggest where to get pure ammonia from as i haven't had to do a fishless cycle yet. I cycled my first tank with guppies that were pretty hardy, all survived! All my other tanks have been cloned or seeded from my main tank.

If you do want to clone another mature filter, the only really certain way to do it is to use mature filter sponges. Take a sponge from the mature filter, keep it wet until you get it into your filter to preserve the bacteria, they die quicker than quick if they are allowed to dry out, then add that to your filter, an instant cycle.