1 Month Old Tank

[Miss M]

Good morning. I'm new to this site, and would welcome any input on the problems I'm running into.

Tank info: 10 gallon, tetra cartridge filter (10-30 gallon), 1 air stone (tank has been running for approx. 1 month)
Fish: 4 neon tetras, 3 glow light tetras, 3 fancy guppies, 1 chinese algae eater

ph: 7.0
nitrate: 0
nitrite:0
ammonia: 2.
temp: 80 degrees (usually it is 78 degrees), but it went up when I did a water change

My ammonia level was 8.0 yesterday. I added one dose of ammo lock yesterday, and this morning, my glow light tetras were gasping at the top of the water surface and one of my guppies died. I immediately changed 1/3 of the water (I used spring water), added water conditioner, stress coat, and 1 ammonia clear tablet. Also added 1 1/2 tb of aquarium salt. The current ammonia reading is 2.

We feed our fish flakes 2x a day and give them blood worms/brine shrimp 2-3x a week. The algae eater eats algae discs 2 x a week. I also try to scoop up any leftover flakes/food when the fish are done eating. Since we started using a new filter(the tetra filter mentioned above), the water has been crystal clear, but I'm constantly fighting the ammonia situation. We should have let the tank cycle longer before adding our fish, but we can't change that now. My question is, should we just continue to add the ammonia clear discs until the readings are safe, or should we continue to do frequent water changes? Is there something else we should do intead? None of the fish showed any signs of stress until this morning, and by then, it was too late for the guppy. We also lost an algae eater last week, and all the readings (ph, ammonia etc..) were "normal". We purchased a new fish the next day. We do not plan on adding any more fish to the tank (unless we lose more). Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. We are new at this and want our fish to stay happy and healthy.

Thank you

 

[dthoffsett]

Welcome to the forum.

Did you keep any of the filter media from the old filter and add it to the new filter for a couple of weeks? If not, the new filter doesn't have any bacteria, and your cycling has started over which would account for the ammonia readings, and also they fact you have no nitrite (usually a cycled tank will have present levels of nitrate which are a by product of the bacteria that break down ammonia and nitrite, planted tanks can be zero because the plants use the nitrate).

Your best bet is to continue to do small daily water changes (10 to 15%), and stop using the ammolock and ammonia removing tablets as they will interfere with the cycling. You can also reduce your feedings to one per day to help cut down on the amount of waste the fish are producing.

Good luck, and if you have anymore questions feel free to ask.

 

[smmetz]

Welcome to the forums!


I'm sorry to hear you are having some ammonia problems in your tank. Here is an old post that I think is a great guide to how cycling works, and what to do in your situation. It's a long post, but very much worth the read.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=10099

Also, the chinese algae eater will eventually get too big for your 10 gallon tank. They commonly grow to 8 inches or more, and the "fish only grow to big enough for their tank" myth is just that, a myth.

I would post more details on what to do for the ammonia problem, but it is already so well covered in the post I linked, that I don't have anything to add. I thnk that post would be a great candidate for a sticky.

 

[mark.w.jones]

I agree with everything said above. Don't get too dispondent if any other fish die, everyone makes mistakes early on. My one other worry is your "chinese algae eater." Depending upon exactly what species this is you could be looking at an aggresive 8" fish when fully grown which is totally unsuitable for your tank. Neons tend to be a bit flaky in a new tank as well but you may get lucky depending on the quality of stock you have. The glowlights also really need a bigger group, 5+ to live happily. All the best and

to TFF

 

[Miss M]

Thank you to all who have replied. I did not keep any of the old filter media, therefore, maybe that is what the problem is. One of my other glow light tetras died this afternoon. I will continue to change the water and hopefully, this will correct the problem. I'm not sure what type of algae eater we have (it was only listed as chinese algae eater at the pet shop), but hopefully, he won't get too big.

I appreciate everyone's help and will keep you updated if conditions should get worse.

Thanks again.

 

[mark.w.jones]

Thank you to all who have replied. I did not keep any of the old filter media, therefore, maybe that is what the problem is. One of my other glow light tetras died this afternoon. I will continue to change the water and hopefully, this will correct the problem. I'm not sure what type of algae eater we have (it was only listed as chinese algae eater at the pet shop), but hopefully, he won't get too big.

I appreciate everyone's help and will keep you updated if conditions should get worse.

Thanks again.

You do really need to find out what species it is as it will ruin your tank and nothing will ever stabilise if it's gonna get too large

 

[Chrispixx]

(Miss M @ May 1 2007, 09:16 PM)
Thank you to all who have replied. I did not keep any of the old filter media, therefore, "maybe" that is what the problem is

Not maybe.... definitely.



If you installed a new filter, and didnt put the filter material from the old filter into the new filter this is why you are having ammonia problems. You have sent your tank back into a cycle. there's two ways around this, keep doing daily water changes and wait it out. Or you can "rapid cycle" the tank.

If you want to rapid cycle the tank this must be done from another healthy tank maybe a friends tank or from your LFS but it must be disease free.

What you do is take a plastic fish bag fill it halfway with water from their tank then have them squeeze their filter media into the bagged water then you get this to your tank as quick as possible.

Then pour the bag contents directly into your filter behind the filter material so it will catch any debri. This will cloud your tank but will settle eventually and your tank should cycle in less than a week.

Also crank up the heater as much as the fish can tolerate this will help greatly."

 

[PufferFishRule]

he could add some substrate from another clean tank...or about 2 or 3 gals of cycled water

 

[Danno]

Cycled water wouldn't do anything. You cycle your filter, not your water.

 

[Miss M]

I've started doing 20% water changes daily, ammonia is reading between 2. and 4. Can anyone tell me if I need to add aquarium salt with every daily water change, or is that necessary only for larger water changes?

I will double check on the algae eater species the next time I go to the pet store.

Thanks again everyone.

Miss M.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I've started doing 20% water changes daily, ammonia is reading between 2. and 4. Can anyone tell me if I need to add aquarium salt with every daily water change, or is that necessary only for larger water changes?

I will double check on the algae eater species the next time I go to the pet store.

Thanks again everyone.

Miss M.

20% daily changes is perfect for a cycling tank so keep that up and things will settle down soon.

aquarium salt is not nescessary at all. aquarium salt is just the same as you can get from your supermarket but packaged up so it costs you more, if you do decide you need salt then just check the label on your table salt and make sure it is plain sodium chloride without any caking agents and that's fine.

adding aquarium salt is an old practice from fishkeeping maybe 20 years ago, it does have some good effects, it can apparently reduce the damage cause by nitrite/nitrate poisoning. however it's not something that everyone does now and by no means essntial. It used to be used as a general cure all but now more sophisticated medications have developed along with a better understanding of how to keep a healthy aquarium it's not really used that widely nowadays.

personally i would not bother with it, just a waste of time and money IMO. daily water changes are all you need to do to keep your tank ticking over now, then good maintenance and sensible stocking will keep it healthy.

however if you do decide to use it then it should be used with every water change. Water evaporates but the salt doesn't so as the water evaporates from the tank over the course of the week the salinity of the water will increase. So if you just add water to your tank but take none out then don't add salt. But if you remove water you are removing some of the salt with it so need to add salt back to get it to the right concentration.

 

[Rillan]

The chinese algae eater will most likly get aggressive. one guy on here was once conserned because is chinese algae eater was attacking his guppy when it was feeding time so just be careful. the 20% water change is a good idea but dont get to much into the habbit of it. the water change causes stress and will lower the defences towards viruses. do you know anyone else you could get part of a filter from to add to yours?

good luck

and welcome to tff

 

[Miss M]

Good morning everyone. I wanted to update you on what's been going on since my last post. We've lost 2 more guppies and 1 glowlight tetra. Ammonia readings are still 4.0, but I've been changing 20% of the water daily. No nitrite readings as of yet. We've also cut down the feedings to once a day. The neon tetras starting losing their color the other day, but they look much better this morning.

I've continued to add a little aquarium salt with each water change (about 1/4 tsp), and added a dose of stress-zyme Saturday.

Hopefully, the rest of our fish will be ok.

Thank you to all who have offered help/suggestions.

Miss M

 

[piratedninja]

move your fish out to a small plastic CLEAN and never used container with clean conditioned water
this way you wont lose as many fish while your tank cycles again

i had the same problem before and moving the fish out really helped both the fish and cycling
also put an airstone in the container so the water has oxygen in it and the fish dont have to come up for air

 

[dthoffsett]

move your fish out to a small plastic CLEAN and never used container with clean conditioned water
this way you wont lose as many fish while your tank cycles again

i had the same problem before and moving the fish out really helped both the fish and cycling
also put an airstone in the container so the water has oxygen in it and the fish dont have to come up for air

Actually that wouldn't work at all unless you decided to fishless cycle the tank. By removing the fish, you remove the ammonia source, and your good bacteria would start dying off. Not only that, but in an uncycled plastic container you would still have to do daily water changes since there would be no bacteria to break down the waste the fish are producing.


Miss M sounds like you are doing everything you need to, good luck, and hopefully you won't lose anymore fish.