1St Water Change - Advice Please

[westy3131]

Hi All,

I have had fish in my new aquarium now for 8 days and all is going well (3 male guppies and 3 female platies). I only cycled for 2 weeks and as all my stats were consistantly good i decided to start. SO far so good. They seem happy, lively and one of the platies was pregnant when i bought her and have 2/3 fry still living in the tank and have been for 4 days or so. A good sign if they are still surviving?

My questions are this:

1. I was going to add 2 to 4 more fish today and wanted to know how i should go about doing a water change beforehand (i heard this is the thing to do?). should i buy some water from the local fish store? can i add normal tap water even though it will be alot cooler?.

2. What stock would you add next in a 90 litre young tank? (community style)

Thanks
Phill

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Phill and Welcome to TFF!

With a fish introduction into a tank only two weeks old it would probably be better to take some time and let the members chat with you and ask you some questions rather than going shopping for fish. Its probably more likely that the thing we call a "cycle" hasn't had a chance to get started at all yet and you've just not had access to the right information (hope I'm wrong!) But better safe than sorry!

Let us know your test kit type and where you were able to find your pure household ammonia product (the members are always interested in where someone finds that as it can be tricky to find!) And how long it took you before an ammonia dosing of 5ppm was dropping to zero ppm at 12 hours...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[aly_starh]

Agree with waterdrop, i dont think your tank ever started cycling, was there any ammonia source that you added to that tank before adding the fish?

 

[Harlequins]

I agree with above also

Have a read up on fish in cycle in the beginners section

It is not wise to add more fish just yet,due to having a new tank set up,

Using water from the tap is fine in most cases,use a bucket solely for the fish tank that hasn't had any soap/cleaning agents in.
Add dechlorinator to the fresh water,and match the temperature,some boil water in the kettle and add this to the cold to warm it up,unless you've got instant hot water that doesn't come from a copper cylinder.

Just a daft thought- do you have a heater and filter?

 

[westy3131]

Hi,
Thanks for the response.

I started with the Nutrafin cycle as i was informed this was all i needed to start the cycle and produce beneficial bacteria?.

My ammo is 0.1 but i notice my Nitrite has risen to 0.25.

Whats my best course of action? Should i buy soem already treated water from the fish store, will that help?

Thanks

I agree with above also

Have a read up on fish in cycle in the beginners section

It is not wise to add more fish just yet,due to having a new tank set up,

Using water from the tap is fine in most cases,use a bucket solely for the fish tank that hasn't had any soap/cleaning agents in.
Add dechlorinator to the fresh water,and match the temperature,some boil water in the kettle and add this to the cold to warm it up,unless you've got instant hot water that doesn't come from a copper cylinder.

Just a daft thought- do you have a heater and filter?

Hi,

Yes, current temp is 26/27 c and filter breaking the surface water nicely to get plent of oxygen. So i should just sit tight for a while an monitor closely?

Thanks
Phill

 

[aly_starh]

Thats "bacteria in a Bottle"
a money making scheme imho, quit using that ans cycle you tank again, Fish-in or Fish-Less, there are various stickys on this forum regarding that.

 

[westy3131]

Thanks, Should I add Ammonia then?
So hard to go to a store etc and get goos advice! soo inconsistant
ps IMHO???

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Westy.
Your best course of action at this point is to make sure you have everything you will need to be able to perform daily water changes as easily as possible. You could use a 50% water change today, based on the nitrite reading. Please read up on the fish-in cycle technique. There is a link to it in my signature area, along with a link to the beginners resource center where you may find other interesting reading.

 

[Harlequins]

Hi,
Thanks for the response.

I started with the Nutrafin cycle as i was informed this was all i needed to start the cycle and produce beneficial bacteria?.

My ammo is 0.1 but i notice my Nitrite has risen to 0.25.

Whats my best course of action? Should i buy soem already treated water from the fish store, will that help?

Thanks

Has Oldman says do a waterchange,there is no such thing has treated cycled water from the fish store,the water doesn't play a part in the cycling process,its your filter that gets cycled.
Good luck,let us know how it goes

 

[craig855s]

dont use nutrafin cycle again,its pointless,literally, do a 40-50% waterchange daily using tap water conditioner like aqua+ or any other dechlorinator and then add the water to the tank,the temp wont drop too far and the heater will get it back to 26-27 in a short time so the fish wont mind at all.

You are into a fish in cycle now so DO NOT add any other fish until its over with (at least another 3-5 weeks yet) and keep these water changes up,remembering to never let untreated tap water touch your filter media

 

[waterdrop]

In a Fish-In cycle you can use your liquid-reagent based test kit (for example, the API Freshwater Master Test Kit, or any of a number of others as long as they are based on bottles and test-tubes) to do a bit of detective work that will help you fine-tune your water changing effort. The goal is to figure out the percentage and frequency of water changes that will keep your ammonia and nitrite(NO2) levels below 0.25ppm until you can be home again to change water. Use good technique for the water changes, dosing with conditioner to remove chlorine/chloramine and rough temperature matching using your hand. If your test kit hasn't arrived yet, then large daily water changes would be in order to ensure the level of toxins is low enough for the fish.

~~waterdrop~~